The Guernsey Financial Services Commission is thinking of revising the Non-Regulated Financial Services Business or NRFSB rules and also of introducing consumer credit regulation.

No comment from the regulator is forthcoming so far. Guernsey Finance made the announcement in its latest paper on financial technology.

A law of 2008 created a public list of NRFSBs consisting of firms that perform the following activities.

• Lending.
• Financial leasing.
• Operating a money service business (originally an American term which the UK started using in 2002 for money-transmitters, cheque cashers and/or bureaux de change).
• Informal value transfer systems such as Hawala.
• The issue, redemption or management of means of payment such as credit and debit cards, cheques, travellers' cheques, money orders, bankers' drafts and e-money.
• The provision of financial guarantees or commitments.
• Trading (by way of spot, forward, swaps, futures, options, etc.) in money-market instruments (cheques, bills etc.), forex/index instruments, and commodity futures and transferable securities.
• Participation in the issue of securities.           
• The provision of settlement or clearing services for securities, derivatives etc.
• Advice about capital structure, industrial strategy, mergers and takeovers etc.
• Money-broking.
• Money-changing.
• The provision of portfolio management services or advice.
• Safe custody services.
• Investing, administering or managing funds or money on behalf of other persons.
• Dealing in bullion.

According to the law, a financial service business is also not required to be registered by the commission as long as:

• the total turnover of the person carrying it out in respect of financial services business does not exceed £50,000 per annum,
• the financial service business does not carry out occasional transactions,
• it does not exceed 5% of the total turnover of the person carrying on the business,
• it is ancillary, and directly related, to the main activity of the person carrying on the business,
• it does not facilitate or transmit money or value by any means,
• the main activity of the person carrying on the financial services business is not that of a financial services business, and
• the financial services business is performed only for customers of the main activity of the person carrying on the business and is not offered to the public.

Another category of business, not affected here, is 'prescribed business,' which on Guernsey consists of law firms, accountancy firms and estate agents only. To a limited extent, and for the purposes of shorthand only, NRFSBs might be thought of as DNFBPs (Designated Non-Financial Businesses or Professions, a Financial Action Task Force term for 'gatekeepers' who can give dodgy investors access to the financial system) minus those 'prescribed' firms.

Consumer credit regulation has been going on in the United Kingdom for some years already, but is new to Guernsey. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) took responsibility for it over from the Office of Fair Trading on 1 April 2014. When it did so, it tripled the number of firms it regulated. FCA regulation now applies to anyone who offers credit cards and personal loans, sells goods or services on credit, offers goods (including cars, garden tools, films and projectors, scuba diving kit and catering equipment) for hire, or provides debt counselling or debt adjusting services to consumers.