Editorial · SKY7 Insights
Licensing guides, regulatory updates and field notes from the seniors who file. Written for founders deciding which licence, which jurisdiction, and what to expect before a regulator opens the file.
Archive
99 entries
For-sale listings promise a turnkey DFSA-licensed broker in weeks. The DFSA Rulebook says otherwise: a licence never transfers, and anyone crossing 10% of a DIFC firm needs the regulator's prior written approval, with up to 90 days for the decision. Here is how change of control in the DIFC actually works - and how buyers who close deals sequence it.
Brokers sell a Swiss crypto licence that does not exist: the real instrument for exchange, brokerage and custodial-wallet models is SRO membership under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, with a genuine FINMA licence only where the model triggers one. Here is the actual supervision map - and what the planned crypto-institution licence changes.
Article 6 of the Swiss Banking Ordinance lets a business hold up to CHF 1 million in public deposits without a banking licence. Not a licence, not FINMA supervision, not an AML exemption - here is what the sandbox actually grants, and where the ladder goes next.
Buyers arrive from an EU mental model asking for a Swiss EMI or SEMI licence - categories that do not exist in Swiss law. Here is the honest mapping to the instruments that do: fintech licence, sandbox or SRO affiliation today, and payment instrument institutions if the pending FinIA revision passes.
Switzerland has 11 recognised SROs supervising AMLA-only intermediaries for money-laundering compliance, and 4 authorised SOs supervising FINMA-licensed portfolio managers and trustees. One letter of difference, two different legal worlds - here is the decision tree, and what each tier costs.
SRO affiliation is not a FINMA licence, so a share sale needs no FINMA approval. Membership sits at entity level, but continuity remains conditional: the SRO must be notified and re-tests the new owners.
A Swiss portfolio manager licence stays with the company when its shares change hands - but new owners of a qualified participation need prior FINMA approval, filed through the firm's supervisory organisation. The change-of-control playbook, with the official fees and the calendar traps.
Both centres call their brokerage permission Category 3A, but the categories are not twins: base capital is USD 500,000 in ADGM against USD 200,000 in the DIFC, the activity triggers differ, and the annual fee mechanics diverge after an identical USD 25,000 application fee. A rulebook-sourced comparison of capital, fees, people, stage gates and client fit - and the two ways SKY7 can get you there.
Offers of an ADGM "licence transfer" describe a mechanism that does not exist. The Financial Services Permission stays with the entity; what the FSRA approves is the buyer. Here is how change in control runs under GEN 8.8 and FSMR s.105 - the thresholds, the CIC disclosure list, officer replacement, and what is not published at all.
Pages offering a VARA licence transfer are selling a mechanism that does not exist: the licence attaches to the approved entity, its Responsible Individuals and its conditions, and any change of ownership is a matter for VARA itself. Here is what a buyer actually diligences in this perimeter - and the honest alternative when the calendar will not absorb a fresh authorisation.
Consultancy cost pages for a Dubai VARA licence contradict each other - and the official schedule. The real numbers sit in two published documents: Schedule 2 of the Virtual Assets and Related Activities Regulations 2023 for fees, and the Company Rulebook for paid-up capital. Here are both tables in full, plus the costs VARA does not publish.
The UK runs two EMI tiers under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011: a small EMI registration capped at EUR 5,000,000 of outstanding e-money, and full authorisation with no volume limits. The differences that matter sit in regulation 13, Schedule 2 and the fee schedule - and in regulation 16, which gives an outgrowing small EMI 30 days to file for authorisation. Here are the real numbers, as of July 2026.
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