A hands-on regulatory team that takes you from business model to authorisation — doing the work alongside you, not just advising from the sidelines.
Obtaining a financial-institution licence is not a document exercise. It is a structured programme that touches your business model, your capital, your governance, your people and your technology — and it is judged by a regulator that expects every part to hold together. SKY7 runs that programme with you, end to end. We are a working regulatory team, not a panel of advisers who hand you a checklist and step back. Across 46 jurisdictions in the EU and EEA, the UK, Switzerland, the UAE and selected offshore centres, we have prepared and submitted applications for payment institutions, e-money issuers, investment firms, crypto and VASP ventures, and we carry the load through each stage: discovery, jurisdiction selection, the regulator-grade business plan and financial model, the full policy suite, workshops with your team, recruitment of qualified key function holders, and engagement with the regulator through to authorisation. The sections below set out the programme as seven distinct stages. Each is real work, and on each we sit on your side of the table.
We collect ownership, governance, capital, business-model, product-flow, provider and market-entry information before any licence route is presented.
The output is a verified fact base that separates regulatory requirements from commercial preferences and identifies missing inputs early.
We compare realistic authorisation routes against target markets, regulated activities, capital expectations, substance requirements and expected regulator queues.
The client receives a shortlist of viable jurisdictions and licence types, with the reasons to choose or reject each path.
We structure the regulatory business plan, revenue model, safeguarding or client-asset logic, outsourcing map and operating assumptions in the format expected by the chosen regulator.
This stage turns the commercial model into an application narrative that can be defended during regulator questions.
We prepare the policy framework required for the licence type, including governance, compliance, AML/CTF, risk, complaints, outsourcing and continuity materials where applicable.
Each document is aligned with the selected jurisdiction instead of reused as a generic template pack.
We run working sessions with founders, directors and operational leads so the application reflects how the business will actually operate.
The workshops also prepare the team for regulator interviews, fit-and-proper checks and evidence requests.
Where the route requires local or specialist roles, we help define profiles, short-list candidates and align responsibilities with the governance model.
The aim is to make the management and control structure credible before submission rather than patched after regulator feedback.
We coordinate submission logistics, manage follow-up questions, maintain the evidence tracker and keep the application narrative consistent through the review cycle.
All regulator engagement runs through a single response log, so ownership, timing and supporting evidence stay visible until a decision or next regulatory step.
It means we do the work with you, not merely advise. We run the discovery, recommend the jurisdiction and licence type, write the regulator-grade business plan and financial model, draft the full policy suite, prepare your team in workshops, source and ready your key function holders, and assemble, submit and defend the application through to the authorisation decision. You are never handed a checklist and left to interpret it alone; a working regulatory team carries the load at every stage.
We work across 46 jurisdictions spanning the EU and EEA, the UK, Switzerland, the UAE and selected offshore centres. Typical permissions include payment-institution and e-money licences, investment-firm authorisations, and crypto-asset or VASP registrations. The right licence type is determined by your flow of funds, and the right jurisdiction by the trade-offs around capital, substance, passporting, banking access and timelines — both of which we work through with you in the first two stages.
It depends on the jurisdiction, the licence type and the complexity of your model, so we avoid quoting a single figure that would be misleading. Timelines are typically measured in months from engagement to submission, with further time for the regulator's own review and Q&A. We give you a realistic, jurisdiction-specific estimate of both timeline and cost during the discovery and jurisdiction-selection stages, once the scope of your application is clear.
No — and you should be cautious of anyone who claims they can. The authorisation decision rests with the regulator. What we can do is give your application the strongest possible footing: an accurate model, a credible plan, a coherent policy suite, a prepared team and properly qualified key people, presented in the way the regulator expects, with every question and remediation managed promptly through to the decision.
Yes. We review what you have, identify what meets regulator-grade standards and what needs strengthening, and build from there rather than starting over needlessly. The critical test is coherence: the business plan, financial model, policy suite, organisational structure and key-person appointments must all interlock and tell one consistent story. Where existing material does that, we keep it; where it does not, we fix it.
Talk to SKY7 about taking your fintech from business model to authorisation. We will walk through your flow of funds, set out the credible licence and jurisdiction options, and show you exactly how the seven-stage programme would run for your venture.
