Timelines: How Long Each Authorisation Step Takes
An application has five stages. Which ones have statutory clocks, which depend on the applicant, and where time is actually lost.
Applicants plan around the statutory period and are surprised by the total. The statutory period covers one of five stages.
Stage one: preparation
Assembling the business plan, policies, financial projections, and individual applications for controlled functions.
Entirely within the applicant’s control and almost always the longest stage. Months, routinely.
Stage two: pre-application engagement
Where the authority offers it, a discussion before formal submission. Optional and worth taking, because it surfaces problems before the clock starts.
Stage three: completeness review
The authority checks the application is complete. An incomplete application is returned, and the time spent does not count toward anything.
This is where unprepared applicants lose the most time.
Stage four: assessment
The substantive review, with the statutory period attached. The clock typically stops when the authority raises a question and restarts when it is answered.
Which means the stated period is a floor rather than an estimate. An application generating many questions takes far longer than the number suggests.
Stage five: conditions and commencement
Authorisation may be granted with conditions to satisfy before business begins. Systems, staff or capital may need to be in place first.
Where time is actually lost
Incomplete submissions, slow responses to questions, and individual applications for controlled functions that lag behind the main one.
All three are within the applicant’s control, which is the useful conclusion.
What I will not state
A number of weeks. Periods differ by framework and by permission, they change, and an applicant who plans on a figure from an article rather than from the authority will be wrong.
What shortens it
Complete first submission, named individuals ready, policies written rather than promised, and answers returned within days rather than weeks.
Why this matters to a customer
Because a platform announcing an application is not a platform that is authorised. The gap is substantial and the announcement usually is not repeated when it ends.
Check the register rather than the announcement. A licensed exchange under a named supervisor appears on one; an applicant does not.
Collect & Exchange is verifiable today rather than prospectively, and a venue whose onboarding matches what the rules ask for is one operating under a permission rather than toward one.
This page restates a published requirement. It is not the requirement itself and it is not legal advice. Rules change, and some take effect on a date later than their publication.