Will I operate under your brand, or can I use my own branding?
You operate under your own brand – we are in your regulatory footer only.
Will there any restrictions on my marketing or advertising activities?
We ensure that your marketing/advertising adhere to FCA financial promotions rules – including signing off paid for adverts – but we do not prescribe what you do or say.
For any deal the contractual agreement will be between my brokerage firm and the customer or between Fiducia and customer?
You and your customer – you are operating your own independent commercial finance brokerage with Fiducia as your network proposition service provider.
Similarly, for any deal the the contractual agreement will be between my brokerage firm and the lender, or between Fiducia and the lender?
You do not have a deal with the lender – your client does on the loan and Fiducia has a signed introducer agreement on behalf of the network – with the exception of Handelsbanken, Fiducia has introducer agreements with all 190 (current) lenders on panel. The way Handelsbanken operates is the exception, and not the norm for us.
If customer has employed multiple brokerage firms how does that get governed to ensure that commission is paid where its due.
This is the jeopardy of broking. If your client has instructed more than one broker – and you are the broker accepted as introducing a deal to a lender that they fund – that lender will pay out to you – if to another broker, then to them. We recommend direct fees to protect you from clients doing this – and to ensure you are still paid something if the client ‘changes their mind’.
For commercial loan transactions; what is typical? I know some brokerage firms charge customers a fee/commission as well as 50% of the arrangement fee from the bank gets chared as well.
On property transactions we typically see 0.5% - 1% direct broker fees charged in addition to the proc fee from the lender – which varies also, not always 50% of the client fee.
My focus will be commercial loans but I would like to also be able to do resi mortgages. Is that possible? And in future I would like to employ a broker purely doing resi mortgages whilst I do commercial. Is that possible.
Not under our permissions – we are wholly unregulated – but you can work with our group company Fiducia CFP and introduce residential mortgages to them – launching as our regulated finance partner next month with enhanced introducer fees to network members.
Does the FCA authorisation which my firm will get as Fiducia's AR allows me to do residential mortgages as well. Will that resi mortgage business be covered on the same commercial agreement.
No
Will be able to use my own credit analysis techniques, models, softwares available or can only use Fiducia authorised.
You can use whatever you want to so that you are presenting the best case for your clients to lenders – ultimately they still use their own systems and won’t rely on yours.
What happens if I want to terminate the AR agreement?
There is a minimum terms and notice period – you work within the confines of the contract that we agree.
Are there penalties or obligations tied to early exit?
You are obliged to the contract minimum term that you agree.
How will client relationships and commissions be handled post-termination?
Your client relationships are 100% yours. Any open cases you will be allowed to complete for the client before we shut down your AR status and we will pay out to you on these – that is NOT the case with every network, I know from experience.