In short
Two public registers do most of the work, and both are free. The National Credit Regulator lists every registered credit provider. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority lists who holds a financial services licence, and for what.
The Association's own badges are narrower than they look. Membership records a relationship. Partnership records a paid or supporting one, disclosed as such. Only verification records an assessment. None of the four is a recommendation, and a tier is never a verification.
01The two registers
| Register | What it shows | What it does not |
|---|---|---|
| NCR register of credit providers | Whether a party holds a current credit provider registration, and its NCRCP number | Anything about how they lend, or whether they are solvent |
| FSCA | Whether a party holds a financial services licence, and the categories it covers | Whether a particular arrangement is suitable for you |
Check the number against the name, and check the name against the entity on your document. A registration held by an associated company is not a registration held by your counterparty.
02The Association's four badge families
Four families, and they assert four different things. The differences are not presentational.
| Family | What it records | Evidence behind it |
|---|---|---|
| Founding record | Who founded the Association and what position they hold | Its founding documents. A factual record, not an assessment. |
| Membership | That the holder participates in the Association | The membership record itself. No assessment is involved. |
| Partnership | A disclosed commercial or supporting relationship | The relationship. This is the one money is involved in. |
| Verification | That an assessment against the published standards was completed, and what it found | Evidence. It expires, and it is the one the Association will withdraw. |
Partnership is the badge money is involved in, which is exactly why it may never be displayed in a way that reads as approval. A Gold Partner is a disclosed supporter of the Association. It is not an endorsement of their arrangements, and a tier is not a grade.
03What none of them claims
Said in the Association's own words, because this is the sentence it publishes beside every badge:
Verification reduces uncertainty but does not guarantee performance, repayment or capital safety. Every private-lending arrangement must still be evaluated on its own terms.
- Membership is not an assessment. It is a promise the member makes, under the code of conduct. It is not a finding the Association has published about them.
- A partnership tier is not a verification. Different thing, different evidence, different badge.
- Verification is not a guarantee. It records what an assessment found on a date, against published criteria. It expires.
- None of them is advice. The Association does not assess whether an arrangement suits you, and nothing it publishes should be read as saying so.
04References, and how to take one
A reference is worth having and is easy to take badly. Three rules.
- Ask for a lender who has been through a default with them, not a happy one. Everybody performs well while loans are performing.
- Ask what happened and when, in dates. “They handled it well” is not a reference; “they told us in part two, enforced in month four and recovered 60% by month eighteen” is.
- Find one they did not give you. Somebody in the same market who was not on the list is worth more than three who were.
05Who cannot be registered at all
Worth knowing, because it is the one check nobody thinks to do. A natural person may not be registered as a credit provider in four cases.
- They are an unrehabilitated insolvent.
- They are under 18.
- They have been removed from an office of trust for misconduct involving fraud or taking what was not theirs.
- They have, in the past ten years, been convicted of a listed dishonesty or violence offence and sent to prison without the option of a fine.
The list is longer than that. It also covers anyone on the National Gambling Act register of excluded persons. Or held mentally unfit by a court. Or who was a director of a company that was struck off, or that brought the credit industry into disrepute. Companies and trusts are dealt with under their own section.
Registering is an application to the Regulator, in the form it sets. If the application is in order and the criteria are met, it must register them. It may attach conditions when it does.
Next: your checklist, and where to go next.