After days of being on the phone and countless hours devoted to Google you will come to the conclusion that you either need a Licensing Advisor or a Lawyer to get your Banking License, the following publication is a result of our experience with Licensing Banks and other Financial Institutions over the years, we hope this documents serves as a guide.

More often than not legal firms will not be familiar with Financial Licensing Services specific to banking licensing, in some cases they will simply lack the knowledge and experience you need to be able to get a banking license for a New Bank, you need to understand that finding the right licensing specialist is key for either a purchase scenario or a new license process.

And although choosing the right Licensing Advisor seems like a fairly easy task, it is perhaps the most critical step on obtaining a License.

Why your Lawyer may not be the best option?

Well.… think about it for a second, Lawyers practice is based on what client demands at any given time, most lawyers doing practice do not specialize in any specific task but in whatever comes across their table that falls within their practice specialty, as with anything as complex as a bank you must ask yourself how much real licensing experience your Lawyer has. When you are oriented on doing everything, you are often not specialized on anything specific, and that’s a problem when doing structures so complex as this that require both specialized knowhow and in some cases know-how.

Banking licensing is politically in nature, because you are potentially affecting their current market any new license has to be carefully considered by the issuing authority before any hint of approval is shown.

And as expected License refusals rates are much more higher in Clients choosing a non-specialized licensing firm as they likely are not considering geopolitical factors, moreover timeframes into finding out you have been refused tend also to be much longer than just being approved using a well-known Licensing specialist so it is critical to choose wisely.

You may need a lawyer after all your lawyer will help you review contracts, help you make paperwork for your newly licensed Bank, review internal policies and other compliance requirements that are specific to what you want, the licensing part should be left to the specialist.

So where can I get a Licensing Specialist?

We had the same question and found after working with several options (including a variety of lawyers both domestic and international) that the best choice was always someone specialized on to that specific Field or in other words someone specifically specialized with Licensing that also had.. Tons and Tons of experience.

After several years of doing Licensing we narrowed down our options, with experience we found that these legal groups that were specialized on only Licensing Banks or similar specific Financial Institutions were consistently delivering on time and within our budget.

Make yourself a favor

By choosing right you will be saving allot of time and money, it is our experience that unspecialized lawyers have the tendency to quote you an initial price that is lower than the real cost associated with establishing a Bank, things will “often” arise and that initial quote will no longer be an indicative of your current expenses for that setup. This in our experience will usually happen months after the initial payment and initial paperwork is presented and will continue to increase over time as more things continue to arise, so your initial expectation on expenses for that license will be way off. Not to mention time expectations will never be meet.

In our experience when we were quoted below a specific price point we were in for a surprise, and even if we contracted the conditions out just to be sure they were going to deliver the results were the same, we continuously ended with defaulted contracts and with no license at all, not good..

Lawyers that have not actually gone throughout the process before are the ones that will cost you the most, make sure that whomever you choose has plenty of experience in that specific jurisdiction, you should be able to verify their allegations by reaching banks that were licensed by them.

Consider this:

Things get sketchy in Offshore Jurisdictions where lawyers exploit the fact that you and your domestic legal team perhaps will not be very well versed in local law.

A good licensing specialist will often quote you up front the total costs, they’ll know exactly what they’re doing, they know how much it will cost from the day one and will give you a realistic expectation on times so no surprises will arise.

Ok so I want to hire a licensing specialist but who should I hire?

Well after doing several financial licenses for our clients and dealing with all possible nightmares you can remotely think of (Regulatory Changes, Political Changes and even Hurricanes), and after countless sessions of internet digging we found two major players on the financial licensing industry that will license your bank and that surely know what they are doing.

Financial Licensing Advisors
(Luxembourg, Worldwide)
FLA has been doing Financial Licensing Services for years and do only that. They specialize in Licensing Banks, Funds and Crypto Businesses and anything that those Financial Companies may need. They usually have Licensed Banks in their inventory (Completely Turn Key) so you can “Buy a Bank” and start working the very next day, in our experience it’s the best option for banking licensing services currently on the market.
http://www.bankinglicensing.com/

Healy Consultants Group
(Singapore, Worldwide)
If you are setting up a license in an Onshore Larger Jurisdiction (G10) then this is a great choice, they provide amazing service and could also do accounting services, they have plenty of Experience as a Licensing Advisor and are familiar with the process.
https://www.healyconsultants.com/

These are the best two of all Financial Licensing Advisors based on countless experiences, but even with these hand-picked recommendations we ask you to do your homework carefully, invest a descent amount of time by searching options, read, read read and then read more. If you can read the local regulatory framework where you want to license your bank then do it. Decide carefully and you surely will avoid tons of bad experiences and wasted money as we have in the past.