A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.

For dental practices looking to offer financing options for expensive treatments like Invisalign, tooth implants, and other high-cost procedures, obtaining FCA authorisation is essential. This ensures compliance with consumer credit regulations and enables the practice to provide secure and legally compliant financial solutions to their patients. 

A recent article published by The Dentist highlighted the problem that over 6.3 million people have avoided getting dental treatment due to the cost-of-living crisis.  With FCA authorised dental practice financing, you can offer patients flexible payment options, making high-cost treatments like Invisalign and dental implants more accessible. This not only enhances patient satisfaction and confidence by helping them pay for expensive treatments and procedures, but it also boosts your practice’s revenue. 

FCA Authorisation for dental practices is crucial as it allows dental clinics to offer consumer credit for treatments. This authorisation ensures that the practice adheres to the Financial Conduct Authority's standards, protecting both the business and its patients. Currently many dental practices are relying on the consumer credit exemption by offering 0% finance - interest free with no upfront charges or fees. 

However, the downside to this exemption is that the agreement would need to be repaid within 12 months and with 12 instalments or less. This may be ideal for some patients, but our research indicates that it is not for many who would rather have more flexibility in repayments by spreading the costs over more than 12 months especially with more high-cost treatments and procedures.

Before applying, familiarise yourself with the regulations that govern consumer credit in the dental sector as you would need to understand consumer credit regulation for dental services and what it entails to ne regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

You would need to determine the type of authorisation is needed i.e., either Full Permission or Limited Permission. We can tell you that most dental practices will require a limited permission credit broking licence if they wish to refer patients to a third-party lender in order to obtain dental finance.

You would need to prepare a high-quality application by gathering all necessary documentation, and providing supplementary information including business details, governance arrangements, systems and controls, policies, a Compliance Monitoring Programme (CMP) and other financial information as part of your Regulatory Business Plan. 

Applying for an FCA credit licence for dentists involves several steps. The first step would be registering on the FCA’s Connect system. You will need to provide comprehensive details about your business operations, financial resources, and governance frameworks. Ensure your application is complete and of a high-quality in order to avoid delays in the processing of your application or a rejection by the FCA. Note: a rejection would mean that the FCA application fee of £500 paid to the FCA to process your application is non-refundable.  

To secure a dental practice consumer credit licence, there are some key requirements. You must demonstrate:

(1) Adequate Financial Resources: Your practice must have sufficient capital to cover the financial activities.

(2) Robust Governance Structures: Implement effective internal controls and risk management procedures.

(3) Fit and Proper Personnel: Ensure that key staff members, including those responsible for handling credit broking operations, regulated complaints, and overall compliance, are qualified and reputable.

We understand that this could be a lot for a dental practice manager to navigate and that they'd rather focus utilising their clinical and cosmetic dentistry expertise - that's why we're here to support you with our financial services and consumer credit compliance and regulation expertise. 

FCA compliance consulting for dentists can simplify the process of obtaining authorisation. Our consultants - who are all former FCA staff - can guide you through the regulatory landscape, ensuring that your credit licence application for dental practices is thorough, accurate and decreasing your chances of your application being rejected by the FCA and losing out on your application fee.

Once authorised, maintaining compliance is crucial. This includes regular reporting, adhering to consumer credit regulation for dental services, and staying updated with any changes in FCA guidelines. We understand that dental practices would be no stranger to compliance especially when it concerns the CQC and the GDC, and that specialised compliance support is available from dental compliance consultancies such as Apolline. 

However, obtaining FCA credit broking authorisation for dentists can be challenging, not only due to the nature of it, but also the time and energy required. Alumni Compliance offers tailored support to ensure your application meets all regulatory requirements, increasing the likelihood of FCA approval.