I reported recently that firms were receiving emails from the FCA to inform them that the had been set up as a new user of Connect to replace the ONA system.
What I didn't realise until Friday was that, according the the Firms Contact Centre (FCC), only those firms registered with ONA were getting these emails. This does not necessarily create a problem for limited companies and partnerships where the owners of the company have Controlled Functions and can therefore register online for Connect via the FCA link here.
However, if you are a sole trader and have not registered for ONA previously, you will have a problem. You cannot register with Connect using the Controlled Functions route as you don't have any Controlled Functions and you cannot use the other option specified on the FCA Connect website because you won't have been provided with a Registration Key.
I spoke with the FCA on Friday and was told that the only way around this was to register with ONA first and then this would provide the migration route. I am about to test this out today with a firm and so I will be able to report back on this hopefully tomorrow and will explain what you have to do to sort this.
I don't want to be responsible for unnecessary calls to the FCC, particularly as firms who have entered the window for CCL registration will need to use Connect to do so and so I recommend that if you are reading this and are a sole trader who has never registered for ONA ( or who has not had an email about Connect from the FCA) and are concerned, that you look out over the next couple of days for an update to my blog.
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