Online investing platform Wealth Migrate SA (Pty) Ltd has been approved as a Category I Financial Services Provider – FSP 47394, which allows it to provide its crowdfunding offering (when a group of people club together to fund a project or venture) on an intermediary services basis using shares as a financial product category.
This marks the completion of a long journey that Wealth Migrate began about a decade ago. CEO Scott Picken said: “To put this into perspective, we worked with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority or FSCA (formerly known as Financial Services Board) for 10 years to allow this to happen.. CEO Scott Picken said: “Wealth Migrate always had the objective to offer our crowdfunding offering to investors within a regulated environment. Obtaining our Category I licensing approval signifies the achievement of this objective.
“With the approval of Wealth Migrate SA’s Category I licence by the FSCA, Wealth Migrate is one of the leaders in obtaining the relevant financial product category approval from the South African financial services industry regulator. We now have the required approval and licensing from the FSCA that allows us to offer our crowdfunding business model to investors,” Picken added.
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He said that the The Category I licence approval for Wealth migrate represents an important achievement for the Fintech sector, SA and the whole continent, and comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in an increased adoption of online and digital platforms,” Picken added.
Our Category I licence approval also provides investors, who are used to dealing with regulated companies and financial services providers, with a greater sense of security and peace of mind, Picken said. After a crowdfunding event it arranged in October 2015, the first of its kind in SA, Picken had said the company would love to be regulated, but at the time there was no regulation. We are excited this has no this has now happened.
For Picken, obtaining the Category I licence approval allows Wealth Migrate SA to maintain its commitment to using technology to remove the middleman, cut costs and increase trust and transparency. “This allows us to pursue our purpose, which is to close the wealth gap,” he said.