Financial adviser in GB
What this register publishes today, what is missing, and the smallest change that would move it up.
What was found
A free REST API over the register of authorised firms and individuals, self-serve after registration for a key, alongside a bulk extract service. One of the better regulators in the world to build against. No OpenAPI definition is published, so every client is written from the documentation by hand.
What it publishes
| Check | Answer | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A public page per licence | Yes | Gives a reader something to look at and a checker something to archive and attest against. |
| A bulk export | Yes | Lets a consumer hold the whole list instead of fetching one licence at a time, and lets anyone hash it. |
| Machine readable | Yes | A CSV or JSON rather than a page built for a browser. Decides whether checking can be automated at all. |
| Signed | No | Makes the file impossible to forge or mirror convincingly. Nothing reaches grade A without it. |
The next step
Sign the file
The export exists and is machine readable, which is the expensive part. What remains is a key and one DNS record on a domain the authority already controls, which makes the file impossible to forge and takes this row to grade A.
A grade describes a register, not the authority behind it and not the quality of its supervision. An authority can run an excellent register and still sit at grade D because it is a search form.
If this row is wrong, it gets corrected with the correction published beside it. The index is useful only if it can be argued with. Tell the lab.