About The Cross Border Alliance
The Cross Border Alliance (CBA) has been established as a forum to identify and create good practices for handling UK citizens or residents who work/live globally and have cross-border assets and advice/planning needs. Its mantra and overriding purpose is “Continuity of Advice- wherever you live.”
The CBA will support the delivery of its objectives by:
- Engaging with key stakeholders, including professional bodies, trade bodies, regulators, government departments, policymakers, consumer bodies, and providers active in the cross-border markets to influence the development of good practice and shared information to best support more global consumers needing consistent and long-term financial advice.
- Coordinating input from firms operating across the financial planning distribution chain (including distributors, product providers and other key participants such as unregulated service providers) to identify opportunities to deliver better outcomes for consumers and better information to advisers.
- Providing information and guidance (based on shared good practice) around working with cross-border consumers, specifically aimed at most smaller brokerages across the UK who struggle with getting significant legal advice but need to support long-term clients or advise on UK assets for those living or working outside the UK.
- Advising on FCA initiatives that impact cross-border advice and UK assets, investment and plan.
- Liaising with the Federation of European Independent Financial Advisers (FEIFA) - a non-profit organisation that represents and supports financial advisers operating in Europe.
Current FCA Cross-Border Guidance for firms
Considerations for firms after the transition period
The FCA explains how the end of the UK–EU transition period (31 December 2020) affects UK and EEA firms, including passporting, regulatory obligations, data transfers, and customer communications. It also outlines what firms should already have done and what they must continue to do.
Considerations for firms after the transition period | FCA
The Berne Financial Services Agreement
This is a new mutual‑recognition framework between the UK and Switzerland. It makes it easier for UK and Swiss firms to provide certain cross‑border financial services to each other’s wholesale and sophisticated clients. The agreement took effect on 1 January 202
Berne Financial Services Agreement for UK and Swiss firms | FCA
https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/corporate/berne-financial-services-agreement-guidelines-firms.pdf
Other useful information
The ESMA statement ESMA35-43-2509
ESMA’s “Public Statement – Reminder to firms of the MiFID II rules on ‘reverse solicitation’ in the context of the recent end of the UK transition period”, dated 13 January 2021,
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued this statement to remind firms of the strict rules under MiFID II governing reverse solicitation — when an EU client initiates investment services from a non‑EU firm entirely on their own initiative. ESMA is reinforcing that reverse solicitation is a narrow exemption, not a loophole. Firms cannot rely on disclaimers to avoid EU authorisation requirements, and any marketing activity in the EU disqualifies the use of reverse solicitation.
esma35-43-2509_statement_on_reverse_solicitation.pdf
Eversheds Sutherland client briefing summarising the ESMA January 2021 public statement and its implications for UK firms.
This remains a useful explanation of the ESMA statement. Eversheds warn that UK firms without EU authorisation risk civil, administrative or even criminal action if they are seen to be soliciting EU clients. Firms relying on reverse solicitation should review their procedures, record‑keeping and marketing to ensure they are not inadvertently promoting services in the EU. However, reverse solicitation remains a legitimate route under both EU and UK law, and UK firms may provide services where an EU client genuinely initiates the contact on their own exclusive initiative.