Financial services data guide

Financial services covers three SIC divisions, and the first thing to know is that the largest code in it is not a financial services business at all.

The holding company problem

64209, activities of other holding companies, is one of the most populated codes on the entire register. Almost none of those companies sell financial products. It is simply how UK groups are structured: a holdco sits above the trading companies, and someone picks 64209 at incorporation because it is the closest fit.

So a filter on division 64 returns a very large pile of group structure and a much smaller pile of actual financial businesses. Anyone quoting a headline count for "UK financial services companies" off raw SIC data has almost certainly counted holdcos.

The codes that describe real activity are:

• 64999 financial intermediation not elsewhere classified
• 65120 non-life insurance
• 66190 activities auxiliary to financial intermediation
• 66220 insurance agents and brokers

Where this sector gets real value

The UK publishes more about company ownership and control than most countries, and this is the sector that needs it.

People with significant control tells you who ultimately owns a company, not just who the directors are. Officer records connect people across companies. Put those together and you can trace a group structure, find the beneficial owner behind a chain of holdcos, and spot companies that share directors or share an address.

That is the counterparty and exposure work this sector actually does, and it is the part of the register that is genuinely hard to get elsewhere.

Status changes matter too. A company entering liquidation appears on the register, and if you are monitoring a book of exposures, that is a signal you want on the day rather than the quarter.

What the register does not hold

The gap here is the important one.

• FCA authorisation. Whether a firm is regulated, for what, and whether it has permissions is the FCA register, which is a completely separate source. Companies House will happily show you an unregulated company with an insurance-sounding name.
• Financials. Small company accounts, so no turnover, no balance sheet detail for most.
• Credit information. Nothing about payment behaviour or defaults.
• Client money, AUM, book size

For a regulated sector, the register is the corporate skeleton. The regulatory register is the part that says whether they are allowed to trade.

What people in the sector actually do with it

• Screen a counterparty on age, status, officers and control
• Map ownership through holding company chains to the beneficial owner
• Monitor a portfolio for status changes and insolvency events
• Find newly incorporated entities in a segment
• Detect connections through shared officers and shared registered addresses
• Read sector-level formation and failure rates as a base rate

Where to start

The financial services sector view covers divisions 64, 65 and 66 code by code.

If you need something specific, tell us what it is.