Applications for Licences and Fitness to Hold a Licence Etc. Section 28: Applications for standard licences
59.Section 28 inserts a new section 24A after section 24 of the 1974 Act. Section 24A deals with applications for standard licences. The purpose of the new section 24A is to give OFT power to manage the application process in a more efficient way by requiring people to specify in applications for licences what businesses they want the licence to cover. An applicant must specify whether he wants a licence covering one or more of consumer credit business, consumer hire business and ancillary credit business generally or a licence which only covers one or more descriptions of business within any of these broad types of business. It is OFT which will specify the descriptions of business within the types of business specified in subsection (4) that applicants may use in their applications. Under section 25(1) to (1AD) of the 1974 Act, as amended by section 29, if an applicant satisfies OFT that he is fit to do everything he has applied for, he is entitled to a licence to do that. If not, there is power for OFT to issue him with a more limited licence.