PRIMIS financial promotions rules, explained — and how to work well within them
PRIMIS pre-approves financial promotions with published timescales — 5 working days for adverts, 10 for websites — and approvals expire: 3 months max for time-sensitive content, 12 months for standard promotions. Posting promotions on social needs an individual Social Media Licence (3 years, named adviser — agencies and content services are excluded), and the network monitors licence-holders' activity daily. None of this stops you marketing — it rewards ARs who plan ahead and keep the promotional layer separate from everyday human content.
The approval timescales — plan around working days
PRIMIS is one of the few UK networks whose financial promotions regime is set out in a publicly available policy document, which makes planning straightforward. The published assessment and feedback timescales are 5 working days for advertisements and 10 working days for websites.
Two deadlines matter after that. If the compliance team requests amendments and nothing is resubmitted within 15 working days, the promotion is treated as withdrawn — back to the start. And every approval arrives with an expiry date in the approval email:
| Promotion type | Approval lifespan |
|---|---|
| Time-sensitive content (rates, offers, deadlines) | As appropriate to the information — maximum 3 months |
| Standard promotions | 12 months |
Resubmitting before expiry is the AR's job, not the network's. The practical move: diary every expiry date the day the approval lands, and treat month 11 as re-submission month for your evergreen material.
The Social Media Licence — personal, not corporate
To post financial promotions on social platforms, a PRIMIS AR needs a Social Media Licence — and the design of it explains a lot about how the network thinks:
- It's issued to a named individual — senior management or advisers within the AR firm — not to the firm itself, and it specifies which platforms it covers.
- It lasts 3 years, issued via certificate (the AR Website Licence works the same way — 3 years, reissued when approved amendments are made).
- Third parties are excluded — the policy is explicit that licences go only to AR senior management and advisers, excluding introducers, influencers and content management services, and that a licence cannot be issued to a third party at all.
- The network monitors licence-holder activity daily, and profile settings must allow it to do so. Material changes to an approved profile need re-approval.
How to market well inside this regime
It's easy to read timescales and licences as reasons to go quiet. The ARs who grow do the opposite — they organise:
- Split your content into layers. Everyday human content — your town, your team, your week — sits outside the promotional layer, needs no approval queue, and is what actually grows a following. Save the promotional slots for content worth a 12-month approval.
- Batch and bank approvals. Standard promotions last 12 months: submit your evergreen set (who you are, what you help with, how the process works) once, then reuse all year.
- Avoid the 3-month trap. Rate-led content expires in weeks and caps at 3 months — the more your marketing leans on rates, the more re-submission admin you inherit. Education outlasts offers.
- Diary the expiry dates. Expired approvals mean promotions must come down — an avoidable scramble if it's in the calendar from day one.
- Keep your own records of what was approved, when, and where it ran — good practice under FG24/1 whatever network you're in, and it makes every re-submission faster.
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- PRIMIS Financial Promotions Policy V5 (January 2024) — publicly available PDF: smoothfs.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Financial-Promotions-Policy-V5.pdf (figures in this guide: sections on submission timescales, promotion lifespans, the Social Media Licence and network oversight)
- FCA, FG24/1 — Finalised guidance on financial promotions on social media (March 2024): fca.org.uk/publication/finalised-guidance/fg24-1.pdf
The small print: this guide summarises a version of PRIMIS's policy that is publicly available (V5, January 2024) for general information. Networks update their rules — PRIMIS ARs should always follow the network's current internal guidance, which prevails over anything here. This is not legal, regulatory or compliance advice. Made for Brokers is independent of, and not endorsed by, PRIMIS or any network.