Conflicts of Interest
Dignus Muneris works across three areas that do not always sit comfortably together. We provide commercial advisory, bought and paid for by the businesses we serve. We deliver programmes on behalf of publicly funded bodies — growth hubs, combined authorities, universities and their spin-outs, chambers of commerce and innovation agencies. And, as an Appointed Representative within the Financial Conduct Authority framework, we help businesses access capital.
Each of these is legitimate. The care is in how they meet. Where a practice both delivers publicly funded support and offers commercial services, there is a fair question about whether the funded work quietly becomes a route to a sale. We would rather answer that question openly than leave it unspoken. This page sets out how we manage it.
How we manage conflicts
We keep funded delivery and commercial selling apart. Where we deliver a publicly funded programme, the businesses we support are not approached to buy our commercial services during the programme, or for a period afterwards. The funded work stands on its own terms. This is a rule we hold ourselves to, not a discretion we reserve — programme partners can rely on it, and the businesses we support are protected by it.
We separate regulated work from unregulated work, in writing, every time. Most of what we do — strategy and scaling, investment readiness, commercial due diligence, and intellectual property commercialisation — is not a regulated activity and does not carry FCA protections. Our regulated finance activity sits within a distinct arrangement as an Appointed Representative. Every engagement makes clear which is which: who you are contracting with, what protections apply, and which route of complaint is open to you.
We do not sit on both sides of a transaction. We will not prepare a business for investment and, on the same transaction, act for the investor assessing it. Where that situation could arise, we step back from one side of it.
We route on your needs, not our fee. We may be paid differently depending on how a finance requirement is met — some finance we arrange directly, and requirements that fall outside our specialism, such as residential mortgages or buy-to-let, we pass to appropriately qualified colleagues within our network. Which route applies is decided by what suits your circumstances, not by what we earn. Where a requirement sits outside our permission, we say so and connect you to a colleague who holds it, rather than stretch to keep it in-house.
We check every engagement against a conflicts register. Before we take on any new piece of work, regulated or not, we check it against our existing engagements for exactly the conflicts described here. The check is recorded, and it applies across the whole practice.
Our methodology is the final safeguard. Our engagements are designed to leave a business more capable, not more dependent — which is the surest protection against advice that exists only to sell the next thing.
Working with publicly funded programmes
We understand that funders and delivery leads have a legitimate concern when a commercial adviser also delivers publicly funded support: that the programme becomes a sales channel. We hold a clear rule against it, set out above, and we are glad to share our full conflicts policy and engagement-letter structure as part of any partnership conversation.
Our regulatory status
Dignus Muneris is an Appointed Representative of White Rose Finance Group Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 630772). Dignus Muneris is recorded on the Financial Services Register under reference number 1057135. Our regulated activity is limited to commercial finance broking. Our strategy, investment readiness, commercial due diligence and intellectual property commercialisation services are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Talking to us
If you have any question about how we manage a particular conflict, or would like to see our conflicts policy in full, please contact us. We would rather have the conversation early than leave a concern unspoken.