The Financial Conduct Authority FCA has granted Vestd regulatory approval to operate under the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System, known as PISCES, making the sharetech platform the third authorised operator of the UK’s newly established private company trading framework. The approval, announced in May 2026, positions Vestd alongside the London Stock Exchange and JP Jenkins as regulated operators of a market structure that allows private companies to trade shares on an intermittent basis without assuming the full regulatory obligations of a public listing.
Vestd’s entry into the PISCES ecosystem introduces a structurally distinct model from existing operators. The platform is the first within the framework designed to function without financial intermediaries, enabling investors to transact directly with the operator. The firm has indicated it will not charge fees to buyers, a pricing decision intended to broaden participation in a market segment that has historically been accessible only through intermediated channels with associated cost barriers.
The PISCES framework was established by the FCA in June 2025 as a mechanism for providing liquidity to shareholders in private companies — including founders, early employees, and early-stage investors — who would otherwise have limited options to realise value from equity holdings outside of a full public offering or private secondary transaction. The framework is operating under a sandbox-style structure that permits regulated trading activity while the broader policy and commercial model continues to develop.
What PISCES Is and How It Functions
PISCES is a regulatory framework introduced by the FCA to create a formal, supervised venue for the intermittent trading of shares in private companies. Prior to its establishment, shareholders in private UK companies seeking liquidity faced a narrow set of options: a trade sale, a full public offering, or unstructured private secondary transactions that typically required intermediary involvement, carried significant legal costs, and offered limited price transparency.
The framework permits private companies to conduct periodic trading windows during which their shares can be bought and sold by eligible participants under FCA-supervised conditions. Trading is intermittent rather than continuous — shares are not listed on a public market with ongoing price discovery — but the regulated environment provides a degree of transparency and process standardisation that informal secondary markets do not.
The first issuer to have shares traded under the PISCES framework was QPLAY, in March 2026 — a milestone that marked the framework’s transition from regulatory authorisation to active market operation. Vestd’s approval as an operator signals a further stage of market development, with a third regulated venue now available to private companies evaluating their liquidity event options.
Vestd’s Intermediary-Free Model and Its Market Significance
The defining structural feature of Vestd’s PISCES platform is the elimination of financial intermediaries from the transaction chain. Existing private secondary market activity typically involves brokers, advisers, or platform intermediaries who facilitate matching between buyers and sellers, assess eligibility, manage documentation, and charge fees for those services.
Vestd’s model removes this layer, allowing investors to engage directly with the operator platform. The firm has stated it will not charge fees to buyers under this structure — a pricing approach that represents a departure from the conventional revenue model for intermediated private market transactions.
The practical implications of an intermediary-free structure include lower transaction costs for participants, a simpler user experience at the point of transaction, and potentially broader accessibility for investor categories that have previously been deterred by the cost or complexity of private secondary market participation.
Yaroslav Kinebas, market infrastructure lead at Vestd, stated in published commentary that PISCES opens up a new class of investment opportunities in UK businesses that were previously difficult to access, and described the approval as a development with significant implications for the broader UK ecosystem.
Vestd’s Unified Equity Lifecycle Model
For Vestd, the PISCES authorisation completes a vertically integrated equity management proposition. The platform already provides services across company incorporation, employee share scheme administration — including Enterprise Management Incentive schemes and other equity compensation structures — and cap table management for private companies.
The addition of a regulated liquidity venue means that Vestd can now support a company’s equity lifecycle from formation through to regulated secondary market trading events on a single platform. Kinebas described this as the company’s objective: a business can manage its entire equity journey — from incorporation and employee schemes to cap table management and ultimately regulated liquidity events — within one integrated environment.
The platform’s scope also extends to Special Purpose Vehicles and portfolio management services for investors, suggesting that Vestd is positioning the PISCES capability as part of a broader investment infrastructure offering rather than a standalone trading venue.
The firm has indicated it is preparing to publish full operating rules for the venue. Investors have been invited to register interest, and companies have begun preparing cap tables and employee share scheme structures in anticipation of upcoming liquidity events on the platform.
The UK Private Company Liquidity Gap: Structural Context
The PISCES framework addresses a well-documented structural constraint in the UK private capital market. Employees and early investors in private companies frequently accumulate significant equity positions over multi-year periods with limited visibility on when or how those positions can be converted to liquid assets. In the absence of a formal secondary market, the value of private company equity is effectively locked until a corporate transaction — acquisition, merger, or IPO — provides an exit.
This illiquidity dynamic has implications across several dimensions. For employees, it affects the practical value of equity compensation, which may be less effective as a retention and incentive mechanism when the path to realisation is uncertain and distant. For early-stage investors, it constrains the recycling of capital into new investment activity. For founders, it limits the ability to partially realise value without triggering a full company sale or public offering.
The FCA’s development of the PISCES framework reflects a regulatory judgement that a supervised intermittent trading mechanism can address this liquidity constraint without the investor protection risks associated with unrestricted secondary market activity in private securities. The sandbox structure under which PISCES currently operates allows the FCA to monitor market behaviour and refine the regulatory framework in response to actual trading activity before any broader rollout.
Operator Ecosystem and Competitive Dynamics
The current PISCES operator landscape comprises three authorised platforms: the London Stock Exchange, JP Jenkins, and Vestd. Each operator brings a different institutional background and market positioning to the framework.
The London Stock Exchange’s involvement provides an established market infrastructure operator with deep relationships across the UK corporate and institutional investment community. JP Jenkins has operated as a specialist matched bargain platform for unquoted securities for an extended period and brings existing experience in facilitating private company share transactions. Vestd enters as a technology-first platform with an existing user base among private companies using its equity management tools.
The differentiation between operators is likely to be determined by the specific companies and investor bases they attract, the user experience and cost structures they offer, and the ancillary services — such as cap table management, investor relations tools, and legal documentation support — that they can provide around the trading function itself.
The FCA’s authorisation of multiple operators under the framework suggests an intention to foster competition within the PISCES market, rather than concentrating activity on a single venue.
Risks and Regulatory Limitations
The PISCES framework operates under conditions that reflect its status as a supervised innovation sandbox rather than a fully established market structure. Several risk and limitation factors are relevant for companies and investors evaluating participation.
Trading is intermittent, meaning that price discovery is periodic rather than continuous and liquidity availability is constrained to designated trading windows. This structure may not meet the liquidity needs of shareholders requiring prompt access to capital.
Eligibility criteria for participation — both at the issuer level and the investor level — are defined by FCA rules and individual operator policies, and may limit the universe of companies and investors for whom PISCES trading is a viable option at the current stage of the framework’s development.
The absence of intermediaries in Vestd’s model, while reducing costs, also removes a layer of participant guidance that intermediaries typically provide in private market transactions. The degree to which this affects investor outcomes will depend on the adequacy of the platform’s own disclosure and eligibility assessment processes.
The broader commercial viability of the PISCES framework — including whether trading volumes reach levels that generate meaningful price discovery and liquidity for participants — remains to be demonstrated through actual market activity as the operator ecosystem develops.
Conclusion
Vestd’s FCA authorisation as a PISCES operator introduces a third regulated venue for private company share trading in the UK and establishes the first intermediary-free model within the framework. The approval completes Vestd’s integrated equity management platform, extending its existing company incorporation, share scheme, and cap table capabilities into regulated secondary market liquidity events.
The PISCES framework itself is at an early stage of market development, with the first issuer trading having occurred in March 2026 and the operator ecosystem now comprising three authorised platforms. Whether the framework achieves the structural objective of meaningfully improving liquidity for private company shareholders — including employees, founders, and early investors — will be determined by the volume and quality of trading activity that develops as the market matures and as awareness of the framework grows among eligible companies and investors.
