South Carolina § 35-11-220 - Issuance of license.

§ 35-11-220. Issuance of license.

(A) When an application for an original license is filed and considered complete pursuant to this article, the Commissioner shall investigate the applicant's financial condition and responsibility, financial and business experience, character, and general fitness. The Commissioner may conduct an on-site investigation of the applicant, the reasonable cost of which the applicant must pay. The Commissioner shall issue a license to an applicant pursuant to this article if the Commissioner finds that all of the following conditions have been fulfilled:

(1) the applicant has complied with Sections 35-11-205, 35-11-215, and 35-11-230; and

(2) the financial condition and responsibility, financial and business experience, competence, character, and general fitness of the applicant; and the competence, experience, character, and general fitness of the executive officers, managers, directors, and persons in control of the applicant indicate that it is in the interest of the public to permit the applicant to engage in money transmission.

(B) When an application for an original license pursuant to this article is complete, the Commissioner promptly shall notify the applicant in a record of the date on which the application was determined to be complete and:

(1) the Commissioner shall approve or deny the application within one hundred twenty days after that date; or

(2) if the application is not approved or denied within one hundred twenty days after that date the:

(a) application is considered approved; and

(b) Commissioner shall issue the license pursuant to this article, to take effect as of the first business day after expiration of the one hundred twenty-day period.

(C) The Commissioner may for good cause extend the application period.

(D) A determination by the Commissioner that an application is complete and is accepted for processing means only that the application, on its face, appears to include all of the items, including the Criminal Background Check response from the FBI, and addresses all of the matters that are required, and is not an assessment of the substance of the application or of the sufficiency of the information provided.

(E) The Commissioner shall issue a formal written notice of the denial of a license application. The Commissioner shall set forth in the notice of denial the specific reasons for the denial of the application. An applicant whose application is denied by the Commissioner pursuant to this section may request a hearing, within thirty days after receipt of the written notice of the denial pursuant to Section 35-11-710.

(F) The initial license term begins on the day the application is approved. The license expires on December thirty-first of the year in which the license term began, unless the initial license date is between November first and December thirty-first, in which instance the initial license term runs through December thirty-first of the following year.

HISTORY: 2016 Act No. 266 (H.4554), SECTION 1, eff May 25, 2018; 2024 Act No. 218 (S.1031), SECTION 1, eff July 2, 2024.

Effect of Amendment

2024 Act No. 218, SECTION 1, rewrote the section.