How to Verify a Broker’s Licence at the Source (FCA, ASIC, CySEC, NFA)

Nearly every fake broker in our 9,000-record registry claims regulation. The claims fall apart the moment you check the regulator’s own register — which scammers count on you never doing.

The golden rule

Never follow a licence link from the broker’s own website. Type the regulator’s address yourself and search their public register for the company name and number:

• UK — FCA: register.fca.org.uk. Check the firm’s listed website matches the one you are on — clone firms steal real licence numbers and swap the domain.
• Australia — ASIC: connectonline.asic.gov.au, plus ASIC’s public alert list of unlicensed operators.
• Cyprus/EU — CySEC: cysec.gov.cy — check both the licensed list and the warnings list; many operators appear on the second.
• US — NFA: BASIC search at nfa.futures.org for forex and futures firms.

What the checks catch

1. Invented numbers — the register returns nothing.
2. Stolen numbers — the register returns a real firm whose name or website does not match. That is a clone operation.
3. Wrong scope — a company registration (Saint Lucia IBC status is a common one) presented as a financial licence. Company registration regulates nothing.

Offshore “regulators”

Certificates from unheard-of island authorities are decoration. If the regulator cannot fine or shut the firm down, the licence protects nobody.

Run the register check together with a registry lookup — one catches the paperwork lie, the other catches the operators already reported by people before you.