How to verify a broker on a regulator register

Verification is a five-minute job that most landing pages hope you skip. Do it anyway.

Step by step

1. Open the broker’s legal documents or account form and copy the company name exactly.
2. Open the public register for the regulator that is supposed to cover you.
3. Search the name and, if listed, the licence or reference number.
4. Check status: authorised, restricted, warning, or not found.
5. Match the permissions to what you were sold (CFDs, retail, professional).

Red flags that show up here

Clone sites reuse a real firm’s name. A warning list entry with a similar URL is not a licence. A “we are regulated in [country]” line with no number is incomplete.

If chat support cannot give you the entity on the contract, do not fill the gap with hope. Peak Pips takes corrections when a page here looks wrong — send a register link, not a slogan.

Next: use the broker shortlist only after the register search, not instead of it.

When the register search returns a different company than the ad, stop. Entity splits are the whole point of notes such as the OANDA review and the Admirals review. The index of those URLs is forex broker research notes.

This is editorial. It is not advice, a broker pitch, or a call to deposit. Confirm licences and costs on the firm’s own site.