Risk scorecard
Each area is scored 0 (clean) to 10 (worst). Higher means more risk.
Regulation
3/10 · LowSix authorities verified on their own registers, including a genuine FCA retail dealing permission with client-money rights and an FMA derivatives issuer licence; marked up slightly because the entity that holds most clients' deposits is the Mauritius company and UK, EU and US residents are excluded.
Identity & transparency
2/10 · LowEvery entity named with its registration number, and registered addresses matched the registers exactly in Mauritius, London, Dubai and Auckland; named directors on the New Zealand register; the only gaps are that no verify links are published and the Seychelles address differs between its site and its review profile.
Withdrawals & conduct
7/10 · HighA fund-integrity pattern meeting all four tests: one mechanism of profits voided under clauses 23 and 24 after a withdrawal request, clustered July to October 2026 with cases back to December 2023, on two platforms, with account numbers and exact amounts; held below the top band because no extra payment was ever demanded, principal was offered back in several cases, and the firm answers complaints.
Reputation
7/10 · HighTrustpilot has suspended the score for a guidelines breach and states it removed fake reviews, leaving a hollow-middle split of 47 percent five-star against 51 percent one-star across 126 reviews; no warning-list entry anywhere keeps this out of the worst band.
Website claims
6/10 · HighThe age claim is true and the UAE limitation is honestly disclosed, but a 98.5 percent withdrawal completion rate and two-hour withdrawals sit badly against documented multi-month freezes, the scale figures contradict each other across its own channels, and seven very different permissions are presented as one uniform badge row.
Operational history
2/10 · LowAbout sixteen years verified from records rather than claims: domain registered November 2010, New Zealand company incorporated March 2010, earliest licences February 2012; the brand itself dates only to 2020 and the Mauritius dealer licence only to June 2022.
Who they are
A quick desk file on the company behind the brand.
- Brand: EC Markets, trading since 2010 and under this name since January 2020.
- Legal entity you contract with: EC Markets Limited, Mauritius, company 188565 GBC. The footer states plainly that the website is operated by this company.
- Registered: The Cyberati Lounge, Ground Floor, The Catalyst, Silicon Avenue, 40 Cybercity, 72201 Ebene, Mauritius. The Mauritius regulator's register shows the identical address.
- Other group companies: EC Markets Group Ltd (United Kingdom, 07601714), EC Markets Financial Limited (New Zealand, 2446590, also registered in Australia as ARBN 152 535 085 and in South Africa), EC Markets Limited (Seychelles, 8413793-1), EC Markets Securities & Financial Promotion L.L.C (Dubai, 2430405) and EC Markets Global Ltd (United Kingdom, 12193701, the holding company).
- Website: ecmarkets.com, with ecmarkets.co.uk, ecmarkets.com.au, ecmarkets.co.nz and ecmarkets.sc serving the regional entities.
- Licence that actually covers your deposit: Mauritius FSC, full-service Investment Dealer, granted 20 June 2022.
- Strongest licence in the group: FCA 571881, which permits dealing as principal and as agent in CFDs, rolling spot forex and spread bets for retail clients and allows the firm to hold client money. It applies to the UK entity and its own clients.
- Offers: CFDs on forex, metals, energies, indices and cryptocurrencies, leverage advertised up to 1:1000, own mobile app with more than 50,000 Google Play downloads.
- Not accepted: residents of the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States.
- Age claim: over a decade. Verified and accurate.
- People on record: Aadil Basha Akbar and Sargon John Elias are the named directors of the New Zealand company, both with Auckland addresses on the companies register.
Regulation
Who really oversees this broker, and what each licence is worth to you.
Proof of regulation on an official register: Yes
We confirmed this broker on a genuine regulator’s register.
Licences the broker publishes
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), United Kingdom
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
Financial Markets Authority (FMA), New Zealand
Financial Services Commission (FSC), Mauritius
Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), South Africa
Financial Services Authority (FSA), Seychelles
Capital Market Authority (CMA, formerly the Securities and Commodities Authority), United Arab Emirates
Why we reached this verdict
How the evidence adds up.
This is a genuinely licensed broker with a conduct problem, and the two halves have to be reported together.
- Identity and licensing pass every test. The FCA entry for reference 571881 names EC MARKETS GROUP LTD, records the website as www.ecmarkets.co.uk, gives the address as Parksworth House, 30 City Road, London EC1Y 2AY and the company number as 07601714. All four match what the broker publishes. Companies House confirms that company is active and was incorporated on 12 April 2011. There is no clone-firm alert on the entry. Nothing here resembles impersonation.
- Five more registers agree. ASIC's current licensee records show AFSL 414198 held by EC MARKETS FINANCIAL LIMITED since 17 February 2012, authorising it to deal in and make a market for derivatives and foreign exchange contracts for retail and wholesale clients. New Zealand shows the same company registered since 14 February 2012 and, more importantly, holding an FMA derivatives issuer licence since 20 January 2015, together with membership of the Financial Dispute Resolution Service. South Africa lists FSP 51886 as authorised. Mauritius lists EC Markets Limited as a full-service Investment Dealer from 20 June 2022 at the exact registered office the site publishes. The Seychelles authority carries EC Markets Limited on its securities dealer list.
- No regulator has warned about this operation. We swept the warning and alert lists and found no entry naming any of the six registered EC Markets companies and no enforcement action or fraud-related court record against them.
- What does concern us is what happens after a profitable withdrawal request. Across two review platforms, clients describe one mechanism repeatedly. A trader in Qatar gives account 81071898, a deposit of about 2,500 US dollars, a balance of about 4,300 US dollars and a withdrawal request on 31 July 2026, after which the account was reviewed, the profits were refused under clauses 23 and 24 of the client agreement and account access was disabled. A trader in the UAE gives withdrawals of 1,047.12 and 945.94 US dollars requested on 11 September 2026 and marked failed, followed by a trading activity review. A trader in Azerbaijan describes the same clauses, account closure and more than two months without a resolution. Others report 559 dollars and about 200 dollars of profit unpaid. The same pattern appears earlier, with 4,999 dollars in December 2023 and roughly 7,500 dollars on MT5 account 81007667 in March 2025.
- That set meets all four tests we apply before treating complaints as serious. One mechanism, not assorted gripes. A clear cluster from July to October 2026. Different people on two platforms and in five countries. And checkable detail: account numbers, amounts to the cent, dates and the specific contract clauses invoked.
- Trustpilot itself has acted. The company's score there is withheld for a breach of platform guidelines and the platform states it removed a number of fake reviews. Of 126 reviews, 94 arrived in the last twelve months and the split is 47 percent five-star, zero percent four-star, 2 percent three-star, zero percent two-star and 51 percent one-star. A hollow middle like that is the signature of a managed review profile, and it means the positive half cannot be read at face value.
- The marketing does not match that record. The licence page advertises a 98.5 percent withdrawal completion rate and withdrawals credited within two hours, which sits badly beside accounts frozen for months. Scale figures also disagree across the company's own channels: 2.113 trillion dollars of monthly volume and 322,000 active traders on the website, against more than 1 trillion dollars and 118,000 active traders on its own Trustpilot profile.
- The footer flattens seven very different permissions into one badge row. One of the seven, the Dubai licence, is a category 5 advice and promotion authorisation. The UAE regulator publishes a notice on its own register stating the company is not licensed there for brokerage in derivatives or spot foreign exchange and cannot execute client orders. To its credit the broker discloses that limitation in its own words, but the badge row does not.
- Why not worse. We found no regulator warning, no enforcement action, no fabricated licence number and no borrowed credentials. Critically, nobody reports being asked to pay a tax, fee or charge to release their funds, which is the hallmark of an outright theft and is absent here. The disputes centre on profits the firm says came from prohibited trading, with several clients saying their principal was offered back. That is a serious and contested practice, not the same thing as a scam.
- Why not better. A clean report requires no unrebutted serious finding against the broker. This one has two. We assess the risk to a consistently profitable client as high.
- Arithmetic: regulation 3 and identity 2 both weighted twice, withdrawal complaints 7 weighted twice because the pattern concerns client money and met four of four tests, reputation 7, website claims 6 and operating history 2. That gives 39 over a weight of 9, which is 4.33, so 43 percent. No floor was triggered: the operation is about sixteen years old and leaves a large public footprint.
Evidence ledger
Every finding, with its source and how strongly it points.
E1The FCA register records reference number 571881 against EC MARKETS GROUP LTD as Authorised since 8 August 2012, with the website www.ecmarkets.co.uk, the address Parksworth House, 30 City Road, London EC1Y 2AY and company number 07601714, all matching the broker's own disclosures. Permissions include dealing in investments as principal and as agent for retail clients in contracts for differences, rolling spot forex and spread bets, and the firm can hold and control client money. No clone-firm alert appears on the entry.
Hard proofFCA Financial Services RegisterE2ASIC's current Australian Financial Services licensee records show licence 414198 held by EC MARKETS FINANCIAL LIMITED since 17 February 2012, under ABN 39 152 535 085, which corresponds to the ARBN 152 535 085 the broker publishes. The conditions authorise the licensee to deal in and to make a market for derivatives and foreign exchange contracts for retail and wholesale clients.
E3New Zealand's financial service providers register shows EC MARKETS FINANCIAL LIMITED, FSP197465, trading as EC Markets, registered since 14 February 2012 and holding a derivatives issuer licence from the Financial Markets Authority with an authorisation date of 20 January 2015. It also records retail and wholesale custodial client money services and membership of the Financial Dispute Resolution Service, number FM1028. This is a genuine licence, not merely a provider registration.
E4The Mauritius Financial Services Commission's public register lists EC Markets Limited with a licence dated 20 June 2022 of type SEC-2.1B Investment Dealer, Full Service Dealer excluding Underwriting, managed by Credentia International Management Ltd, with no annotations. The registered office shown is Silicon Avenue, The Cyberati Lounge, Ground Floor, The Catalyst, 40 Cybercity, 72201 Ebene, identical to the address on the broker's site. This is a real dealer licence rather than a bare global business registration.
E5The South African FSCA register returns FSP number 51886 as EC MARKETS FINANCIAL LIMITED with status Authorized, matching the entity name the broker publishes for that licence.
E6The Seychelles Financial Services Authority publishes EC Markets Limited on its securities dealer list for capital markets. The published list does not display licence numbers, so the number SD009 that the broker advertises is not shown alongside the entry, but the licence holder is confirmed on the authority's own register.
E7The UAE Capital Market Authority register shows EC MARKETS SECURITIES & FINANCIAL PROMOTION L.L.C as Active at Magnum Opus Tower, Floor 18, Office 1801, Barsha Heights, Dubai, matching the broker's published address, with an establishment date of 11 October 2024. The regulator attaches a notice to the entry stating that the company is not licensed by it to conduct brokerage in financial derivatives, unregulated commodity contracts or spot foreign exchange, and that its category 5 licence does not authorise it to conduct trading operations, manage portfolios or execute client orders.
E8Trustpilot withholds this company's rating, stating the score is unavailable due to a breach of its guidelines and that it removed a number of fake reviews. Of 126 reviews, 94 were posted in the last twelve months, split 47 percent five-star, zero percent four-star, 2 percent three-star, zero percent two-star and 51 percent one-star. The platform's own topic labels for the page include payment, refund, cancellation and complaint.
E9Detailed one-star reviews describe one repeated mechanism. A client in Qatar gives trading account 81071898, a deposit of about 2,500 US dollars, a balance of about 4,300 US dollars and a withdrawal request on 31 July 2026, after which the account was placed under review, profits were refused under clauses 23 and 24 of the client agreement and account access was disabled, without the specific transactions or a calculation being identified. A client in the UAE gives withdrawals of 1,047.12 and 945.94 US dollars requested on 11 September 2026 and marked failed, followed by a trading activity review. A client in Azerbaijan describes the same clauses, account closure and more than two months without resolution. Further reviews report 559 US dollars and about 200 US dollars of profit unpaid.
E10A second review platform, whose pages name ecmarkets.com and ecmarkets.co.uk so the entries are tied to this operation, carries the same mechanism on earlier dates: 4,999 US dollars of profit confiscated in December 2023, and an account blocked in March 2025 holding about 7,500 US dollars made up of 2,500 US dollars of principal and about 5,000 US dollars of profit, on MT5 account 81007667. One user records being told the profits would be confiscated with no alternative but to agree, and another records a swap-free violation being alleged on an account that was not swap-free. The same platform's aggregate user score for the broker is nonetheless net positive at 8.6 out of 10 across 150 reviews.
E11The main domain ecmarkets.com was registered on 5 November 2010, is on its original registration with no re-registration gap, and expires in November 2026. Regional and alias domains were added over time: ecmarkets.co.uk in April 2019, ecmarkets.net in April 2020 and ec-markets.net in March 2023. This is the accumulation pattern of a real group rather than a fresh launch on an aged domain.
E12The New Zealand Companies Office shows EC MARKETS FINANCIAL LIMITED, company 2446590, incorporated on 30 March 2010 and currently Registered, with its registered office at Level 1, 1 Albert Street, Auckland 1010 matching the broker's published address, two named directors resident in Auckland, 86 documents filed, the corporate website recorded as www.ecmarkets.co.nz and the annual return last filed on 3 March 2026.
E13Companies House shows EC MARKETS GROUP LTD, company 07601714, as Active, incorporated on 12 April 2011 at Parksworth House, 30 City Road, London EC1Y 2AY, with former names DNL FINANCE LIMITED from 2011 to 2013, ALUMFX LIMITED from 2013 to 2015 and GCM PRIME LTD from 2015 to 2020. The same company has held FCA authorisation continuously since August 2012, so the rebrands are a renaming of one authorised entity rather than a new operation.
StrongUK Companies HouseE14The predecessor brand GCM Prime Ltd carries no warning-list entry and no regulator action. Trade press records that AlumFX was acquired in 2015 by Prime Trade Holdings Corp and renamed GCM Prime, that the affiliated US company Gallant Capital Markets filed for Chapter 11 in April 2017, that GCM Prime itself did not file for bankruptcy and faced no regulatory action, and that no client fund losses arose. The business was subsequently sold to a different owner and renamed EC Markets, severing the former ownership link.
E15A Japanese warning that is often misattributed to this broker does not concern it. On 28 October 2022 the Kanto Local Finance Bureau published a warning against an operator conducting unregistered financial instruments business by soliciting over-the-counter derivatives online. The firm named is Ec MARKETS Global LLC at First Floor, First St Vincent Bank Ltd Building, James Street, Kingstown, St Vincent and the Grenadines, with the service name given as Ec MARKETS. No website is published in the notice, none of this group's six registered companies is incorporated in St Vincent, and the bureau states on the notice that the firm name and address are taken from solicitation materials and may be false.
E16The broker's licence page lists seven authorities as a single badge row headed by a claim of regulation across seven global authorities, while advertising a 98.5 percent withdrawal completion rate and withdrawals credited within two hours. It publishes no external verification link for any of the seven licences, so each register has to be located independently. The footer does, to its credit, state in plain terms that the Dubai entity holds a category 5 ranking and advice licence and is not authorised to hold client assets or client money.
E17The company's self-reported scale figures contradict each other across its own channels. The homepage states 2.113 trillion US dollars of average monthly trading volume and 322,000 active traders as at the second quarter of 2026, while the company-written profile on its Trustpilot page states average monthly trading volume exceeding 1 trillion US dollars and more than 118,000 active traders. Neither figure is independently verifiable.
E18The Liverpool F.C. partnership advertised on the homepage is genuine. Industry and football trade press reported in July 2025 that EC Markets signed a multi-year deal making it an official global partner of the club, covering pitch-side branding at Anfield and player rights, with Liverpool's chief commercial officer quoted on the record. A sponsorship of this scale evidences a real, funded operation, though it says nothing about how client withdrawals are handled.
E19ASIC's company register confirms EC MARKETS FINANCIAL LIMITED as a Registered foreign company under ARBN 152 535 085 based in Sydney, with the business names EC MARKETS FINANCIAL and EC MARKETS registered and ECMARKETS cancelled. The ARBN matches the number the broker publishes.
E20The broker operates a real trading app published under the developer name Ec Markets with more than 50,000 downloads on Google Play, corroborating an operating retail business. The store rating is 3.4 from only five reviews, which is too thin to carry any weight on conduct in either direction.
E21The Mauritius client agreement, the contract governing clients of the company that operates ecmarkets.com, is published on the site in a version dated 15 July 2026. It is the document whose clauses 23 and 24 the firm has cited to clients when refusing to pay profits, which makes those clauses the decisive terms for anyone trading with an automated strategy, a VPS or a news-based method.
E22Companies House shows EC MARKETS GLOBAL LTD, company 12193701, as Active, incorporated on 6 September 2019 at Floor 3, 30 City Road, London EC1Y 2AY, classified as the activities of financial services holding companies. This is a UK holding company and is a different entity in a different jurisdiction from the St Vincent limited liability company named in the 2022 Japanese notice.
ModerateUK Companies House
The other side
The strongest case in this broker’s favour.
The case for EC Markets is stronger than for most brokers we look at, and it deserves stating properly.
- The regulation is not decoration. Six separate authorities, opened one by one on their own registers, all confirm an active authorisation in the exact entity name the broker publishes. The FCA permission is a full retail dealing permission with client-money rights, not an introducing or advice licence, and the New Zealand arm holds a real derivatives issuer licence rather than the bare provider registration that offshore firms often dress up as regulation.
- Clients of some entities have real redress. UK clients of EC Markets Group Ltd may be able to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service and claim from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. New Zealand clients have the Financial Dispute Resolution Service, membership FM1028, in place since 2013.
- The history is verified, not claimed. The main domain dates to November 2010 and the New Zealand company to March 2010. Most brokers that advertise a decade cannot evidence it. This one can.
- It behaves like a real business. A multi-year Liverpool F.C. global partnership announced in July 2025 and confirmed by the club's own commercial leadership, senior hires from established brokers, 86 filings on the New Zealand register with the annual return filed in March 2026, an app with more than 50,000 downloads, and registered offices that match the regulators' records in Mauritius, London, Dubai and Auckland. Fabricated operations do not sustain that.
- It is unusually candid about its weakest licence. Many brokers would list a Dubai licence and say nothing more. This one states in its own footer that the UAE entity holds a category 5 ranking and advice licence and is not authorised to hold client assets or client money, which is exactly what the regulator says.
- The predecessor history is clean. The UK entity was DNL Finance, then AlumFX, then GCM Prime before becoming EC Markets Group in January 2020. We checked that chain. GCM Prime carried no warning-list entry and no regulator action. An affiliated company of a former owner, Gallant Capital Markets, filed for Chapter 11 in April 2017, but that was a separate company, GCM Prime was not a party to it, no client-fund losses were reported, and the business has since changed hands.
- A plausible innocent reading of the complaints exists. Several complainants volunteer that they ran automated strategies on a VPS or traded the news, and one was told the trades had drawn attention from upstream liquidity providers. Voiding profits from latency and arbitrage-style flow is a real and widespread term in broker agreements, and a broker enforcing a disclosed clause is not stealing. The firm also replies to complaints publicly rather than ignoring them.
- A Japanese warning that looks like a hit is not one. On 28 October 2022 the Kanto Local Finance Bureau warned an operator using the service name Ec MARKETS for unregistered online derivatives solicitation. The entity named is Ec MARKETS Global LLC at an address in St Vincent and the Grenadines. None of this group's six registered companies is in St Vincent, the notice publishes no website, and the bureau states on the notice that the name and address given may be false. We did not count it against this broker, and anyone citing it as a warning about EC Markets Limited is reading it wrongly.
- Honest weight on the other side. What the steelman cannot explain is why the complaints are so specific and so alike, why they recur across three years, why account access is switched off while a dispute is open, and why Trustpilot found fake reviews worth removing. A firm confident in its contractual position would normally identify the offending trades and show the client the arithmetic, which is precisely what these clients say did not happen.
What would change this
What we would need to see to revise the verdict.
These are the specific things that would move this report in either direction.
- Towards a clean rating: evidence that disputed profits were paid out, or that the firm now identifies the specific trades and provides a full reconciliation when it invokes clauses 23 and 24, would address the central complaint directly.
- Towards a clean rating: Trustpilot restoring the company's score, which would mean the review-manipulation finding had been resolved.
- Towards a clean rating: a six to twelve month stretch with no new fund-integrity complaints on the same mechanism, since the current cluster runs from July to October 2026.
- Towards a clean rating: the group moving retail client money to one of its licensed onshore entities, or publishing audited segregation arrangements for the Mauritius company.
- Towards a worse rating: any regulator adding EC Markets Limited, EC Markets Group Ltd or EC Markets Financial Limited to a warning or alert list, or opening an enforcement action.
- Towards a worse rating: a determination against the firm by the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Financial Dispute Resolution Service or a court on a withheld-profits case.
- Towards a worse rating, decisively: any credible report of the firm demanding a tax, fee or further deposit before releasing funds. We found none, and it would change the character of the case completely.
- Towards a worse rating: evidence tying the group to the St Vincent entity named in the 2022 Japanese notice, or a Japanese-language solicitation page on a domain this group controls.
- Towards a worse rating: the Mauritius Investment Dealer licence acquiring an annotation, a suspension or a surrender entry, since that is the licence that covers most clients' deposits.
Check it yourself
Official registers and warning lists. Verify every claim first-hand.
FCA register entry, EC Markets Group Ltd (571881)
Shows the UK entity as authorised, with its permissions, address and recorded website.
ASIC current AFS licensee record, AFSL 414198
ASIC's own published licensee data showing the licence holder, start date and conditions.
New Zealand FSP register entry, FSP197465
Confirms registration and the FMA derivatives issuer licence granted in January 2015.
Mauritius FSC Online Public Register
Search the name EC Markets to see the Investment Dealer licence that covers client deposits.
FSCA authorised financial service providers search
Enter FSP number 51886 to confirm the South African authorisation.
Seychelles FSA securities dealer list
EC Markets Limited appears on the authority's published securities dealer list.
UAE Capital Market Authority register entry
Shows the Dubai entity as active and carries the regulator's notice limiting it to a category 5 licence.
Companies House, EC Markets Group Ltd (07601714)
Incorporation date of 12 April 2011 and the former names DNL Finance, AlumFX and GCM Prime.
New Zealand Companies Office, EC Markets Financial Limited (2446590)
Incorporated 30 March 2010, with the two named directors and the registered office.
EC Markets client agreement (Mauritius)
Contains clauses 23 and 24, the terms the firm has used to cancel profits.
Trustpilot reviews for ecmarkets.com
Score currently withheld by the platform for a guidelines breach; read the detailed one-star reviews.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about this broker’s safety.
Is EC Markets a scam?
No, not on the evidence we found. It holds genuine, active licences from six regulators that we opened and read one by one, including a UK FCA permission to deal in CFDs and forex for retail clients. No regulator has warned about it. But it is not a low-risk broker either: clients report having profits cancelled and accounts disabled after requesting withdrawals, which is why we rate it high risk at 43 percent.
Is EC Markets a fraud?
No regulator or court has found that, and we found no enforcement action and no fraud-related court record naming any of its six registered companies. What we did find is a repeating pattern of clients saying their profits were voided after a withdrawal request. We assess the risk to a consistently profitable client as high, but that is our assessment of conduct, not a finding of a crime by anybody.
Is EC Markets regulated?
Yes, and genuinely so. We confirmed EC Markets Group Ltd on the FCA register under reference 571881, EC Markets Financial Limited under ASIC licence 414198, a New Zealand FMA derivatives issuer licence and FSP197465, FSCA number 51886 in South Africa, a Mauritius Investment Dealer licence and a Seychelles securities dealer listing. The Dubai licence is real but is advice and promotion only.
Can I withdraw my money from EC Markets?
Ordinary withdrawals appear to work for most clients, but this is the broker's weak point. Several clients across two review platforms describe withdrawals being marked failed or held for months once they were in profit, followed by the profits being cancelled under clauses 23 and 24 of the client agreement. Withdraw regularly and in modest amounts rather than letting a balance build.
Is my money safe with EC Markets?
That depends entirely on which company holds your account. ecmarkets.com is operated by EC Markets Limited in Mauritius, a mid-tier offshore regulator, so the UK ombudsman and compensation scheme do not apply to you. Clients of the UK or New Zealand entities are in a materially better position, with access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Dispute Resolution Service respectively.
Why does Trustpilot not show a rating for EC Markets?
Trustpilot has withheld the score for a breach of its guidelines and states it removed a number of fake reviews for this company. The surviving 126 reviews split 47 percent five-star against 51 percent one-star with almost nothing in between, which is the signature of a managed review profile. Treat both halves with caution.
How old is EC Markets?
About sixteen years as an operation, though the EC Markets brand is newer. The main domain was registered on 5 November 2010 and the New Zealand company was incorporated on 30 March 2010. The UK company dates to April 2011 and was renamed EC Markets Group in January 2020, having previously traded as GCM Prime, AlumFX and DNL Finance.
Who owns EC Markets?
The UK entity was acquired by a London-based Chinese entrepreneur, Xiaoliang Lyu, and rebranded as EC Markets around 2019 and 2020, according to industry trade press. EC Markets Global Ltd, incorporated in London in September 2019, is registered as a financial services holding company. The New Zealand company's directors on the public register are Aadil Basha Akbar and Sargon John Elias.
Is EC Markets a clone of another broker?
No. We ran the full check. The FCA register records reference 571881 against EC MARKETS GROUP LTD with the website www.ecmarkets.co.uk, the address Parksworth House, 30 City Road, London, and company number 07601714, all of which match what the broker publishes. Registered addresses also matched in Mauritius, Dubai and Auckland. There is no clone-firm alert on the FCA entry.
What about the Japanese regulator warning I saw mentioned?
That warning is not about this broker. On 28 October 2022 Japan's Kanto Local Finance Bureau warned an operator using the service name Ec MARKETS for unregistered online derivatives solicitation, but the entity named is Ec MARKETS Global LLC at an address in St Vincent and the Grenadines. None of this group's six registered companies is in St Vincent, no website is published in the notice, and the bureau itself states the name and address given may be false.
Is the Liverpool F.C. partnership real?
Yes. The multi-year global partnership was announced in July 2025 and reported by industry and football trade press, with Liverpool's own commercial leadership quoted. It is good evidence that the company is real and well funded. It is not evidence about whether a profitable client gets paid, so do not treat a sponsorship as a safety signal.
What is the Dubai licence worth?
Less than the badge suggests. EC Markets Securities and Financial Promotion L.L.C is active on the UAE register, but the regulator publishes a notice on that entry stating the company is not licensed there for brokerage in derivatives, unregulated commodities or spot foreign exchange, and cannot execute client orders. The broker does disclose this in its own footer, which is to its credit.
What should I check before depositing with EC Markets?
Four things. Read clauses 23 and 24 of the client agreement, since those are what the firm has used to cancel profits. Confirm in writing that your trading strategy is permitted, especially if you use an expert advisor, a VPS or news trading. Check which legal entity your account is with. And test a small withdrawal before committing serious money.
What do I do if EC Markets is withholding my funds?
Put a written complaint to EC Markets Compliance asking for the specific transactions alleged to breach the agreement, the exact rule relied on, a full account statement and a complete calculation of the amount withheld. Then escalate according to your entity: the Financial Ombudsman Service for the UK company, the Financial Dispute Resolution Service under membership FM1028 for New Zealand, or the Mauritius Financial Services Commission for the Mauritius company. Never pay a fee to anyone promising to recover the funds.
What we recommend
The practical takeaway from everything above.
Treat this as a real, licensed broker that is risky specifically if you trade well.
- Read clauses 23 and 24 of the Mauritius client agreement before you deposit. Those are the clauses the firm has invoked to cancel profits, and they are the single most important pages on the site for anyone using an expert advisor, a VPS, a scalping method or news trading. The agreement is published as a PDF on the site.
- Ask in writing, before funding, whether your intended strategy is permitted. Keep the answer. Every complaint we read turns on the firm deciding after the fact that a strategy was prohibited.
- Check which company your account is actually with. If it is EC Markets Limited in Mauritius, the UK ombudsman and compensation scheme do not apply to you. If you are eligible for the UK, Australian or New Zealand entity, that is a materially better position.
- Withdraw profits early and in modest amounts rather than letting a large balance build, and test the withdrawal process with a small sum first.
- Be sceptical of the review profile in both directions. Trustpilot has removed fake reviews here, so neither the five-star nor the one-star half should be taken at face value. Read the detailed reviews that name amounts and dates.
- Ignore the leverage headline. Up to 1:1000 is not a feature, it is the fastest route to losing your deposit.
- If funds are already withheld: submit a written complaint to EC Markets Compliance asking for the specific transactions alleged to breach the agreement, the rule relied on, a full account statement and a complete calculation of what is withheld. If your account is with the UK entity, escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service; if with the New Zealand entity, to the Financial Dispute Resolution Service under membership FM1028; if with the Mauritius entity, complain to the Mauritius Financial Services Commission.
- For our own records: we recommend this broker is shown as offshore rather than simply regulated, because the company that holds client money is the Mauritius one, and that the Mauritius and UAE licences be added to its profile.
This is an independent assessment of risk, not a legal ruling. Scores and verdicts follow the Wikilix broker-safety methodology and can change as new evidence appears. Review scores are treated with caution when a broker’s reviews look manipulated. Last reviewed October 20, 2026. If any detail here is out of date or incorrect, or you represent this broker, please contact us.
What traders say about EC Markets
The latest from the 1 comment on the EC Markets profile
A Reliable Broker with Competitive Features
EC Markets stands out with its tight spreads starting from 0.0 pips, high leverage up to 1:1000, and support for both MT4 and MT5 platforms.
Comments and replies are posted there and reviewed by Wikilix first.
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