Fearnley Securities

Overview

Fearnley Securities AS is a Norwegian investment firm based in Oslo and part of the Astrup Fearnley group. Its own company history dates the securities business to 1987, and the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises records the company as incorporated on 25 November 1987 under organisation number 945 757 647. It is important to be clear about what this firm is: it is an institutional securities house offering investment banking, equity and credit research, equity and credit sales, corporate access and project finance. It is not a retail foreign exchange or CFD broker, it does not advertise trading accounts, spreads or leverage, and there is no way to open a trading account online with it.

Regulation and licensing

The firm publishes a Licence and Regulations document stating that Fearnley Securities AS is licensed and supervised by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway, known as Finanstilsynet, and is a member of the Norwegian Investor Compensation Scheme. The same document states that the group's US entity, Fearnley Securities, Inc., is a registered broker-dealer with SEC file number 8-69566 and FINRA registration number 174133, and a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. The London office operates through Fearnley Securities Limited as an appointed representative of Sapia Partners LLP, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. No licence or firm reference numbers are published for the Norwegian and UK permissions, and none of these authorisations was checked against the relevant authority's own register in the course of this review.

Safety of client assets

Because the firm is an authorised investment firm rather than a deposit-taking trading venue, the protections that apply are those of the regimes above: the Norwegian Investor Compensation Scheme in Norway, and SIPC cover of up to 500,000 US dollars, including 250,000 dollars for cash claims, in the United States. The firm's General Business Terms set out client classification under the MiFID framework, with retail clients receiving a higher standard of information and suitability assessment than professional clients.

Accounts and onboarding

There are no published account tiers, minimum deposits or leverage caps, because the firm does not sell trading accounts. Onboarding is done by completing a corporate customer application form and returning it to the firm's know-your-customer desk. In practice, this is an institutional relationship rather than a self-service signup.

What is traded

The firm's Information regarding Product Offer lists a deliberately limited range: listed and unlisted equities and equity instruments, listed and unlisted bonds, money market instruments, direct investments and shares in limited partnerships, exchange traded funds, exchange traded notes and US options. The General Business Terms also contemplate foreign exchange spot settlement and OTC derivatives, but as institutional dealing arrangements under separate contracts, not as a leveraged retail product. What is on offer depends on whether the client is classified as an eligible counterparty, a professional client or a retail client.

Fees and platforms

The firm publishes a cost and charges document and annual order execution reports rather than a spread table, and no commission schedule, minimum deposit or leverage figure is advertised. It offers no MetaTrader, cTrader or proprietary trading terminal. Clients reach research through the firm's research portal, and execution runs through its sales desks.

Offices and contact

The registered office is at Dronning Eufemias gate 8, 0191 Oslo, with a mailing address at P.O. Box 1158 Sentrum, and the main switchboard is +47 22 93 60 00. The firm also lists offices in London at 4 Millbank, in New York at 885 Third Avenue and in Singapore at 3 Killiney Road. There is no live chat, no support ticket portal and no retail help centre.

Strengths and drawbacks

• A long-established, named and registry-verified Norwegian company with an audited balance sheet and published capital adequacy filings going back more than a decade.
• Regulated standing in three jurisdictions, disclosed clearly and with the US registration numbers stated outright.
• Full corporate transparency: named management, a named auditor, a registered office that matches the registry, and a compliance library of policies and reports.
• Not usable by a retail trader. There is no account opening, no platform, no leverage and no funding channel.
• The Norwegian and UK permissions are described in words rather than by number, so a reader cannot look them up from the firm's own pages alone.
• No published policy on which countries the firm will or will not onboard.

Assessment

Fearnley Securities is a real, transparent and long-lived institutional securities firm, and nothing in what it publishes suggests otherwise. What it is not is a forex or CFD broker, and anyone arriving here looking for a trading account is in the wrong place. Any website, message or introducer offering leveraged retail trading in this firm's name should be treated as an impersonation and checked against the contact details on the firm's own site.