AFSA Regulated Brokers

Five brokers in the WIKILIX records hold a licence from the Astana Financial Services Authority, the regulator of Kazakhstan's Astana International Financial Centre. That is the whole list. AFSA sits at tier 3 on our scale and issues offshore authorisations, so this is a short register rather than a crowded one, and it rewards reading name by name.

The scores stretch from 59.6 down to 7, with the middle of the group at 32.7. Two of the five, SOCIETE GENERALE and PRIME CDEX, carry our clean regulation label and hold licences from several stronger authorities alongside AFSA, including the tier-1 Securities and Futures Commission. The other three do not. WesternFX holds an AFSA licence and nothing else on record, while both TradeEU Global and Neomarkets sit under a no-regulation status despite the AFSA entry.

What sits behind an AIFC licence

The Astana International Financial Centre runs on its own rulebook, modelled on English common law rather than Kazakh national law, and AFSA is the body that authorises firms to operate inside it. A licence there permits specific regulated activities, such as dealing in investments or arranging deals, under those AIFC rules. It does not by itself tell you which products a firm may sell you or which countries it may accept clients from. Those permissions are listed against each firm on AFSA's own public register, and they are worth reading before any deposit. You can search a name or licence number at publicreg.myafsa.com.

Five firms, five different home countries

Only one of these brokers, Neomarkets, is actually headquartered in Kazakhstan. The rest are registered elsewhere and hold the AFSA licence as one entry among several. SOCIETE GENERALE is a China-registered name that opened in 1864, PRIME CDEX is based in Hong Kong and dates to 1993, WesternFX is in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and TradeEU Global, the youngest here at a 2024 opening, is in Mauritius. Four of the five hold licences from two or more authorities, so the AFSA entry is usually part of a wider set rather than the only thing standing behind the firm.

A licence is not a clean bill of health

Three of these five carry a WIKILIX status other than plain regulation: WesternFX is marked offshore, and TradeEU Global and Neomarkets are both marked no regulation. That label reflects the wider picture we hold on each firm, not a judgement about AFSA itself. An offshore licence from a tier-3 authority offers weaker recourse than an onshore tier-1 one, and where a firm pairs a thin licence set with a low score, as Neomarkets does at 7, the AFSA badge should carry very little weight in your decision.

Checks worth making before you fund an account

• Confirm the firm's exact AFSA permissions on the public register, since a licence to arrange deals is not the same as a licence to hold your money.
• Check whether the entity you are contracting with is the AIFC-registered one or an offshore sister company, as the two can share a brand but not a regulator.
• Read the leverage on offer against the licence: WesternFX and PRIME CDEX both advertise up to 1:500, far above what an onshore regulator would allow.
• Look up any second or third regulator a firm claims, because on this list the stronger licences do more work than the AFSA one.