#1
OCBC Securities
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 1986MAS
Regulation
License
Spread
66.8Score
Thirteen of the brokerage and trading firms WIKILIX tracks are headquartered in Singapore. This page lists all of them, ordered by overall score, from KGI Securities and OCBC at the top down to smaller and newer arrivals. What they share is a registered address on the island, not a common licence. That is a narrower and more precise thing than the question most searchers are really asking, and the difference is worth pinning down before you read the grid.
Head office in Singapore is not the same as a MAS licence
A firm appears here because its head office sits in Singapore. That is separate from two things people tend to fold into it. It does not mean the company holds a Capital Markets Services licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and it does not mean the company accepts clients who live in Singapore. Seven of the thirteen do hold a MAS licence, among them OCBC Securities, CMC Markets and Phillip Nova. The rest are based on the island but carry their permissions abroad, and two of them, TianFu Markets and GEX Ventures, are recorded with no regulator at all. Eleven carry a clean regulation status in our records, and those two are the exceptions.
The brokers people expect here, and why they are missing
Search for a forex broker in Singapore and the familiar results are large CFD houses that MAS has licensed to serve local traders. Most of those keep their head office in London or New York, so their registered address is not in Singapore and they fall outside this list. The reverse happens too. PhillipCapital, one of the oldest names shown, is on record through its permissions in Australia and the United States rather than a Singapore licence, though the group is Singaporean to its core. For the roster of firms MAS itself has authorised, read the MAS Financial Institutions Directory. This page answers the separate question of who is genuinely based in the country.
Why the list looks like banks, not CFD startups
The makeup of this list says something about the market. Six of the thirteen firms opened before 2000, and KGI Securities traces its Singapore business to 1955, long before retail forex existed. OCBC Securities and CGS International grew out of older banking and securities groups. That heritage shows in the leverage on offer. OCBC and CMC Markets cap out at 1:50, while PhillipCapital and POEMS sit at 1:1, the profile of a securities broker rather than a high-leverage shop. A couple run the other way, with D prime and TianFu Markets both recorded at 1:1000. The median score across the thirteen is 50.8, and eight hold at least one tier-1 licence once you count MAS, the FCA and ASIC.
Before you fund an account with a Singapore firm
- Read which legal entity the account agreement actually names. A Singapore head office can still book your account through an overseas arm with weaker protections.
- Search the firm's full legal name on the MAS register and confirm it holds the specific licence for the product you intend to trade.
- Check the MAS Investor Alert List before you deposit, since a firm that sits on neither register is one to walk away from.
- Weigh the leverage. A MAS-licensed arm at 1:50 and an offshore-licensed arm at 1:1000 are very different risk profiles even under one brand name.
13brokers on this list
Researched & ranked by the Wikilix team
- #2
CMC Markets Singapore Pte. Ltd
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 2006FCA
RegulationLicenseSpread65.4Score - #3
KGI Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 1955MASRegulationLicenseSpread62.3Score - #4
PhillipCapital
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 1975DFSA
RegulationLicenseSpread59.2Score - #5
Phillip Nova Pte Ltd
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 1983MASRegulationLicenseSpread58.2Score - #6
Doo Technology Singapore Pte. Ltd
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 2021FINRA
RegulationLicenseSpread58.2Score - #7
CGS International Securities Pte. Ltd.
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 1987MAS
RegulationLicenseSpread51.5Score - #8
Asia Capital Markets LLC
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 2023FSC
RegulationLicenseSpread51.3Score - #9
TianFu Markets Limited
No RegulationSingaporeEst. 201050.0Score - #10
poems
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 1996MASRegulationLicenseSpread45.8Score - #11
GIC
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 2015FSA
RegulationLicenseSpread26.7Score - #12
Bison Technology Pte. Ltd.
RegulatedSingaporeEst. 2019FSC
RegulationLicenseSpread21.4Score
This list changes as the underlying records change. A firm that relocates its head office, gains a licence or loses one moves on or off the page on its own, so the thirteen here reflect what WIKILIX holds today. Scores and opening dates come from the same records and are rechecked on a rolling basis rather than frozen to a date.
If your real concern is licensing rather than address, the Monetary Authority of Singapore keeps its own register at the MAS Financial Institutions Directory, and its Investor Alert List names firms it has warned the public about. Reading both takes a few minutes and settles most questions a page like this cannot.
Two follow-on views are useful from here. A ranking built on MAS-licensed firms would capture the global brokers that serve Singapore from overseas, which this domicile view deliberately leaves out. And if you are weighing one Asian financial centre against another, the pages on firms based in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Japan sit beside this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently asked questions
Answers from the Wikilix research team about this ranking.
Most Popular Questions
The list is ordered by each firm's overall WIKILIX score, highest first, so OCBC at 66.8 leads and lower-scored names follow. The score reflects the strength of a firm's licences and how long it has operated, among other things. It is not a recommendation, and it does not measure spreads or execution quality.
It varies widely, and the difference is the point. Firms operating under a MAS retail licence apply low caps, with OCBC and CMC Markets shown at 1:50 and securities brokers such as PhillipCapital and POEMS at 1:1. Others recorded here reach far higher, with D prime and TianFu Markets both at 1:1000, which usually reflects an offshore licence rather than a Singapore one.
The address a firm is registered at does not tell you which countries it accepts clients from. A broker based in Singapore may serve traders worldwide, or may restrict accounts to residents of certain countries, and that decision sits in its own onboarding terms rather than in its domicile. Read each firm's account rules before assuming you are eligible to open one.
Seven of them: OCBC Securities, CMC Markets, KGI Securities, Phillip Nova, D prime, CGS International and POEMS all list a MAS licence in WIKILIX records. You can confirm any of these on the MAS Financial Institutions Directory by searching the firm's full legal name. The remaining six Singapore-based firms hold either foreign licences or, in two cases, none on record.
Not necessarily. Being based in Singapore is about where a company's head office sits, while a MAS licence is about what it is authorised to do. A firm can have one without the other. Many brokers popular with Singapore traders are licensed by MAS but headquartered overseas, and some Singapore-based firms hold only foreign permissions. Check the licence separately from the address.
No. Seven of the thirteen firms based in Singapore hold a licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, among them OCBC Securities, CMC Markets and CGS International. The rest are headquartered on the island but carry their permissions elsewhere, and two, TianFu Markets and GEX Ventures, are recorded with no regulator. A Singapore address does not guarantee a MAS licence.
KGI Securities, whose Singapore business dates to 1955, is the longest established firm on this list. PhillipCapital followed in 1975 and Phillip Nova in 1983. Six of the thirteen firms opened before 2000, which is unusual for a forex list and reflects how much of Singapore's brokerage sector grew out of older banking and securities houses rather than recent ventures.
Thirteen brokerage and trading firms in WIKILIX records list a Singapore head office. This page shows all thirteen, ordered by overall score, from KGI Securities and OCBC at the top down to smaller names. The count reflects registered address only, so a firm licensed by MAS but headquartered abroad is not included here even if Singapore traders use it every day.