#1
Interactive Brokers Hong Kong Limited
RegulatedHong KongEst. 1996CIRO
Regulation
License
Spread
73.5Score
WIKILIX records a market-making execution model against 49 brokers, and every one of them is on this page. That is the complete set in our database, not a shortlist. The pages competing for this search run to five or ten hand-picked names, so what is actually useful here is the count and the licence record sitting behind each entry.
The headline figures, measured across all 49:
- 47 of the 49 hold at least one licence from an authority WIKILIX classifies as tier-1.
- The median WIKILIX score is 52.7. The set runs from 16.9 up to 72.5.
- 29 of the 48 firms with a recorded opening date began operating before 2010.
- 41 are licensed by two or more separate authorities. Eight hold a single licence.
- 37 hold an ASIC licence, 18 hold an FCA licence, 11 hold an FSCA licence.
- 24 record a maximum leverage of 1:500 or higher. The highest figure is 1:3000, at FBS.
Interactive Brokers tops the grid on score at 72.5, with licences recorded from eleven authorities including the FCA, ASIC, SFC and CIRO. IG opened in 1974 and holds eight. The oldest firm by recorded opening date is not a retail broker at all: Bank of Queensland dates to 1874 and Commonwealth Bank of Australia to 1911, and both appear because WIKILIX records the same execution model against them. Spreadex sits near the top of the grid on 63.7 with one licence, from the FCA, and a maximum leverage of 1:30.
| Where the broker is headquartered | Brokers |
|---|---|
| Australia | 23 |
| United Kingdom | 8 |
| Cyprus | 4 |
| Hong Kong | 3 |
| Vanuatu | 3 |
| United States, Seychelles and Belize | 2 each |
| Ireland, Malta | 1 each |
How we built this list
One filter does the work: the broker type recorded against each firm, set to Market Making (MM). Nothing else is applied. No minimum score, no licence requirement, no age cutoff. The question this page answers is which brokers we have recorded as market makers, not which of them we rate highest, and adding a quality threshold would have quietly turned it into a different page. The grid orders by WIKILIX score, descending.
That score is built from a broker's licence records, the standing of the authorities that issued them, its recorded trading conditions and the complaints logged against it. It measures none of the things a market maker is usually judged on. Two brokers here carry a status label other than the standard one: BUX Markets is recorded as a suspicious clone, and FXTRADING.com is recorded as offshore. Both stay, because dropping them would make the count wrong and the count is the point.
What a market-making execution model means
A market maker quotes both a bid and an ask and takes the other side of a client order inside its own book, rather than routing that order to an outside venue. It is a business model. Reading it as a verdict on the firm gets you the wrong answer, as this list shows: the same label covers Interactive Brokers on 72.5 and Commonwealth Bank of Australia alongside firms scoring in the low forties.
What matters more than the label is the entity you actually contract with. A group holding eleven licences does not extend all eleven to every client. OANDA records a maximum leverage of 1:50 and IG 1:400, and those figures reflect different regulated entities under one brand.
What absence from this page does not mean
WIKILIX records only two broker types: Market Making (MM), against these 49, and a Retail Forex License, against 6. Most brokers in the database carry neither. A firm missing from this page has not been recorded as routing orders to the market, it has simply not had an execution model recorded at all.
What to check before you open an account
- Look up the licence number on the issuing regulator's own register, not on a comparison site. The FCA Financial Services Register and ASIC Connect cover the two authorities most common on this list.
- Confirm the legal entity named on your client agreement is the one holding the licence. Several firms here operate under names that differ from the trading brand, such as Stratos Markets Limited for FXCM and GAIN Global Markets for FOREX.com.
- Ask the firm for its order execution policy, which is where the market-making arrangement is described in terms you can hold it to.
- Read the leverage cap that applies to your account rather than the headline figure, since the two differ by entity.
This page reflects what the WIKILIX database held when the query last ran. It does not carry spreads, commissions, execution statistics, minimum deposits or platform names, and it cannot tell you whether any of these firms accepts clients from where you live.
49brokers on this list
Researched & ranked by the Wikilix team
- #2
IG Group Limited
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 1974BMA
RegulationLicenseSpread70.2Score - #3
GAIN Global Markets, Inc.
RegulatedUnited StatesEst. 2006ASIC
RegulationLicenseSpread68.6Score - #4
EC Markets Limited
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2014FCA
RegulationLicenseSpread67.0Score - #5
Exness Technologies Ltd
RegulatedCyprusEst. 2014FSA
RegulationLicenseSpread65.7Score - #6
OANDA Corporation
RegulatedUnited StatesEst. 2011FCA
RegulationLicenseSpread65.1Score - #7
MEX Group Worldwide Limited
RegulatedCyprusEst. 2010MAS
RegulationLicenseSpread64.1Score - #8
Spreadex Ltd
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 1999FCARegulationLicenseSpread63.7Score - #9
Stratos Markets Limited
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2000ASIC
RegulationLicenseSpread63.6Score - #10
CPT Markets Limited
RegulatedBelizeEst. 2014FSCA
RegulationLicenseSpread63.3Score - #11
AVA Trade EU Ltd.
RegulatedIrelandEst. 2008KNF
RegulationLicenseSpread62.8Score - #12
Saxo Bank A/S
RegulatedHong KongEst. 1992FINMA
RegulationLicenseSpread61.8Score
The list is generated from the stored query rather than maintained by hand. A broker whose recorded execution model changes joins or leaves it without anyone editing this page, and the licence counts above move with the underlying records. Broker entries are rechecked against the issuing regulators on a rolling basis, so the figures on this page describe the database as of the last refresh rather than a fixed moment in the market.
Two things are worth doing next. If the execution model matters less to you than who supervises the firm, the licence-based rankings are the better starting point: FCA regulated brokers covers the 18 UK-authorised names here plus every other FCA licensee we hold, and ASIC regulated brokers does the same for the 37 with an Australian licence. If you want the quality cut this page deliberately does not apply, tier-1 regulated brokers scoring 70+ applies both a tier and a score floor.
Leverage is the other axis worth following from here, since 24 of the 49 record 1:500 or higher. Brokers with 1:1000 leverage or higher isolates that end of the range across the whole database. Verify any licence on the regulator's own register before you deposit money with any firm named on this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently asked questions
Answers from the Wikilix research team about this ranking.
Most Popular Questions
FBS, at a recorded maximum of 1:3000. Twenty-four of the 49 record 1:500 or higher, while the UK and European entities sit far lower: Spreadex and BUX Markets are recorded at 1:30, OANDA at 1:50. Three brokers have no leverage figure recorded. The cap that applies to you depends on which entity holds your account.
Forty-seven of the 49. The two exceptions are tier1fx, recorded with only an MFSA licence from Malta, and Jarden, recorded with a single MISA licence. Tier is a WIKILIX classification of the issuing authority rather than of the broker, and a tier-1 licence held somewhere in a group does not automatically cover the entity a client signs with.
Eleven of the 49 here hold a licence from the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, including IG, Exness, ATFX and AVATRADE. That is a licence record, not a statement about who may open an account. This database records where a broker is licensed and where it is headquartered, never which nationalities it accepts, so read the firm's own terms before applying.
Taking the other side of a client order is what market making means, so structurally yes. Whether a particular firm hedges that exposure, and how quickly, is not recorded in the WIKILIX database and is not something this page can tell you. The firm's own order execution policy is where that arrangement is described, and regulated entities are required to publish one.
Bank of Queensland, with a recorded opening date of 1874, followed by Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 1911. Both are ASIC-licensed banks rather than retail CFD firms. Among the names a retail trader would recognise, IG opened in 1974, Travelex in 1976 and Saxo in 1992. One broker on the list, XM, has no opening date recorded at all.
Forty-nine. That is every broker in the WIKILIX database carrying a market-making execution model, with no score floor, no licence requirement and no age cutoff applied. The page is generated from the stored query rather than maintained by hand, so a broker whose recorded type changes joins or leaves the list without anyone editing the page.
Eighteen of the 49 brokers on this page hold a licence from the UK Financial Conduct Authority, among them IG, Spreadex, FXCM, Saxo and Interactive Brokers. That count covers this list only, not every FCA licensee. Confirm a firm's authorisation and its permissions on the FCA Financial Services Register before depositing, since our record reflects what was captured when the entry was last updated.
A market maker quotes both a buy and a sell price and takes the other side of a client order inside its own book, rather than routing that order to an outside venue. It is a business model rather than a quality judgement, and it is the model WIKILIX has recorded against the 49 brokers listed on this page.