MFSA Regulated Brokers: All 20 in the WIKILIX Register

Twenty brokers in the WIKILIX database hold a licence record from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), Malta's tier-2, MiFID-aligned regulator. This is the complete register ranked by WIKILIX score, not a hand-picked shortlist, and eight of the twenty currently carry a status flag. The value of the page is that it shows you which firms hold a clean status and which do not.

Scores run from 71 down to 19.5, with a median of 51.4. Swissquote leads on 71 and carries five licences (SFC, FCA, FINMA, DFSA and MFSA). Ten of the twenty also hold at least one tier-1 licence, while the other ten rely on MFSA or on weaker authorities alone. Six of the firms opened before 2010, and the oldest recorded start date belongs to J.P. Morgan (1799). Among dedicated Malta brokerages, Hogg Capital Investments, listed here as tier1fx, is the longest running at 1995.

The status breakdown is the reason this register is worth reading:

• 12 hold a clean regulation status label.
• 5 are flagged as a suspicious clone: FXDD, ALB, Deriv and two Tradeview records.
• 2 are flagged as offshore: Alchemy Markets and Newton Global.
• 1, NSBroker, carries a scam status label despite a score of 67.

What an MFSA licence is, and what this list required

The MFSA authorises investment firms under the EU MiFID II framework. A Category 2 or Category 3 investment services licence lets a firm hold client money and deal on clients' behalf, and it brings the protections of an EU-authorised firm, including cover under Malta's Investor Compensation Scheme up to a statutory maximum of 20,000 euro per eligible investor. Retail contracts for difference under that framework are capped at 1:30 leverage on major currency pairs.

This list required one thing: a live MFSA licence record in the WIKILIX database. It did not require a clean status, which is why the flagged firms appear, and it did not require the broker to be based in Malta. Only nine of the twenty are domiciled in Malta. The rest are registered in Mauritius, the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

The leverage signal, and the entity you would face

A genuine retail MFSA account is capped at 1:30, yet twelve of the twenty firms here advertise a maximum above that, from 1:100 up to the 1:2000 shown for AKFX, a Malta-registered firm whose only licence record with us is the MFSA one. FXTIME, which lists nine licences, advertises 1:500. Leverage well above 1:30 on a supposedly MFSA-regulated account almost always means the account you open would sit with a non-EU arm of the same brand, outside MFSA supervision. A licence in a website footer is not proof of the entity you would be contracting with.

What this page does not tell you

This is a licence register, not a price comparison. It holds no spreads, no commissions, no minimum deposits and no measure of execution quality, because WIKILIX does not carry verified figures for those. It also cannot tell you whether a given broker will accept you as a client, since MFSA authorisation governs the firm rather than your eligibility. Verify both the licence number and the contracting entity on the MFSA Financial Services Register before you deposit.

Before you open an MFSA account

• Read the client agreement to see which legal entity holds your account, because an MFSA reference in the footer does not mean the Malta entity is onboarding you.
• Treat any offer of leverage above 1:30 on major pairs as a sign you are being placed with a non-EU entity.
• Check the licence number on the MFSA register yourself rather than trusting the broker's own claim.
• Confirm whether your account falls under Malta's Investor Compensation Scheme, which covers only the MFSA-licensed entity.
• For any firm flagged here as a suspicious clone or scam, treat the MFSA claim as unconfirmed until the register matches it to the exact company name.