#1
Marex Group
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2005FCA
Regulation
License
Spread
91.3Score
58 brokers in the WIKILIX database hold at least one licence from a regulator our table classifies as tier-1, carry our "regulation" status label, and score 70 or above. The wider tier-1 population is 863, so this page is the top of it rather than all of it.
Scores run from 70.2 up to 91.3, and the median is 76.5. Marex sits at the top on 91.3, licensed by the FCA, by the SFC in Hong Kong and by the NFA in the United States. The oldest firm here is Bank of Scotland, with a recorded opening date of 1695. Pictet follows at 1805.
What the 58 look like
| Breakdown | Count |
|---|---|
| Opened before 2010 | 35 of 58 |
| Hold licences from two or more authorities | 30 of 58 |
| Carry an FCA licence | 33 |
| Carry an SFC (Hong Kong) licence | 23 |
| Carry a CIRO (Canada) licence | 16 |
| Record a maximum leverage of 1:500 or higher | 7 |
By head office: 19 are registered in the United Kingdom, 11 in Canada, 10 in Hong Kong and 9 in the United States. The remaining nine sit in Australia, Switzerland, Ireland, Cyprus, China, Japan, France and South Africa. That address is where the company is registered. It is not where it is licensed and not where it takes clients.
How we built this list
Three filters, applied together. The first asks for at least one licence from a regulator our table marks tier-1, which in this result set means the FCA, the SFC, CIRO, the NFA, the SEC, FINRA, MAS, BaFin, the AMF, CFFEX and Japan's FSA. The second requires our own recorded broker status to be the "regulation" label, which removes firms we have flagged as unregulated, as suspicious clones, or as operating beyond their licence. The third sets a score floor of 70.
The score is WIKILIX's own composite, built from what we hold on record: the licences a firm holds and their standing, plus how long it has operated. It does not read spreads, execution quality or support quality, because we hold none of those. A broker with no score row is dropped by this query rather than treated as zero, so absence from this page is not a judgement about a firm.
Our tier table is not the industry consensus
Most comparison sites publish a tier-1 list that includes CySEC. Ours does not. CySEC sits at tier 2 in the WIKILIX regulator table, which is why a CySEC-only broker cannot reach this page, and that population has its own list at CySEC regulated brokers. We publish the disagreement instead of hiding it, because a reader comparing two sites should know the classifications differ before assuming one of them is wrong.
A tier-1 licence is not a promise about the entity you trade with
Every broker here holds at least one tier-1 licence. Several hold others nowhere near it. Interactive Brokers appears with 11 distinct regulators against its name, running from the FCA, ASIC and the SFC down to MISA in the Comoros and the VFSC in Vanuatu, both tier 4 in our table. Large groups operate through many entities, and the one that takes your deposit may not be the one holding the tier-1 permission.
Leverage makes the same point. The FCA caps leverage on retail CFD accounts at 1:30, yet 7 brokers on this list record a maximum of 1:500 or higher, with StoneX and DA International at 1:1000. That figure belongs to some entity in the group, not necessarily to the licensed one.
Checks worth making before you deposit
- Look up the licence number on the regulator's own register. The FCA publishes one at register.fca.org.uk and ASIC at asic.gov.au.
- Confirm the legal entity named on your account agreement is the entity holding the licence, not a similarly named affiliate.
- Check which entity the site offers you when you register from your own country, since it is often not the tier-1 one.
- Read the permission itself. A licence to arrange deals is not a licence to hold client money.
What this page cannot tell you: spreads, commissions, minimum deposits, withdrawal speed, or whether any of these firms will accept you as a client. It reflects licence records as they stand in the WIKILIX database today, and a register entry can change the day after we read it.
66brokers on this list
Researched & ranked by the Wikilix team
- #2
Market Securities
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2007FCA
RegulationLicenseSpread89.7Score - #3
Jefferies Financial Group
RegulatedUnited StatesEst. 1962FCA
RegulationLicenseSpread89.0Score - #4
Chatham Financial Corp.
RegulatedUnited StatesEst. 1991NFA
RegulationLicenseSpread88.7Score - #5
T. Rowe Price Group, Inc
RegulatedUnited StatesEst. 1937SFCRegulationLicenseSpread87.9Score - #6
StoneX Group Inc.
RegulatedUnited StatesEst. 1924FCARegulationLicenseSpread85.7Score - #7
ED&F Man Capital Markets
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2012SFCRegulationLicenseSpread85.3Score - #8
Ebury Partners Markets Ltd
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2009FCARegulationLicenseSpread84.8Score - #9
ADMIS Singapore Pte. Limited
RegulatedHong KongEst. 2008FCARegulationLicenseSpread84.4Score - #10
Fearnley Securities AS
RegulatedNorwayEst. 1987
RegulationLicenseSpread83.8Score - #11
Hoxton Capital Management
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2023FCA
RegulationLicenseSpread83.5Score - #12
Hantec Markets Limited
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2009FCARegulationLicenseSpread83.1Score
This page is a stored query rather than a hand-maintained list. A broker that gains a tier-1 licence, clears 70, or has its status label corrected appears here without anyone editing the copy, and one that slips below the bar drops out the same way. The counts above were measured on the day the page was built, so read them as a reading taken then, not as a constant.
The useful next questions are narrower ones. If you already know which regulator you care about, a single-regulator list beats this one: the FCA, ASIC, NFA and CIRO lists each cover one authority in full, and the CIRO page is worth a look from here because 16 of these 58 hold that licence. For the contrast, the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines list shows what the far end of the register looks like, and the CySEC list covers the regulator most other sites file under tier 1 while we do not.
Two things this page will not gain. We will not rank these firms by anything we cannot measure, which rules out spreads and execution quality. And we will not tell you which of them will take you on as a client, because that turns on your residence and on each firm's own terms. Check the register, then check the entity printed on your contract.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently asked questions
Answers from the Wikilix research team about this ranking.
Most Popular Questions
Interactive Brokers, with 11 distinct regulators recorded against it, including the FCA, ASIC, the SFC and CIRO alongside MISA in the Comoros and the VFSC in Vanuatu, which our table places at tier 4. Across the whole list, 30 of the 58 hold licences from two or more authorities and the remaining 28 hold just one.
It depends on the entity, which is why the entity matters more than the badge. Tier-1 regimes generally require segregated client money and a compensation scheme, but those obligations attach to the licensed company, not to every company sharing the brand. Confirm that the firm named on your account agreement is the one appearing on the regulator's register.
This list cannot answer that fully. It is built on licences and tier, and South Africa's FSCA sits at tier 2 in our table, so an FSCA-only broker never reaches this page. Four firms here hold an FSCA licence alongside a tier-1 one: HoxtonWealth, CBCX, Velocity Trade and Avior. For the full FSCA population, use the dedicated FSCA list.
16 of the 58 hold a CIRO licence, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization, and 11 are headquartered in Canada. Odlum Brown, Laurentian Bank Securities and Jitneytrade are among them. Holding a CIRO licence is not the same as accepting Canadian residents as clients, and this database records the licence rather than the client policy.
In the WIKILIX table it is a regulator in a major jurisdiction with binding capital, conduct and client-money rules and an enforcement record behind them. Ours marks the FCA, ASIC, the SFC, CIRO, the NFA, the SEC, FINRA, MAS, BaFin, the AMF and Japan's FSA at that level. Other sites classify differently, and CySEC is the common disagreement.
Bank of Scotland, with a recorded opening date of 1695. Pictet follows at 1805 and RBC Dominion Securities at 1901. Across the list, 35 of the 58 opened before 2010, and 3 have no opening date recorded at all. Age is taken from the openingDate we hold and reflects the entity we have on file, not always the wider group.
33 of the 58 here hold an FCA licence, making it the most common tier-1 permission on the page. Marex, Ebury and Darwinex are among them, and Marex holds the highest score on this list at 91.3. This page only shows FCA firms that also clear the score floor, so it is not the full FCA population.
58. That is the number holding at least one licence from a regulator our table marks tier-1, carrying our "regulation" status label, and scoring 70 or above. The unfiltered tier-1 population in the database is 863, so this page shows roughly the top fifteenth of it. The list regenerates from the query, so the figure moves when licence records change.