Start with the agreement
The company that contracts with you is more useful than the largest logo on a homepage. A brand may operate through several companies, each serving different places or products. A familiar international name cannot establish the jurisdiction, classification or terms of a particular application.
Locate the legal company name in the account agreement and country-specific legal pages. Write it down exactly, alongside any firm reference number. Keep the product in view: a CFD service and an investment account offered under one brand may belong to different companies.
Use an independent official route
Navigate to the FCA’s own website and use its Firm Checker or Financial Services Register. Check that the address bar belongs to the regulator. Search using the company identity, rather than following a regulator link supplied in an unsolicited message.
The FCA’s clone-firm guidance explains that fraudsters can copy a genuine company’s name, address and reference number. It recommends checking that a firm has permission for the relevant service and matching contact details. Finding a valid number by itself does not authenticate a website or the person contacting you.
Make a note of the check date. A broker profile on this site is a research aid, not a live replica of the regulator’s records. We identify the reference number stated in the source and direct readers to the official checking route.
Compare the details that are easy to overlook
Company
Match the full name, including its legal suffix. Similar names can belong to different businesses.
Service
Check permission for the activity or product being offered, not merely the existence of a record.
Contact
Compare the website and contact details with the official record. Use independently obtained details to resolve mismatches.
Agreement
Confirm the same entity appears in the document you would accept and on the correct country-specific site.
A redirect to a different jurisdiction, a request to use a private messaging account, or a claim that the official contact details are out of date needs independent checking. A polished platform does not resolve an identity mismatch.
Read the classification and protection scope
Retail and professional are legal account classifications, not levels in a loyalty programme. Do not assume a professional label simply adds features. The FCA has warned about pressure to give up retail CFD protections. When an application offers an overseas company, pause the comparison and recheck the local rules and redress route.
Likewise, a statement about a group’s regulation is broader than a statement about your specific company and service. The same limit applies to compensation arrangements: eligibility depends on the scheme, claimant, entity and nature of a claim. Protection against a firm’s failure should never be read as protection against ordinary trading losses.
Keep an evidence record
Save the legal document, its date or version, the official record you checked and the URL of the country-specific source. Add a short note explaining why the company matches. If a detail changes later, this record is more useful than a screenshot of an advertising headline.
The broker directory organises five source profiles by company and platform. None is a declaration of safety, a ranking or a recommendation. Once the identity check is complete, compare fees in common units and the practical platform differences. If the identity cannot be established, a price comparison has not yet reached its starting point.