The UK's financial regulator. An FCA licence carries FSCS compensation cover and some of the strictest retail-conduct rules of any regulator covered on this site.
The Financial Conduct Authority regulates financial services firms operating in the UK, including forex and CFD brokers. Since Brexit, an FCA licence covers only UK clients directly -- it no longer carries automatic EU passporting, so a group with both FCA and CySEC entities is typically running two separately-licensed, separately-capitalized businesses, not one licence covering both regions.
FCA-regulated firms must meet capital adequacy requirements, segregate client money, follow the same ESMA-style retail leverage caps the UK retained after Brexit, and comply with the FCA's Consumer Duty rules, which require firms to act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers -- not just avoid actively harming them.
If an FCA-authorised firm fails, eligible retail clients are covered by the FSCS up to £85,000 per person. Like the CySEC ICF, this is a real statutory scheme with a hard cap, and it applies only to the specific FCA-authorised entity -- not to an offshore sister brand using the same name.
The FCA has fined and censured FCA-authorised firms, including some reviewed on this site -- see our Broker News for specific, dated examples (unfair customer treatment, improper client reclassification, and others). The FCA also publishes public warnings about clone firms that impersonate genuinely-authorised brokers using near-identical names or domains -- always confirm you're dealing with the exact authorised entity, not a lookalike.
Search the firm's exact legal entity name and Firm Reference Number (FRN) on the official FCA Financial Services Register. The register also lists any current warnings against clone firms using a similar name.
See our full, ranked list of FCA-regulated brokers, sorted by our disclosed overall score.
See all regulation pages, or every broker holding this type of licence under Best Brokers.