What a Regulatory Register Tells You

Every financial regulator publishes a searchable list of authorised firms. It is the fastest and most reliable check available on any platform.

What the register shows

The legal entity name, which frequently differs from the brand.

The permissions held. A firm may be authorised for some activities and not others.

Any conditions or restrictions imposed.

The status. Authorised, restricted, suspended, or withdrawn.

Historical entries, in some registers, showing past enforcement or changes.

How to use it

Search by the legal entity name, which the platform publishes in its terms or footer. Searching by brand name frequently returns nothing even for authorised firms.

If the entity does not appear in the register of the country where you live, the firm is not authorised there, regardless of what its website says about being regulated elsewhere.

The common confusions

Registered for anti-money-laundering purposes is not the same as authorised. Several jurisdictions maintain a separate register for firms that must comply with money-laundering rules without being authorised for investment services. Firms sometimes describe the first as being regulated.

Authorisation in one country does not extend to another except where a passporting arrangement exists, and those arrangements are specific.

A group company being authorised does not mean the entity serving you is. Check the entity named in your own terms of service.

What the register does not tell you

Whether the firm is well run. Whether it is solvent. Whether your assets are insured.

It tells you that obligations apply and that a supervisor exists, which is a floor rather than a guarantee.

The clone firm problem

Fraudulent sites clone the details of authorised firms, including register numbers.

The defence is to navigate from the register to the firm rather than the other way round. Most registers publish the firm’s website address, and comparing it against the site you are on catches a clone immediately.

When to check

Before depositing. Again if the entity changes, which happens after acquisitions and restructurings, and which is notified but easy to acknowledge without reading.

Annually is reasonable for a venue you use regularly.

What good looks like

A platform that publishes its legal entity name, its registration number, and the regulator it is authorised by, in a place you can find without an account.

Venues doing that, including exchanges licensed in the jurisdiction, make the check a thirty-second exercise. Those that describe themselves as regulated without naming an entity or a regulator have made it deliberately harder, which is itself the answer.