Map the places in your transaction before choosing a country guide
Your residence, a firm's registered address, the entity signing your contract and the bank receiving a payment can point to different places. Start with those separate facts. A flag beside a brand cannot settle which permissions, terms or complaint route apply to your transaction.
Write down four location facts without merging them
- Your residence when the service was offered
- Keep the country and the offer date. A change of residence can leave you comparing a new offer with an old account agreement. Do not assume yesterday's terms answer today's eligibility question.
- The contract party and its stated jurisdiction
- Use the full legal name in the agreement. A group's office address or another subsidiary's licence does not identify the party that owes you the contractual service.
- The service and delivery channel
- Describe the actual task: transferring money, exchanging cash, holding securities or entering a leveraged contract. Calling each of these “forex” discards information needed to choose the right source.
- The named payment recipient and bank location
- Record what the payment instruction says. A bank's country tells you where that banking relationship sits; it does not by itself demonstrate the recipient's relationship to your broker.
If one field is unknown, mark it unknown. Do not fill it from a website's language, a telephone prefix or a currency symbol. These are clues to investigate, not substitutes for the documents.
A hypothetical three-place example
Suppose a resident of Indonesia receives an offer describing a UK company, while the proposed payment instruction names a recipient in Australia. This is a teaching example, not a real firm's arrangement or a conclusion that the transaction is permitted.
| Document fact | Useful next check | What remains unresolved |
|---|---|---|
| Residence: Indonesia | Read the Indonesia guide for relevant local entry points, then identify the offered service. | A foreign licence alone does not answer the resident's eligibility question. |
| Claimed contract party: UK company | Use the UK guide and an independent official check of that exact party and service. | A matching group name does not connect a different contract party or contact person. |
| Payment recipient: Australia | Check the recipient name against the agreement and payment explanation; use the Australia guide for the relevant service context. | The bank location is not a certificate that the recipient is an authorised broker or agent. |
Opening three guides does not create three layers of protection. The purpose is to expose an unanswered relationship: who supplies the service, who receives the money and what evidence connects them?
Use permission records and warning records for different questions
For a UK claim, FCA's consumer guidance distinguishes a check of a firm's permissions from a review of its history. The Firm Checker helps check the firm and the intended service; the Financial Services Register provides detailed historical information. FCA also warns that an authorised firm may offer unregulated products. Apply that UK guidance within its scope, rather than exporting it as a universal rule for every country.
For a warning naming another jurisdiction, read who issued it and the conduct or claim it describes. IOSCO's I-SCAN makes public information submitted by member authorities accessible; its current disclaimer says IOSCO does not independently verify all submitted content. Return to the issuing authority for the underlying notice and its details.
A search that returns no warning has answered only that search. It has not issued a permission. Conversely, a warning about a similarly named entity needs an identity comparison before you attach it to a different company. Save the exact names, domains and dates instead of relying on a remembered brand.
Use FXCN's licence lookup to locate saved relationships and domain comparison for a website question. Each tool has a narrower scope than a complete official cross-border assessment.
Leave yourself a short, usable evidence trail
- Write the question before searching: “Can this named party provide this service to me?” is more useful than “Is this country safe?”
- Keep the agreement version, offer date, exact entity and full licence or registration reference. Separate current findings from evidence of an earlier event.
- Record the official page URL, the date you read it and the specific field supporting your conclusion. Label unanswered fields explicitly.
- If documents disagree, ask for a documented explanation through independently obtained contact details before treating the relationship as settled.
The directory below lists FXCN's available English country pages. Its order, country abbreviations and regulator labels are not a league table, a complete map of all financial authorities or an approval of every broker connected with a place.
Questions when choosing a country page
Which country should I open first?
Begin with the place linked to the question you need to answer: your residence for an offer-to-you question, or the contract party's stated jurisdiction for a licence claim. Keep the other places in view rather than replacing them with a single headquarters location.
Does a missing country page mean there is no regulator?
No. Availability reflects FXCN's directory coverage. Locate the relevant official authority independently; absence from this directory is not evidence that regulation is absent.
Does an overseas bank account prove overseas authorisation?
No. Check the recipient and its relationship to the contract party separately. The payment destination alone does not settle permission, ownership or complaint eligibility.
Sources for the checks above
FCA: How to check a firm or individual is authorised — UK permission checks, historical records and the limits of firm-level authorisation.
IOSCO: International Securities & Commodities Alerts Network — public member-submitted warning information and the current portal's disclaimer. Neither source establishes permission for the hypothetical arrangement in this guide.