CMC Markets review

The oldest paper trail in this series by a decade. FCA authorisation from December 2001, an Australian licence from 2004 that includes custody, and a company incorporated in 1989 that files public accounts. The only flag is a name-alike on the FCA warning list.

Last verified 25 August 2026 · how we check

Every firm in this series has been checked against the same registers, and this one returns the longest record by a wide margin. That is the whole finding, and it is worth stating plainly because most of what we publish is a caveat.

What the registers return

Twenty-five years of authorisation

FRN 173730 has been live since 1 December 2001. For scale, here is where that sits against the rest of the series, using the effective date on each register:

Longevity is not a character reference and we have said so before. What it is, is a fact that cannot be manufactured: a firm cannot acquire a twenty-five-year supervisory history by buying a domain or renting an office.

The part almost no broker offers

Companies House holds CMC Markets UK plc as incorporated on 1 December 1989, company type public limited company, status Active, with accounts made up to 31 March 2027 next due by 30 September 2027.

A public limited company files annual accounts that anybody can download. That is a different order of verifiability from most of this industry, where the ownership sits in a jurisdiction with no public filing at all. Compare HeroFX, whose entire public record is a Saint Lucia company number in a footer, or Super Funded, which names its Seychelles company only inside a PDF its own sitemap does not list.

We are not claiming audited accounts prove good conduct. They mean that if you want to know whether the counterparty holding your money is solvent, the answer exists in a public document rather than in a marketing claim.

Australia includes custody

AFSL 238054 dates to 24 February 2004, which makes it older than every other Australian licence we have looked up. Its conditions run to dealing, market making and advice across derivatives and securities, each “to retail and wholesale clients”, and they close with a line most retail FX licences do not carry:

Provide a custodial or depository service other than IDPS to retail and wholesale clients

A custody permission means the firm has been assessed against a stricter standard on holding client assets, not merely client cash. The only other firm in this series carrying an equivalent permission is FxPro, whose FCA authorisation includes safeguarding and administration of assets.

The one flag

The FCA warning list carries an entry for CMC GLOBAL MARKETS, not authorised.

That is the pattern we documented at Eightcap: a name built around a known brand, warned about separately, with the licensed firm untouched. It is the opposite of what the same list does at FP Markets, where the entry names the group’s own domain and carries no clone marking.

The defence is the same either way. Take the firm reference number from the site you are actually on and check it. If it is not 173730 or 948126, you are not dealing with the authorised UK entity.

Two UK entities, and what the second one is for

The register holds a second authorised company under this brand: CMC Markets Investments Limited, FRN 948126.

Groups split entities for ordinary reasons, usually to keep a different product line under its own permissions. A firm running both a margined derivatives business and a share-dealing business will frequently hold them separately, because the rulebooks differ and so do the capital requirements.

The practical consequence for a client is the one we set out at Vantage, where two authorised firms share a first word and only one is the retail broker. Finding an authorised entity under a brand is not the same as finding the entity that will hold your money, and the register does not join those two facts for you. Your client agreement does.

Across this series, seven of the eleven firms we have checked run more than one licensed entity, and four run entities in more than one jurisdiction. Single-entity brokers are the exception rather than the rule, which is why “is it regulated” is nearly always the wrong question and “which company am I contracting with, and what does its licence say” is the right one.

That question has now produced four different answers across these reviews: a licence naming retail, a licence limited to professionals, a licence whose text stops at wholesale clients, and a domain the regulator has warned about. All four came from the same free public records, and none of them appears on a marketing page.

Why this one gets safe

We have used that verdict once before, at Pepperstone, out of thirty-odd reviews. It means the registers check out and nothing contradicts them: retail is named on the permissions, the licences are current, the corporate record is public and long, and the only warning-list entry is about somebody else.

It does not mean we have been a client. We have not tested execution, spreads, withdrawals or support, and a firm can be entirely above board on paper and still cost you more per trade than its competitor.

What to check before funding

Which entity holds your account, from the client agreement. The group runs entities beyond the two UK ones, and clients outside the UK and Australia are usually onboarded elsewhere.

The all-in cost on your account type, spread plus any commission. Nothing above touches price, and price is where authorised brokers differ most.

The leverage on offer, which identifies the rulebook faster than any licence claim. Retail is capped at 30:1 on major FX under both regulators, per leverage limits by regulator.

What we checked, and what we didn’t

We read the FCA register entries for FRN 173730 and FRN 948126, the Companies House record for 02448409, the ASIC licensee dataset and the FCA warning list, all on 25 August 2026.

The firm’s own site blocked automated access, so minimum deposit, spreads and platform details are left unstated rather than taken from third-party reviews. We have not downloaded or analysed the filed accounts; we have confirmed that they exist and are due.

We have not opened an account, deposited money, or tested anything about the service.

Sources

• FCA — Financial Services Register, FRN 173730 and FRN 948126
• Companies House — company 02448409
• ASIC Financial Services Licensee Register, AFSL 238054