Vantage Markets review

The FCA register holds two authorised firms whose names begin with Vantage, eight years apart, under different Companies House numbers. One of them is the broker. Establishing which is the first job, and the brand does not do it for you.

Last verified 24 August 2026 · how we check

Searching a register for a brand usually returns nothing, which is the problem we set out at ThinkMarkets. Here it returns the opposite problem: two authorised firms, both real, both starting with the same word.

What the registers return

Two separate FCA authorisations, eight years apart, with different Companies House numbers. They are not the same registration under a changed name; they are two distinct legal entities.

Which one is the broker

The Australian entity settles it by name. Vantage Global Prime Pty Ltd holds AFSL 428901 since December 2012, and the UK entity Vantage Global Prime LLP carries the same three-word phrase. That pairing is the group.

Vantage Capital Markets LLP, FRN 416697, is a different registration under a different company number, authorised in 2005. We are not asserting a relationship between them either way, because the registers do not state one and we have not verified it. What we can say is that a consumer searching “Vantage” on the FCA register sees two authorised firms and no indication of which one their account would sit with.

That ambiguity cuts in a direction people do not expect. Finding an authorised firm under the name you searched feels like confirmation, and it is not. The register confirms that a company with that name is authorised. It does not confirm that the company taking your deposit is that company.

<text x="404" y="86" fill="#e00025">two authorised firms</text>
<text x="404" y="108" fill="#767676">FRN 590299 · from 2013</text>
<text x="404" y="128" fill="#767676">FRN 416697 · from 2005</text>
<text x="404" y="154">reads as confirmation</text>

Retail is on the licence

FRN 590299 carries six regulated activities, and the customer type on the substantive ones reads:

Retail (Investment), Eligible Counterparty, Professional

Retail is named, which is the check that matters and the one that fails more often than people expect. Exness (UK) Ltd holds a live FCA authorisation with Professional and Eligible Counterparty on every permission and retail on none.

The investment types include shares, certificates representing securities, rights to or interests in investments, and options, which is a broader set than a pure CFD permission.

The ambiguity resolves in one field

We ran the same check on both entries that we run on every firm, and the customer type settles it immediately.

FRN 416697 cannot take a retail client at all, and it runs an Organised Trading Facility, which is wholesale market infrastructure rather than a brokerage. Its instrument list reads like an institutional desk: debentures, government securities, warrants.

So the two firms are not competing answers to the same question. One is a retail broker and the other is a professional-market venue that happens to share a first word. A consumer who lands on the wrong entry sees “Authorised” and stops reading, which is exactly the mistake the customer type field exists to prevent.

That field has now separated three different situations across this series: a licence that covers you, a licence that covers only professionals, and a licence whose text stops at wholesale clients. It is one line on a free public page, and almost no review quotes it.

An LLP, not a limited company

Both UK entities are limited liability partnerships, marked by the OC prefix on their Companies House numbers rather than the usual digits.

That is a structural fact rather than a warning. An LLP is a legitimate and common form for financial firms; what differs is the ownership and profit-sharing arrangement rather than the regulatory obligations, which attach to the FCA authorisation regardless of company form. We note it because it is another string that will not match what the marketing calls the firm.

Nothing in Cyprus

The CySEC register returns no entry under this name. A client onboarded as an EU resident is therefore not being served by a Cypriot entity of this group, and the Investor Compensation Fund does not apply to them through that route.

Where a group has no entity in your jurisdiction, the account is usually opened with an offshore company, and that is the case worth establishing before funding. We set out what that changes at IC Markets, where the FCA has published a warning about exactly such an arm.

What the licences cap

Retail leverage is capped at 30:1 on major FX under both the FCA and ASIC, with lower limits by asset class, as tabulated in leverage limits by regulator. An account under this brand advertising several hundred to one is not FRN 590299 and not AFSL 428901.

Compensation: the FSCS stands behind the UK entity for eligible claimants. Australia has no equivalent scheme of that kind.

What to establish before funding

Read the entity name in the client agreement, then search that exact string. On this brand the register will otherwise give you two answers, and only one of them is yours.

Check the Companies House number too. Two firms can share a first word; they cannot share a company number, and it is the only field guaranteed unique.

Ask which entity holds the account if you are outside the UK and Australia, because the registers above cover only those two.

Read the leverage before the licence claims. It identifies the rulebook in one line.

What we checked, and what we didn’t

We read the FCA register entries for FRN 590299 and FRN 416697 including permissions, customer types and Companies House numbers, and searched the ASIC and CySEC registers we hold locally, all on 24 August 2026. The firm’s site blocked automated access, so account specifics are left unstated rather than taken from third-party reviews.

We have not opened an account, deposited money, or tested spreads, execution, support or withdrawals. We have also not established whether the two Vantage LLPs are related, and we have said so rather than guessing. caution is our default where we have not been a client; the registers raised nothing against the broker entity.

Sources

• FCA — Financial Services Register, FRN 590299 and FRN 416697
• ASIC Financial Services Licensee Register, AFSL 428901
• CySEC — register of Cypriot investment firms