A register is the regulator's own list of the firms it has authorised, the activities each one may carry out, and the period that authorisation has been in force. It is maintained by the authority rather than by the firm, which is the entire reason it is worth consulting. A certificate emailed to you as a PDF has been through the firm's hands; a register record has not.
Three registers cover a large share of the retail trading industry, and they are the ones a broker check usually touches.
The UK: the Financial Services Register
The FCA maintains a public register of authorised firms and individuals. Each firm carries a firm reference number, the FRN, which is the identifier brokers quote in their website footers. Searching either the company name or the FRN should land on the same record.
Four fields carry the weight. Status tells you whether the firm is currently authorised or whether the permission has been cancelled, and historic entries stay visible with their date ranges. Permissions list the regulated activities the firm may perform, which is where "dealing as principal" separates from "arranging deals". Client money indicators show whether the firm may hold client assets. And the record includes the firm's registered address, contact details and, for many entries, the trading names and website addresses the firm has notified.
That last field is the clone-firm detector. Fraudsters copy a real firm's name and FRN onto a site of their own; the register still shows the genuine firm's phone number and domain. The FCA also publishes a list of firms it has warned about, which is worth a search on the same name. What the FRN itself means in terms of obligations is covered in our piece on the FCA licence.
Cyprus: the CySEC list of regulated entities
CySEC publishes lists of the entities it supervises, with Cyprus Investment Firms the relevant category for brokers. Each CIF carries a licence number, and the record shows the company name, the licence date and the services the firm is authorised to provide under the MiFID framework.
Two habits help here. First, check the services and instruments annexes rather than stopping at the fact that a licence exists, since a firm authorised for reception and transmission of orders is in a different business from one authorised to deal on own account. Second, look at the announcements section: CySEC publishes decisions including suspensions, withdrawals and settlements, and those do not always appear prominently on the entity record itself. Our overview of the CySEC licence sets out what the regime requires.
Australia: ASIC Connect and the AFS licence
ASIC runs professional registers through ASIC Connect. Brokers appear as holders of an Australian Financial Services licence, with an AFS licence number and an ACN or ABN for the company itself. The record shows the authorisations attached to the licence and its status.
Australia also uses authorised representatives extensively: a firm can operate under another licensee's authorisation instead of holding its own. The register shows that relationship, and it changes who is responsible for what. Reading the entry as though the representative held a full licence is a common misreading, and our notes on ASIC regulation explain where the responsibility sits.
| Regime | Identifier | Where it lives | Field people miss |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Firm reference number (FRN) | Financial Services Register | Notified trading names and websites |
| Cyprus | CIF licence number | CySEC list of regulated entities | Announcements and decisions section |
| Australia | AFS licence number | ASIC Connect professional registers | Authorised representative relationships |
Registers confirm authorisation and scope. They do not rate a firm, comment on its execution or promise that your money is safe, and a currently authorised firm can still fail. Trading, particularly leveraged trading, carries a high risk of loss regardless of who supervises the counterparty.
The mistakes that let a fake pass
Searching the brand rather than the company is the first. Registers index legal entities, so a search for a marketing name often returns nothing even when the firm behind it is properly authorised, and an empty result gets misread as evidence either way.
Reaching the register through a link on the broker's site is the second. A mirrored page that looks like the register takes an afternoon to build. Type the regulator's address yourself, every time.
The third is accepting a screenshot or PDF certificate. Some regimes do issue certificates, but they are the firm's copy of a fact you can check at source in under a minute. If a sales representative sends one instead of a company name, ask for the company name.
The fourth is stopping at the country. Groups run entities in several jurisdictions, and the one you sign with is determined by your residence. Verifying the London entity while your account agreement names an offshore company answers a question you were not asking. The step-by-step version of the whole check is in how to verify a broker's licence.
Registers beyond these three
Most jurisdictions publish something. European regulators maintain national registers alongside the pan-European databases that list passported firms; regulators in Dubai, South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles and elsewhere publish their own licensee lists with varying levels of detail. Quality varies, and that variation is itself informative. A register that shows only a company name and a licence number, with no permissions and no status history, gives you less to work with than one that publishes the full scope, and it is fair to factor that into how much comfort the licence provides.
"The register field almost nobody reads is the notified website. Two minutes comparing that against the address in your browser catches the cloned sites that pass every other test."
— Roman Onta, Executive Director, SINGUARD
Key Takeaways
- The UK, Cyprus and Australia each publish a free searchable record keyed to a licence or reference number.
- Read the permissions and status, not only the existence of an entry; scope differs enormously between records.
- Registers index legal entities, so search the company name from the client agreement rather than the brand.
- Representative and appointed-representative structures are legitimate but do not equal direct authorisation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a firm reference number?
It is the unique identifier the UK regulator assigns to an authorised firm, used to look that firm up on the Financial Services Register. Other regimes use their own numbering, such as an AFS licence number in Australia or a CIF licence number in Cyprus, and the numbers are not interchangeable between countries.
What is an appointed or authorised representative?
A firm operating under another authorised firm's permissions rather than holding its own licence. The register shows the relationship and the principal firm. It is a legitimate structure, but the scope of what the representative may do is defined by the principal, so it is worth reading rather than treating as equivalent to direct authorisation.
Can a register entry look correct while the website is fraudulent?
Yes, and that is the most common trick. A clone site quotes a genuine firm's name and reference number while publishing its own contact details and payment instructions. Comparing the phone number, address and website on the register against those on the site is what exposes it.