For a decade the Pacific islands were the default answer to a founder who wanted a licence quickly. Vanuatu in particular built a large book of dealers in securities licensees serving international retail FX clients. Then the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission raised what it expected: capital, a compliance officer, audited accounts, local presence and reporting obligations that a shell could not satisfy. Firms left. The ones that stayed have a licence that means more than it did, and the region now splits into two very different tiers.
Vanuatu: a real licence with a reputation problem
The VFSC issues a dealers in securities licence covering dealing in securities, which in practice is the permission used for retail foreign exchange and contract for difference activity by internationally focused firms. The regime requires paid-up capital, fit and proper assessment of directors and shareholders, an appointed compliance officer, an auditor and ongoing reporting, and the commission maintains a register. Our Vanuatu guide works through what a current application involves.
The obligations are genuine. The reputation lags them, because the market remembers the earlier period and because a licence obtainable in months will always be discounted against one obtainable in years. Compliance officers at banks and acquirers price that discount into every file, which is the mechanism founders should plan for rather than argue with. The Vanuatu page covers how firms in the region work with us.
New Zealand: the derivatives issuer licence
New Zealand is the outlier in the region because it went the other way. The Financial Markets Authority licenses derivatives issuers under the country's financial markets legislation, and the licence carries capital adequacy, client money segregation, disclosure and reporting obligations, together with registration on the financial service providers register and membership of a dispute resolution scheme for retail clients. The FMA also has powers over the register itself, which it has used to deal with entities registering in New Zealand while doing no real business there.
That last point is the important one. A New Zealand derivatives issuer licence is a strong credential precisely because the regulator worked to stop the register being used as a credibility badge by firms with no local operations. For a firm serving Asia-Pacific clients that wants an English-language common law jurisdiction with a recognised regulator, it is the strongest option in the region, and it is the slowest.
Descriptive only, not advice. Pacific regimes have changed substantially and continue to. Confirm current requirements with counsel and on the regulator's register before relying on anything here.
The registries that are not licences
Several Pacific jurisdictions offer international company registration without any financial services supervision. A Marshall Islands or Samoa international company is a real company. It is not a licensed financial firm, and no amount of apostilled paperwork converts one into the other. The same trap appears in the Caribbean, where a Saint Vincent registration is regularly presented as though it were a forex licence. The test is identical everywhere: is the entity listed on a financial regulator's public register with a stated permission.
Cook Islands supervises its own financial services sector through a dedicated authority, with categories aimed largely at trustee, banking and insurance business rather than retail leveraged derivatives, so the fit for a broker is narrower than founders assume. Fiji and Papua New Guinea have central banks supervising their domestic financial systems under exchange control frameworks that shape what is possible far more than any licensing text.
Who accepts a Pacific licence
Banking is the first filter and the hardest. Correspondent banks reduce exposure to leveraged derivatives merchants in jurisdictions with thinner supervisory histories, which is why a Vanuatu-licensed firm typically banks through specialist providers rather than a mainstream commercial bank, and why the account can be closed later for reasons that have nothing to do with the firm's own conduct. A New Zealand licence changes that conversation materially.
Card acquiring applies the card scheme high risk classifications to trading merchants, with monitoring programmes tied to chargeback and fraud ratios and reserves against future disputes. The underwriting file asks for the regulator, the licence reference, the client geography, the marketing material and the refund terms, and the strength of the supervisory regime sets the price. Many Pacific-licensed firms end up leaning on crypto rails and alternative processors as a result, with the settlement handling and travel rule obligations that come with those, as covered in the high risk merchant piece.
Liquidity providers want audited accounts, the client money arrangement and the risk policy alongside the licence. App stores publish developer rules requiring financial trading apps to come from an appropriately licensed publisher for the markets targeted, and ad platforms run financial services certification against regulators' registers in a growing list of countries. A Pacific licence is generally accepted for markets where the firm is genuinely permitted to operate and is not a route into regulated markets that license the activity themselves, which is the practical meaning of what an offshore licence buys.
Choosing between them
If the target clients are in New Zealand or Australia, the domestic regimes apply and a Vanuatu licence is not a substitute for either. If the firm serves a spread of emerging markets and needs a working authorisation with real obligations at a reachable cost, Vanuatu after the tightening is a defensible choice, provided the founder budgets for harder banking and tighter payment terms rather than being surprised by them. If the plan depends on a company registration in a Pacific jurisdiction that supervises nothing, that is not a licensing plan, and it will be treated as unlicensed by every counterparty that matters. Whichever route, the onboarding checks, segregation records and audit trail have to exist in software from day one, which is what our Prop Firm CRM and broker tooling are built to record. SINGUARD supplies software through SGHK Softwares Limited and holds no financial services licence anywhere.
"The Pacific used to be where you went for a licence nobody asked questions about. Then the regulators started asking the questions themselves, and the firms that stayed are the ones that could answer."
— Alex Onta, Executive Director, SINGUARD
Key Takeaways
- Vanuatu's dealers in securities regime now requires capital, a compliance officer, an auditor and reporting, and the licence is genuine.
- New Zealand's derivatives issuer licence is the strongest Pacific option, with segregation, disclosure and dispute resolution obligations.
- Marshall Islands and Samoa international companies are company registrations, not financial services authorisations.
- Banking and card acquiring price the supervisory history behind the licence, which is why Pacific-licensed firms lean on specialist providers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a Vanuatu forex licence still worth getting?
The VFSC dealers in securities regime now carries capital, fit and proper, compliance officer, audit and reporting obligations, so it is a genuine licence rather than a formality. Whether it suits a given firm depends on the client markets targeted, because it does not authorise activity in countries that license the business themselves.
What is a New Zealand derivatives issuer licence?
It is a licence issued by the Financial Markets Authority for firms issuing derivatives to retail investors, carrying capital adequacy, client money segregation, disclosure and reporting obligations, alongside registration on the financial service providers register and membership of a dispute resolution scheme for retail clients.
Can I run a broker on a Marshall Islands company?
A Marshall Islands international company is a company registration, not a financial services authorisation. Counterparties check whether the entity appears on a financial regulator's public register with a stated permission, so a registration alone is treated as unlicensed by banks, acquirers, app stores and ad platforms.
About the Author
Alex Onta is an Executive Director at SINGUARD. He built eTrader, the terminal, the mobile apps, eTrader Broker, Copytrading, Business and Community, along with the worldwide clustered-server infrastructure it all runs on, with his brother Roman Onta helping on the design, and he leads that division today. Together with Roman he builds the Prop Firm CRM, the Broker CRM, Scalegram and CopySignals, and the two of them carry worldwide compliance, payment processing and international business structuring side by side. He lives and works in Dubai for most of the year. Meet the executive duo leading Singuard's five divisions.