Verification record
Focus Markets review
The entity behind Focus Markets, its licence, and how to confirm both yourself.
Last checked
Focus Markets is a real firm and not an outright scam, though enough is unverified here that we would want the gaps closed before recommending it. Regulated by ASIC (AFSL 514425); Mauritius FSC (GB25205284), offering MetaTrader 5, TradeLocker.
Our rating
One rating, identical across our sites - only the way it is shown changes. It averages six assessments: regulation, trading costs, platforms, markets, support and education.
Regulation and safety
- Regulated by
- ASIC (AFSL 514425); Mauritius FSC (GB25205284)
- Regulator tier
- Tier 1
- Register entry
- ASIC Professional Registers, AFSL 514425
- Client money segregated
- Yes, Australian entity
- Held at
- Not prominently disclosed
- Negative balance protection
- Australian retail protections apply; international entity-dependent
- Compensation scheme
- No statutory Australian investor compensation scheme equivalent to FSCS
- Audited by
- Not prominently disclosed
- Not available to
- Jurisdiction-dependent
A licence is the first thing a fake broker cannot produce, so it is the first thing to check.
Focus Markets holds a tier-one authorisation from ASIC. That matters more than any headline spread: it determines your leverage cap, whether losses can exceed your deposit, and what happens to your money if the firm fails.
It also operates an offshore entity (FSC). Which one you are onboarded to depends on where you live, and the two carry very different protections - worth confirming before you deposit.
ASIC caps retail leverage at 1:30, requires negative balance protection, and obliges the broker to hold client money in a separate trust account.
An FSC licence (Mauritius or Belize, depending on the entity) is an offshore authorisation with lighter reporting duties than a tier-one regulator.
Check the licence yourself: ASIC Connect, the Mauritius FSC register of licensees.
The company behind the brand
- Legal entity
- Focus Markets Global Limited
- Company number
- 227720
- Headquarters
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Founded
- 2019
- Publicly listed
- No
- Parent company
- Independent
- Employees
- Approx. 10-50
- Also trades as
- Focus Markets
Deposits and withdrawals
- Deposit methods
- Visa/Mastercard, bank transfer, Skrill, Neteller, Bitwallet, cryptocurrency and regional methods
- Withdrawal methods
- Cards, bank transfer, Skrill, Neteller, Bitwallet, crypto
- Deposit time
- Instant 24/7 on many electronic methods
- Withdrawal time
- Finance review 1-2 business days; settlement varies
- Local payment methods
- Yes
What it costs to trade
- Spread from
- 0.0 pips
- EUR/USD spread
- Not reliably published
- GBP/USD spread
- Not reliably published
- Commission
- $3.50 per side / $7 round turn, Raw
- All-in cost, EUR/USD
- Variable
- Spread type
- Variable
- Overnight swap
- Both: swaps may be charged or credited
- Inactivity fee
- Not prominently advertised
- Deposit fee
- $0 on supported methods
- Withdrawal fee
- $0 from Focus Markets
- Currency conversion
- Applicable where conversion is required
Costs matter less than whether you can withdraw, but an offer that looks impossible usually is.
A quoted spread from 0.0 pips is a raw-spread figure, which almost always means a separate commission per lot. Compare the two together - a "zero spread" account with a high commission can cost more than a wider spread with none.
Quoted spreads are best-case figures on the most liquid pair, in normal conditions. What you actually pay widens around news and at the session open.
Focus Markets lists a minimum deposit of $0. Treat it as the cost of opening an account, not the cost of trading one - position sizing on a small balance is what tends to cause damage.
Accounts
- Minimum deposit
- $0
- Account types
- Standard, Raw, Access, Demo
- Account currencies
- AUD, USD, GBP, EUR, NZD, SGD, CAD
- Islamic account
- Entity/account dependent
- Demo account
- Yes
- Professional account
- Entity-dependent
- Minimum trade size
- 0.01 lots
- Time to open
- Online application, subject to verification
Markets and execution
- Markets
- Forex, Commodities, Indices, Stocks, ETFs, Cryptocurrencies
- Currency pairs
- 50+
- Total instruments
- 800+
- Crypto CFDs
- Yes
- Maximum leverage
- 1:1000
- Execution model
- Market maker / hedged liquidity model
- Execution speed
- Not reliably published
- Order types
- Market, limit, stop, stop-loss, take-profit and platform-specific pending orders
- Servers
- Not prominently disclosed
Leverage up to 1:1000 is available on this entity. High leverage does not increase your expected return - it increases position size for the same deposit, and shortens the move needed to close you out.
Focus Markets covers forex, commodities, indices, stocks, etfs, cryptocurrencies. A wider range matters less than depth in the instruments you actually trade.
Funding options: visa/mastercard, bank transfer, skrill, neteller, bitwallet, cryptocurrency and regional methods. Check withdrawal routes as well as deposit ones - they are often not the same, and the difference only becomes apparent when you try to take money out.
Platforms and tools
- Platforms
- MetaTrader 5, TradeLocker
- Own platform
- No
- Mobile app
- MT5 and TradeLocker
- Browser trading
- Yes
- Automated trading
- Yes
- Copy trading
- Platform-dependent
- Indicators
- Extensive MT5/TradeLocker charting
- Third-party tools
- MetaTrader 5, TradeLocker
- API access
- Not prominently offered as a standard retail feature
MetaTrader 5 handles more asset classes and order types than MT4, but expert advisors are not compatible between the two - an MT4 EA will not run on it.
Support and education
- Support hours
- 24/5
- Contact channels
- Phone, email, live chat
- Languages
- Multilingual/international
- Telephone
- N/A
- N/A
- Live chat response
- Typically fast during trading week
- Education
- Trading education, platform guidance and market content
- Research
- Market information and platform-based analysis
Questions people ask about Focus Markets
Is Focus Markets a real registered company?
Yes. At Focus Markets, the company you would be contracting with is Focus Markets Global Limited, registered as 227720 and based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. A registration number is checkable in the register of the country that issued it, and a broker that will not give you one is telling you something.
Is Focus Markets regulated, and by whom?
Focus Markets holds ASIC (AFSL 514425); Mauritius FSC (GB25205284), which we grade as tier 1. A licence number is the part worth checking, because it is the thing a cloned site copies and the thing the regulator's register will not confirm.
Does Focus Markets trade under any other names?
Focus Markets also appears as Focus Markets. This matters when you are checking a licence or a warning list, because a search for one name will not always find what was published about another.