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Formation and licensing

The company first,
then the brokerage

Jurisdiction, incorporation, the licence application and the bank account — handled alongside the platform you will eventually run on it, rather than by a separate firm who has never seen one.

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What it actually involves

Six things
before a first client

Getting licensed is mostly paperwork, and paperwork in the wrong order is what turns three months into a year.

  1. Choosing where

    The jurisdiction decides which clients you may take, what capital you must hold, how heavy your reporting is and — the part people underestimate — which payment providers and banks will deal with you afterwards. It is worth choosing on where you intend to sell rather than on which application looks easiest.

  2. The company itself

    Incorporation, share structure, registered office and the directors the regulator will be assessing. Getting the structure right at this stage costs a fee; changing it after an application is under way costs the application.

  3. The people behind it

    Most regimes want named directors, a compliance officer and an MLRO, each with a background the regulator can check. Sourcing and approving these is regularly the longest single item in the whole process, and it is the one that cannot be hurried.

  4. The application pack

    Business plan, financial projections, AML and compliance manuals, risk policies, client agreements and the operations detail behind them. Written to be read by the regulator you are applying to, not adapted from a pack meant for a different one.

  5. Banking and payments

    The step that catches most new brokerages. A licence does not by itself get you a corporate account or a merchant facility, and applying to the wrong institutions in the wrong order costs weeks. Preparing for this while the licence is pending is what saves them.

  6. Being ready to operate

    Regulators increasingly ask what you will actually run — the CRM, the KYC process, the record keeping, the audit trail. Answering with a platform already configured is a materially stronger application than answering with an intention to buy one.

Three routes

Cheap, credible, or accepted everywhere

Broadly there are three tiers, and the honest way to choose between them is to start from who you intend to sell to and work backwards.

  • Offshore

    The fastest and least expensive way to be licensed and trading. Suits desks starting out or serving markets that accept it — and it is worth knowing up front which payment providers and which clients will not.

    • Lowest capital requirement
    • Shortest route to trading
    • Lighter ongoing reporting
    • Narrower market access
  • Most common

    Mid-tier

    Where most growing brokerages land. Enough standing for serious payment providers and banks to take you seriously, without the capital and compliance burden of a major onshore regime.

    • Recognised by most PSPs
    • Banking is realistic
    • Wider market access
    • Real but manageable reporting

  • Onshore

    A major regime, with the capital, the audits, the client-money rules and the staffing that come with it. The right answer when your target market demands it, and an expensive one when it does not.

    • Widest client acceptance
    • Best banking terms
    • Substantial capital required
    • Named staff and real audits

How it runs

Four stages, and the order matters

The two in the middle are ours to prepare and file. The first is a decision only you can make, and the last is one a regulator makes.

  1. Stage 01

    Choose the jurisdiction

    Starting from the markets you intend to sell to, the capital you can commit and the payment rails you will need on the other side.

  2. Stage 02

    Incorporate

    Company, share structure, registered office, directors and the officers the regime requires, set up the way the application will need to find them.

  3. Stage 03

    Prepare and file

    Business plan, projections, AML and compliance manuals, client agreements and the operational detail, then the filing and the questions that follow it.

  4. Stage 04

    Bank and launch

    Corporate accounts and merchant facilities opened, the platform configured against the licence conditions, and the doors opened.

Where brokerages register

Pick the market first, the flag second

These are the regions brokerages usually consider, with what each is generally chosen for. Which are open to you depends on your shareholders, your capital and where your clients are — so treat this as the start of a conversation rather than a menu.

  • Indian Ocean

    • Fast to licence
    • Low capital
    • Common first flag

  • Caribbean

    • Offshore
    • Quick incorporation
    • Check PSP acceptance

  • Middle East

    • Free-zone regimes
    • Strong banking
    • Regional credibility

  • Europe

    • Onshore
    • Passporting
    • Real capital and audits

  • Africa

    • Growing regimes
    • Local market access
    • Named local officers

  • Asia-Pacific

    • Mid-tier options
    • Regional clients
    • Varies sharply by country

Questions about getting licensed

Before you file anything

The questions worth asking early, and the honest answers to them.

  • It depends on the jurisdiction and on you, and anyone who answers with a single number is guessing. Offshore regimes are measured in weeks, mid-tier and onshore ones in months. What actually moves the date is rarely the regulator: it is how quickly directors and officers are appointed and cleared, how complete the first submission is, and how fast follow-up questions get answered. We will give you a range for the specific regime you choose and tell you which parts of it are ours and which are yours.

  • No, and be wary of anyone who does. The decision belongs to the regulator and rests on your shareholders, your directors, your capital and your business plan. What we can do is tell you honestly before you spend anything whether an application looks viable, put together a pack that answers what that regime actually asks, and handle the correspondence properly. Applications fail on incomplete submissions and unsuitable people far more often than on the merits of the business.

  • Work backwards from your clients. The question is not which licence is cheapest but which one lets you take the people you intend to sell to, and which one your payment providers and banks will accept afterwards. A cheap flag that no PSP will onboard is more expensive than a mid-tier one that they will, because a brokerage that cannot take deposits has no business regardless of what it is licensed to do. Tell us the markets first and the shortlist tends to write itself.

  • No. Formation and licensing stand on their own and plenty of people take only that. It does help, though: several regimes ask what systems you will use for client records, AML and record keeping, and an application that describes a configured platform reads better than one describing an intention to find one. Running both together also means the platform is set up against your actual licence conditions rather than adjusted after the first compliance review.

  • The obligations start rather than end. Periodic reporting, audited accounts, capital maintenance, AML monitoring, record retention and notifying the regulator when material things change — directors, shareholders, addresses, business lines. Ongoing support for that is available, and the platform carries most of the evidence side: the audit trail, the KYC records and the reporting are produced as the desk operates rather than assembled the month a return is due.