What a financial regulator does
A regulator is given its powers by a country’s law. In broad terms it does four things. It decides who may offer financial services at all, by granting, refusing and withdrawing permission. It writes rules for how a permitted firm must behave: what it must tell a client, how it must hold a client’s money, how much capital of its own it must keep. It supervises, by requiring reports and by inspecting. And it enforces, with fines, restrictions and bans.
A regulator does not vouch for a firm’s products, does not promise that a firm will not fail, and does not make trading safe. A person can lose money, quickly, with a firm that is authorised and behaving properly. What regulation changes is what the firm is obliged to do, and where a client can turn if it does not.
A regulator’s authority also stops at a border. Its rules protect the clients its law says they protect, which usually depends on which legal entity the client has contracted with and where the client lives.
The main regulators, by jurisdiction
The names below are the ones a reader is most likely to meet. Each keeps a public register that can be searched without charge. The list is not complete, and it is not a ranking.
- United Kingdom: the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Its register is the Financial Services Register.
- United States: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversees futures, swaps and retail foreign exchange dealing, with the National Futures Association (NFA), an industry body with delegated powers, registering firms and individuals. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversees securities markets.
- Australia: the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which grants the Australian financial services licence.
- European Union: each member state has its own regulator, such as the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), and a firm authorised in one state may be permitted to serve clients in others. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) co-ordinates the national regulators and can set rules across the Union; it does not itself authorise brokers.
- Singapore: the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which is both the central bank and the financial regulator.
- Japan: the Financial Services Agency (FSA).
- India: the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulates the securities markets and their intermediaries; the Reserve Bank of India is responsible for the rules on foreign exchange.
- South Africa: the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
- Dubai International Financial Centre: the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), whose authority covers that financial centre and not the rest of the country.
Offshore registries
A number of smaller jurisdictions, many of them islands, register international companies and some also license financial firms. They are commonly called offshore. The word describes a place and is not an accusation: lawful firms are incorporated in such places for many reasons.
What differs from one jurisdiction to another is what the law there requires of a licensed firm and what a client can do if something goes wrong: how much capital the firm must hold, whether client money must be kept apart, whether there is an ombudsman or a compensation scheme, and how readily a client abroad can bring a complaint. Those are facts to look up for the jurisdiction concerned, in its own published rules, and they vary widely.
Two different things are also issued in such places, and they are easily confused: a certificate that a company exists, and a licence to carry on a financial business. The next section is about that difference, which applies everywhere.
Authorisation and company registration are different things
Every company has a registration: an entry in a companies registry, with a number. It records that the company exists, where its registered office is and, in many countries, who its directors are. It is obtained by filing forms and paying a fee, and it says nothing about what the company is allowed to do.
Authorisation, also called a licence or permission, is granted by a financial regulator after an application that the regulator can refuse. It names the activities the firm may carry on, and it carries duties that continue for as long as it is held.
So a company number, by itself, is not evidence of regulation. Nor is a statement that a firm is “registered”, “incorporated” or “compliant” without the name of a regulator and a reference that can be looked up. The words that matter are the regulator’s name, the firm’s reference number on that regulator’s register, and the exact legal name of the entity that holds it.
How to check any firm on a public register
The check takes a few minutes and uses only the regulator’s own website. It works the same way for any firm.
- Find the legal name. Look in the footer of the firm’s website and in its terms for the full name of the company that would be your counterparty, the regulator it names and its reference number. If no regulator is named, there is nothing to check, and that is itself the answer.
- Go to the regulator’s website yourself. Type its address or find it through a search engine. Do not follow a link supplied by the firm, because a copied register page is a known trick.
- Search the register by the reference number, then by the name, and see that the two lead to the same entry.
- Read the entry. Is the status current, or has it lapsed or been withdrawn? Do the permissions cover what you are being offered? Is the firm allowed to hold client money?
- Compare the details. The web addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses on the register should match the ones you have been using. A firm that copies a real firm’s name and number, with its own contact details, is called a clone.
- Confirm which entity you would contract with. A group may have one authorised company and several that are not. The protections belong to clients of the authorised entity, so the name on your agreement is the one that counts.
What a register entry does and does not settle
A current entry settles that the named firm holds the permissions listed, on the day you looked. Most regulators also publish warning lists of firms that are operating without permission or imitating an authorised one, and those are worth a search as well.
It does not settle whether the firm’s prices are fair, whether its service is good, whether its products suit you or whether you will make money. Those are separate questions, and the checklist for choosing a broker takes them in turn.
A worked example: one check, start to finish
Illustration · invented round figures, not market prices and not GIO4X fees
The names and numbers here are invented. A website trades as “Example Markets”. Its footer says: “Example Markets is a trading name of Example Markets International Ltd, registered company 0000000, authorised by Regulator X under reference 111111.”
- The reader goes to Regulator X’s website by typing its address, and searches the register for 111111.
- The entry found is for “Example Markets Ltd”: a similar name, but not the same company as “Example Markets International Ltd”.
- The entry lists one website and one telephone number. Neither is the one the reader has been using.
- The reader searches the register for “Example Markets International Ltd” and finds no entry. The company number 0000000, looked up in the companies registry, does exist: the company is registered, and nothing more.
The reference number was real and belonged to a different company. The entity the reader would have contracted with is a registered company with no entry on the register. Every statement in the footer was close to true, and the conclusion a hurried reader would draw from it was false. The check found that in four steps, using only the regulator’s own site.
What this page does not tell you
- The rules, limits, compensation arrangements or complaint procedures of any regulator. They differ, they change, and the regulator’s own website is the authority.
- Whether any particular firm is authorised. Only the register, read on the day, says that.
- Which regulator or jurisdiction is better. This page ranks none of them.
- Whether you, where you live, are entitled to a given protection. That depends on the entity you contract with and on your own country’s law.
At GIO4X
This website makes no regulatory claim about GIO4X. It names no regulator, no licence number and no register entry, and the page “What we disclose” lists regulatory status among the items not yet published. The company line on this site reads: “GIO4X, a subsidiary of 777 Capital Markets Limited (UK), Company No. 17049134.” As this page explains, a company number is a registration and not an authorisation. Anything not published can be asked for in writing through the contact page, and the check described above can be applied to GIO4X exactly as to any other firm.
Questions people ask
- How do I check whether a broker is regulated?
- Find the full legal name, the regulator and the reference number in the firm’s footer or terms. Go to that regulator’s website yourself, search its public register for the number and the name, and check that the entry is current, that its permissions cover what you are offered, and that its contact details match the ones you were given.
- Is a company registration number the same as being regulated?
- No. A company number shows that a company exists in a companies registry. Authorisation is a separate permission granted by a financial regulator, with its own reference number on that regulator’s register. A firm can have the first without the second.
- Does regulation mean my money is safe?
- No. Regulation sets duties for the firm and gives a client somewhere to turn. It does not prevent trading losses, and what happens if a firm fails depends on the rules of the jurisdiction and on which entity the client contracted with.
- Is GIO4X regulated?
- This website names no regulator, licence number or register entry for GIO4X and makes no regulatory claim. Regulatory status is listed as not yet published on the page “What we disclose”. The published company line gives a UK company number, which is a registration and not an authorisation.
Related pages on this site
- What we discloseTrustWhat GIO4X publishes and what it has not, item by item, regulatory status included.
- How to choose a brokerPrimerA checklist that begins with this check and goes on to money, costs and withdrawals.
- Clone firmsScam schoolHow a real firm’s name and number are borrowed.
- Fake brokers and trading platformsScam schoolWhat an invented broker looks like from the outside.
- Client fund securityTrustQuestions about client money to put to any broker.
- Verify a GIO4X linkTrustWhich addresses and software are official.
- What we areCompanyAnd what we are not.
The words on this page
A general explanation for study, with an invented example. Rules, costs and terms differ by country, market, provider and product, and the documents of the thing itself are what count. Educational information, not investment advice or a recommendation to trade.
GIO4X Academy · Market primers · Written 5 October 2026
https://www.gio4x.com/primers/regulation-explained
Printed from gio4x.com.