HFM

The CySEC, FCA and DFSA licences were confirmed on the registers, and the FSA Seychelles and Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority list group companies. The Cyprus company accepts only professional clients, and the international site is presented under HF Markets (SV) Ltd, an international business company with no financial licence named.

• StrengthHF Markets (Europe) Ltd holds CySEC licence 183/12, issued 20 November 2012; HF Markets (UK) Limited has been authorised by the FCA since 14 November 2018 (FRN 801701); HF Markets (DIFC) Limited holds DFSA reference F004885, licensed on 12 December 2018 with an endorsement to serve retail clients.
• HighHFM’s client area and international site carry the legal statement that HF Markets (SV) Ltd “is incorporated in St. Vincent & the Grenadines as an International Business Company”, and all the legal documents on the international site are HF Markets (SV) documents. No financial regulator or licence is named for this company.
• MediumHF Markets (Seychelles) Ltd is listed by the FSA Seychelles as a securities dealer (website hfm.com/sc/en), outside the main retail protection regimes. HFM Investments Limited is listed by Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority as a non-dealing online foreign exchange broker (licence 155), and the group states that HF Markets SA (PTY) Ltd is an FSCA financial services provider (FSP 46632).
• ObservationHF Markets (Europe) Ltd states that it “currently accepts only Eligible Counterparties and Professional per se clients”, and that its HF Markets brand is different from the HFM brand used by other group companies.

The group companies report HF Markets Holdings Ltd, a Cyprus company, as their parent in the global LEI system. The holding company reports that it is owned by natural persons, who are not named.

• ObservationHF Markets Holdings Ltd (Cyprus, HE 336491) is the reported parent of the UK, Cyprus, DIFC, South African, St Vincent and Mauritius companies, and reports no parent of its own because it is owned by natural persons. Companies House records that HF Markets Holdings Ltd ceased to be a person with significant control of HF Markets (UK) Limited on 2 March 2023, and that the UK company has no registrable person with significant control.
• ObservationNo owner, ownership chart or audited group accounts were found in the public sources reviewed.

Clients of the international site contract with a company that no financial regulator supervises and that has no compensation scheme. HFM states that client funds are segregated, that negative balances are reset to zero and that it holds €5 million of insurance.

• HighHF Markets (SV) Ltd, which runs HFM’s international client area, names no financial regulator, so client money held by it is outside any regulatory supervision or investor compensation scheme.
• ObservationHFM states that client funds “are kept separate from our company funds”, that it maintains a €5 million insurance programme against fraud, errors and other risks, and that “if your balance goes negative, we’ll automatically reset it to zero” (security of funds page, archived 9 March 2026). These are the firm’s own claims; the insurance certificate was not reviewed.

Not assessed in a desk audit. Spreads, slippage and fill quality can only be measured with live accounts.

No enforcement action against an HF Markets company in the last eight years was found in CySEC’s decisions, the FCA register or the FSCA’s enforcement records. A 2016 CySEC fine is recorded below but, being more than eight years old, is not scored.

• ObservationOn 18 January 2016 CySEC fined HF Markets (Europe) Ltd €105,000 (announced 19 August 2016), including for failing to supervise an outsourced customer support provider whose staff gave investment advice and downplayed the risk of losses, and for inadequate records and client information. The decision is more than eight years old, so it is recorded here but not scored.
• ObservationThe Reserve Bank of India’s Alert List (updated 19 November 2025) names both HotForex (www.hotforex.com) and HF Markets (www.hfm.com). Under our methodology regulator warnings are recorded but not scored.
• ObservationHFM’s international site offers unlimited leverage on its InfinityX account and leverage of up to 1:2000 on other accounts (archived 26 August 2026). Under our methodology offshore incentives are recorded but not scored where lawful.

Not assessed in a desk audit. Uptime, incident history and security controls require evidence from the firm or live monitoring.

No Great Place to Work certification was found. The only community contributions found were charity donations tied to client trading in a 2022 Ramadan campaign, announced by the firm.

• ObservationNo Great Place to Work certification was found in Great Place to Work’s public listings.
• ObservationIn a campaign from 28 March to 2 May 2022 HotForex pledged to donate an amount for every standard lot traded on forex, silver and gold by participating accounts to a charitable organisation for people in Islamic countries. The contribution is reported by the firm itself; HFM’s own social responsibility page could not be loaded for this audit.