Markets.com

The CySEC licence of Safecap Investments Limited and the FSCA authorisation of Markets South Africa (Pty) Ltd were confirmed on the regulators’ registers. Markets International Ltd, which operates the markets.com site for St Vincent and the Grenadines, is a registered company with no financial licence named by the firm or found by us.

• StrengthSafecap Investments Limited has held CySEC licence 092/08 since 28 July 2008; the register lists the trade name markets.com and the approved domain www.markets.com/en.
• StrengthMarkets South Africa (Pty) Ltd is an authorised financial services provider (FSP 46860) and an approved over-the-counter derivative provider on the FSCA’s lists. It operates markets.com’s international pages.
• MediumMarkets International Ltd, a company registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines (27030 BC 2023) and formerly named Finalto International Ltd, operates www.markets.com/vc/. Markets.com describes it as registered, not licensed, but that site carries the headings “Regulated by SVG” and “Authorised & regulated”. We found no financial licence for the company.
• ObservationThe St Vincent site advertises leverage of up to 1:1000 and welcome, loyalty and referral bonuses, and the FSCA site publishes terms for deposit bonuses. These are recorded but not scored.

The group is privately held and does not disclose its owners or publish audited accounts. Playtech’s annual reports show that the markets.com business, including Safecap, was part of its Finalto division, which it sold to Gopher Investments in July 2022; the owners of Gopher Investments, and any change since, are not on the public record we found.

• StrengthPlaytech plc’s 2021 annual report describes www.markets.com as the B2C business of its financial trading division and lists Safecap as the division’s primary trading company; its 2022 annual report states that the sale of the Finalto division to Gopher Investments completed in July 2022.
• MediumMarkets.com’s documents do not name its owner. Safecap’s 2025 Pillar 3 report refers to a group without naming its parent, GLEIF records a parent that does not prepare consolidated accounts, and the group’s companies have been renamed from Finalto to Markets. No audited accounts for any markets.com company were found in public sources.

EU clients are covered by CySEC’s Investor Compensation Fund and have negative balance protection. Clients of the South African company have segregated accounts and negative balance protection that the firm may withdraw, but no compensation scheme. Clients of the St Vincent site deal with a company that no financial regulator supervises.

• StrengthSafecap’s investment services agreement gives retail clients access to the Investor Compensation Fund and states that their losses can never exceed their equity.
• MediumMarkets South Africa’s terms state that client money is held in segregated client accounts with licensed South African banks and that it operates on a negative balance protection basis, but reserve the right to withdraw that protection at its discretion, including when it considers this necessary for risk management, on five business days’ notice.
• MediumMarkets International Ltd’s client agreement (September 2026) states that client money is held in segregated accounts but may be held in omnibus accounts, and that clients are liable for any deficit; we found no negative balance protection commitment. The company is not supervised by a financial regulator and its clients have no compensation scheme.

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

No public enforcement action against a markets.com company was found in the last eight years. The markets.com site for St Vincent and the Grenadines presents its operator as “Regulated by SVG”, although we found no financial licence for it. A 2015 CySEC fine against Safecap is older than eight years and is recorded but not scored.

• MediumOn 10 October 2026 the www.markets.com/vc/ site carried the headings “Regulated by SVG” and “Authorised & regulated”. The same site states that it is operated by Markets International Ltd, a company registered under St Vincent and the Grenadines’ International Business Companies Act, and names no financial licence for it; we found none. Because this concerns the firm’s own description of its regulatory status, it is assessed under conduct and disclosure.
• ObservationOn 2 July 2015 CySEC announced administrative fines totalling €168,000 imposed on Safecap Investments Ltd at board meetings on 2 March and 25 May 2015, for breaches of the investment services law and CySEC directives on authorisation, operating conditions and professional competence, after an onsite investigation in May 2013 and an onsite inspection in October 2014. The decision is more than eight years old, so it is recorded here but not scored.
• ObservationNo proceedings were found at the Ontario Capital Markets Tribunal, in the Brazilian CVM’s sanctions case data or site, or in the FSCA’s enforcement actions under the names Markets.com, Safecap, Finalto or Markets South Africa.

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 and no community programme were found in public sources.

• ObservationNo Great Place to Work certification or community programme was found on the markets.com websites or in public sources.