Saxo

Saxo’s client-facing companies are an EU bank with branches and subsidiaries regulated in the UK, Switzerland, Singapore, Italy and Japan. The UK and Singapore licences were confirmed on the regulators’ registers. No offshore entity was found.

• StrengthSaxo Capital Markets UK Ltd (FRN 551422) has been authorised by the FCA since 5 October 2011 and may hold client money. Saxo Capital Markets Pte Ltd holds a MAS Capital Markets Services licence.
• StrengthSaxo Bank A/S states it has been a licensed Danish bank since 2001 (licence no. 1149). Denmark’s Financial Supervisory Authority reports that it was designated a systemically important financial institution in 2023.
• ObservationIn 2025 Saxo sold 80.1% of its Australian subsidiary, now Totality Wealth Limited, and its Hong Kong company stopped regulated business on 28 February 2025.

Saxo Bank A/S is privately held and publishes audited annual reports. Bank J. Safra Sarasin bought 71.31% of the shares on 2 March 2026 from Geely Financials Denmark and Mandatum; founder Kim Fournais’s holding company remains a shareholder.

• StrengthThe audited 2025 annual report, with Deloitte as auditor, names the shareholders above 5% and the change of control in March 2026.
• ObservationSaxo Bank A/S’s record in the global LEI database, last updated in April 2026, reports no parent company, which does not reflect the majority holding described in its annual report.

Saxo Bank A/S’s clients are covered by Denmark’s Depositor and Investor Guarantee Scheme, and clients of the UK subsidiary may be covered by the FSCS. The Dutch regulator fined Saxo in 2024 for BinckBank’s breach of asset segregation rules during its migration to Saxo, which places this pillar in a lower band.

• StrengthSaxo states that the Danish scheme covers cash deposits up to €100,000 per depositor and investor losses up to €20,000, for clients of Saxo Bank A/S and its branches in the UAE, Czech Republic, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
• HighThe AFM fined Saxo Bank A/S €500,000, as legal successor of BinckBank, because BinckBank’s records of client portfolios between January 2021 and April 2023 were so deficient that it could no longer establish with certainty to whom investments and money belonged, in breach of asset segregation rules. Saxo did not object and the fine became final on 25 December 2024.

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

Saxo has a repeated record of material enforcement in the last eight years, in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Australia, including a court fine following a police report by the Danish FSA and a DKK 313 million anti-money-laundering fine. Several matters were self-reported, and Saxo says it has closed the Danish anti-money-laundering orders.

• HighOn 22 January 2026 Saxo Bank A/S accepted an administrative fine of DKK 313 million from the Danish FSA for breaching the Money Laundering Act between January 2021 and May 2023, by not obtaining enough information on the purpose and intended nature of a number of client relationships and not monitoring White Label Clients on an ongoing basis. Saxo states that the inspection found no instances or signs of money laundering.
• HighOn 29 October 2025, after a police report by the Danish FSA in March 2022, the Lyngby District Court fined Saxo Bank A/S DKK 2 million for incomplete or inaccurate transaction reports to the Danish FSA in at least 84 million cases and missing reports in 10 million cases between January 2018 and June 2021, and for not checking its reports. The court noted that Saxo found the errors itself. The judgment was not appealed and is final.
• HighThe AFM fined Saxo Bank A/S a total of €1.6 million, final in December 2024, for BinckBank’s breaches of asset segregation, risk control and client treatment rules between January 2021 and April 2023, which it called very serious. In June 2023 it had fined BinckBank €530,000 for product governance failings between December 2019 and December 2021.
• MediumBetween 2022 and 2026 the Danish FSA issued a series of orders to Saxo Bank A/S, including on product governance (2023, finding that investment products were sold to a significant extent to clients outside their target market), the appropriateness test (2022), crypto-asset holdings outside a bank’s permitted business (2023), marketing without balanced risk information (2024), its compliance function (2024, repeating orders from 2019 and 2021), remuneration (2024), risk management (2025), misclassification of retail clients as professional investors (2025) and fee terms (2026).
• MediumOn 6 January 2026 Hong Kong’s SFC reprimanded and fined Saxo Capital Markets HK Limited HK$4 million for letting retail clients trade virtual asset products meant for professional investors between November 2018 and November 2022. The firm self-reported and reimbursed clients.
• LowIn May 2023 ASIC made eight interim stop orders against Saxo Capital Markets (Australia) Limited over deficient target market determinations for its CFDs, revoked two days later after Saxo amended them. In November 2023 ASIC listed the same company among seven CFD issuers that self-reported issuing CFDs above its leverage limits and compensated clients.
• ObservationBG SAXO SIM, Saxo’s 51%-owned Italian firm, discloses on its website that it has not complied with a 2026 decision of Italy’s financial ombudsman (ACF) awarding damages to a client.

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. Saxo’s annual report says it engages with local charities and supports staff volunteering, but names no programme or amounts.

• ObservationNo Great Place to Work certification was found in Great Place to Work’s public listings.
• ObservationNo named community programme was found in Saxo’s annual report or on its website.