RandBroker is an independent guide to FSCA-regulated forex and CFD brokers for South African traders. This page explains exactly how we research and compare brokers — what we check, how we verify it, and, just as importantly, what we deliberately refuse to publish until we have confirmed it. We would rather show you a verified fact and an honest gap than a confident number we cannot stand behind.
The criteria we review against
Every broker we cover is assessed against a fixed set of criteria, in a deliberate order that puts your safety ahead of cost. We start with FSCA regulation and the safety of client funds, because a low spread on an unregulated broker is worth nothing if you cannot get your money back. Only after a broker clears the safety filter do we look at the practical factors that affect day-to-day trading.
- FSCA authorisation & the FSP-vs-ODP distinction. Whether the broker holds an FSCA FSP licence, which legal entity holds it, and — critically — whether that entity also holds an OTC Derivative Provider (ODP) licence to write CFDs onshore as principal. This distinction, not star ratings, is the spine of our comparison.
- ZAR support & funding. Whether the broker offers native ZAR accounts, and how funding works under FICA/KYC and SARB exchange control.
- Trading platforms. Which platforms the broker supports (MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView, proprietary apps).
- Track record. The year the broker was founded and its regulatory history.
- Material caveats. Where a broker's local protection is weaker than the FSP badge suggests — offshore onboarding, no own ODP, no ZAR funding — we surface that disclosure inline rather than hiding it.
How we verify a licence against the FSCA register
We do not take a regulatory claim from a broker's marketing page, a press release, or another affiliate blog at face value. For every licence we report, we identify the specific legal entity named in the broker's own documentation, then aim to confirm that entity on the FSCA's own public register, reached directly. We check that the entity is listed, currently authorised, and — for any ODP claim — that the ODP authorisation is genuinely held.
Honest status today: the licence facts on this site are corroborated from
broker disclosure plus multiple South African secondary sources, but the live FSCA register
is a session-driven search form we have not yet screenshot-confirmed broker by broker. Every
broker row therefore carries an explicit “pending live-register confirm” flag, and
the whole site is noindex until that gate clears. Where an ODP claim is only
secondary-sourced, we keep it off until confirmed — we never publish an unconfirmed
ODP. You can run the same check yourself on the
FSCA register.
The honest-null policy
This is the part of our methodology that most distinguishes us. A large amount of forex comparison content publishes precise-looking star ratings, “typical” spreads and minimum-deposit figures that were never independently tested — numbers copied between sites, or supplied by the broker, and presented as if they were findings. We will not do that.
Where we have not independently verified a figure, we leave it blank rather than fill it in. Until we complete a hands-on review pass we do not publish a star rating, a specific spread, or a minimum deposit for a broker. In our prose we tell you the figure varies by account and changes often, and to check the current number on the broker's own site. A blank is an honest statement that we have not measured something; a fabricated number is not.
FAIS no-advice posture & our independence
RandBroker is a pure no-advice publisher. We provide general information and broker comparisons; we do not provide advice or an intermediary service within the meaning of South Africa's Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS), and nothing on this site is a personal recommendation to buy, sell or hold any product. That posture is not just a disclaimer — it is the line that keeps an independent affiliate publisher lawful in South Africa, and we hold to it in our editorial and our calls to action alike.
RandBroker is funded by affiliate commissions: some links to brokers are partner links, and if you open an account through one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Brokers cannot pay for inclusion, for a better write-up, or to remove an unfavourable fact. Our regulatory findings come from the registers, not from our partners. We are an independent EU-based publisher, Lead Media OOD (Bulgaria); we are not a broker or financial services provider, we do not hold client funds, and we do not give investment advice or trading signals.
Authorship & expertise
Forex and CFD trading is a peak “Your Money or Your Life” subject, so authorship matters — and we disclose ours in full rather than dress it up. Broker reviews and guides on RandBroker are researched and drafted by Pipex, RandBroker's AI research agent, run on Claude with a forex-research / register-verification / fact-check toolset. Pipex is disclosed everywhere it bylines content, is schema-marked as software (never as a person), and has never opened a brokerage account or traded a broker's platform — it does not make first-person experiential claims.
Editorial oversight and sign-off on this methodology and RandBroker's standards sits with Eitan Gorodetsky, Editorial Strategist, Lead Media, who reviewed and approved this page on 28 June 2026. We will not attach a fabricated human author or invented credentials to financial content — full detail on how Pipex works, what it does and does not do, and our corrections log is on the disclosure page.
Update cadence & corrections
Regulatory status changes, brokers gain and lose licences, and account terms move. We re-verify regulatory facts against the FSCA register when we refresh a page, and each page carries a visible “last updated” date — this page was last reviewed on 23 June 2026. If you believe we have a regulatory fact wrong, tell us and we will check it against the register and correct it. You can reach the editorial desk at hello@randbroker.com.
RandBroker is an independent editorial desk built around South Africa's specific regulatory reality: FSCA FSP categories, ODP status, SARB exchange control limits and SARS tax treatment of forex gains. We verify every licence on the FSCA Financial Service Provider register and distinguish between FSP authorisation and ODP status — because most overseas broker reviews do not. No payment is accepted for coverage.