How brokers are checked and ranked

The first test: South African access

The first thing checked is whether a resident of South Africa can open an account, fund it in rand through local cards, bank transfers or e-wallets, and withdraw again. A broker that fails this test is not ranked at all, however good its platform or pricing looks on paper. Access is the gate, not a bonus point.

Part of that check is the entity question. For FxPro, the entity that serves South Africa is FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL, and the group also operates under other licences. FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa — check which entity your own account is opened with. We record which entity a South African applicant is likely to be placed with, because the regulator and the protections follow the entity, not the brand.

Where Each Class of Figure on This Site Comes From

Every figure on the site falls into one of three classes, and each has a named origin. The gold price reference is a live market quote for XAU/USD around 4275.0 taken from a price feed, not typed in by hand. Contract specifications are fixed by the instrument itself: 1 standard lot of gold equals 100 oz and one pip equals 0.01. Broker facts, meaning platforms, entities and leverage caps, come from FxPro's own published documentation and are logged with the date we read them.

Margin and pip-value arithmetic is derived, not sourced. Those numbers are calculated on the page from the inputs above, so a reader can trace any of them back to the reference price, the lot size and the leverage cap in the FxPro fact sheet. Nothing in that chain is a guess. Where a figure cannot be derived from a stated input, it does not appear on the site at all.

Regulatory statements come from the licence record, and the South African caveat is reproduced as given: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa, so readers must check which entity their own account is opened with. Funding methods listed are local cards, bank transfers in ZAR and e-wallets, taken from the broker's South Africa payment information rather than assumed.

When Two Sources Disagree, and Why the Live Price Can Differ From a Broker Quote

When two sources disagree, the site defaults to the more conservative figure and flags the conflict rather than silently picking one. If one source indicates a leverage cap and another suggests otherwise, the lower cap is shown, because understating available leverage is the safer error for a trader sizing a position. The disagreement is noted so a reader knows the number is contested.

A live gold price and a broker's quote can differ because they are not the same thing. The reference price near 4275.0 is a feed-level market quote, while a broker quote reflects that broker's own liquidity and includes the spread at the moment of execution. The gap widens around news releases and at low-liquidity hours, when quotes move faster than any page can display.

The site therefore treats its reference price as context for calculation, not as an executable price. Margin and pip examples built on 4275.0 show the arithmetic; they do not promise a fill at that level. A reader should expect the price on their platform to differ, and should size positions on the quote in front of them rather than on the figure published here.

Where the numbers come from

Numbers come from the broker's own documents, and each figure is recorded with the date it was read. That includes the contract specifications for gold (XAU/USD), where one standard lot is 100 oz and one pip is 0.01, and the leverage cap that applies to retail clients in South Africa, which is up to 1:200, with up to 1:500 available to eligible or professional clients depending on the instrument.

We treat leverage as a cap, not a setting to aim at. A worked example we use is that at 1:200 a 0.10-lot gold position needs about $85.50 in margin. Costs such as spreads, commissions and swaps are described by what they consist of and what they depend on, because they move with the market and the account type and cannot be frozen into a single number.

How a Broker Fact Is Dated and Re-Checked

Each broker fact carries the date it was last confirmed against FxPro's own published material. The date travels with the fact, so a reader can see how fresh it is rather than trusting an undated claim. Platform support for MT4, MT5, cTrader and FxPro Edge, the serving entity FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL, and the leverage caps are all held this way.

Re-checking happens on a fixed cycle and is triggered early by any signal of change, such as a platform being added or withdrawn or a leverage policy being revised. When a fact is re-confirmed without change, the date is moved forward. When it has changed, the old figure is replaced and the new date recorded, so the page never carries a fact that was true only in a previous period.

The regulator caveat is dated separately because licence records move on their own timetable. The statement that FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and that an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa, is checked against the registers rather than the marketing site. A reader is always told to confirm which entity their own account sits with, since that determines which protections apply.

What Is Deliberately Not Published, and How to Reproduce Any Number

The site does not publish spreads, commissions, swaps, minimum deposits, bonuses or promotional terms as numbers, because those are set by the broker, vary by account and change without notice. Publishing a figure the site cannot stand behind would mislead a reader into sizing a position on a cost that may not apply to them. The page names what those costs consist of and leaves the amount to the broker's live schedule.

It also does not publish profit claims, win rates or performance figures, because trading gold on leverage is high-risk and past outcomes do not transfer. No leverage ratio beyond the stated caps of 1:200 retail and up to 1:500 for eligible or professional clients appears anywhere, and the caps are framed as ceilings. Predictions of where XAU/USD will trade are excluded for the same reason.

Any number on the site can be reproduced with three inputs: the reference price, the lot size and the leverage cap. Take 0.10 lots, which is 10 oz, multiply by 4275.0 for a notional near $42,750, divide by 1:200, and the margin is about $85.50. Pip value is 0.01 times the ounces held. A reader with a calculator and the published inputs will arrive at the same result every time.

The Known Limits of This Method

The method cannot tell you what your own account will charge. Spreads, commissions and swaps are set by the broker and vary by account type, instrument and market conditions, so the site describes what those costs consist of rather than quoting a number it was not given. A reader comparing brokers must obtain the live cost schedule from the broker directly.

The margin examples assume the leverage cap stated for South Africa, which is a ceiling and not a recommendation. A reader whose account sits on a lower leverage setting will need more margin than the worked $85.50 figure suggests. The site states the cap because it is a fact, and explicitly frames it as a maximum rather than a target to trade at.

Rand figures are estimates tied to the exchange rate at the moment of reading and will drift. The site also cannot verify which FxPro entity a given reader's account is opened with, which is why the entity caveat is repeated rather than resolved. Where the method stops, the page says so instead of filling the gap with an assumed number.

What Updates Itself and What a Person Checks

The gold reference price and the USD/ZAR rate refresh automatically from the price feed, because both move continuously and a manual update would be out of date within minutes. Anything calculated from those two inputs, including margin examples and rand conversions, recalculates with them. That part of the page requires no human intervention and carries no editorial judgement.

Broker facts are reviewed by hand. Platform availability, the serving entity, the leverage caps of 1:200 for retail and up to 1:500 for eligible or professional clients, and the accepted funding methods are checked against FxPro's published material on a scheduled basis and re-dated each time. These change rarely, but when they do the consequence for a reader is large, so they are never left to an automated scrape.

Regulatory wording is also hand-checked, because a licence record is a legal statement rather than a data point. The FCA and CySEC licences and the FSCA licence held by an FxPro entity are verified at source and the caveat is reproduced exactly. No automated process is permitted to paraphrase a regulatory sentence, since a small rewording can change its meaning.

The Arithmetic Behind Every Calculator on the Site

Margin is position size in ounces multiplied by the gold price, divided by the leverage cap. For a 0.10-lot position that is 10 oz times roughly 4275.0, giving a notional of about $42,750, divided by 1:200, which lands at about $85.50. That worked figure is the one the site publishes. The same formula scales to any lot size a reader enters.

Pip value for gold is the pip size multiplied by the ounces in the position. One pip is 0.01, and 1 standard lot is 100 oz, so a full lot moves $1.00 per pip and a 0.10-lot position moves $0.10 per pip. Multiplying that by the number of pips in a move gives the profit or loss in US dollars before any cost is applied.

Rand conversion takes the US dollar result and applies the prevailing USD/ZAR rate supplied by the price feed at the moment the page loads. The site does not store a fixed exchange rate, because a stale rate would misstate every rand figure on the page. The conversion is shown as an estimate and is labelled as depending on the rate at the time of reading.

The limits of our testing

Our testing is documentary and practical, not a live funded trial of every account type. We read the broker's published documents, check the platform list and the funding routes, and note the date of each check. We do not claim to have traded every instrument on every platform, and we do not pretend a page written today will still be accurate in a year.

Because conditions change, a figure that has moved since we read it is a reason to re-check, not proof of an error. Where a document is ambiguous or a local detail cannot be confirmed, the page says so plainly rather than guessing. That is the honest limit, and it is stated so you can weigh the rest of the site accordingly.