The regulation of Forex brokers is one of the most discussed topics in trader communities. It is also a topic of considerable importance because the safety from
One of the responsibilities of a good government or independent regulator is to receive and act on complaints sent by the brokerage companies’ customers. Normally, a regulating institution has the necessary power to investigate and sufficient expertise to recognize a case of intentional misconduct, simple negligence, or technical issue on the broker’s part. Unfortunately, traders themselves have neither authority nor knowledge to tackle serious issues with the brokers without some kind of intermediation. Not all regulators accept and manage complaints directly — some cooperate with special dispute resolution systems (for example, the ASIC and the AFCA in Australia). This, however, doesn’t serve as a detriment to the successful resolution of a trader’s complaint as the Forex brokers are legally required to participate in such dispute resolution schemes (DRS).
Usually, a complaint resolution process (by a DRS or by a regulator itself) follows some predetermined pathway:
- Initially, a trader is advised to try to resolve the problem with the broker directly. Obviously, if some trader decided to go the complaint path, going to a broker can rarely bring satisfactory results.
- Negotiation process to assist both parties to come up with a satisfactory settlement. It doesn’t involve any enforcement, but the broker will usually get a glimpse of what happens if the complaint doesn’t get settled peacefully.
- Conciliation — a
three-side meeting (or a telemeeting) to reach some kind of settlement. - If both processes fail, a preliminary assessment of the complaint details is done by the complaints authority. This is usually
non-binding and both parties still have a choice whether to settle the matters according to the assessment. - Final decision is binding for the broker but
non-binding for the trader. The latter may decide to pursue some other decision through courts. If the broker doesn’t act according to the final decision, the regulator will use its legal powers to enforce the decision. If it was the DRS that was handling the complaint, it will work with the actual regulator to enforce the decision.
Evidently, sending financial complaints to authorities is quite popular among general population. For example, the aforementioned AFCA has received more than 35,000 complaints during the

If you want to tell us your story of filing an official complaint and the broker regulator’s response to it, feel free to do so using the commentary form below.