How to check an investment firm or broker before you send money

How do you check if an investment firm is legit?

Run four checks in order. Entity: is the firm on the official register, with a current status? Permission: may it offer this exact service? Contact: do the website, email and number you were given match the register? Payment: would your money go to an account in the firm's own name? A failed check means stop.

Clone firms are built to pass the first check by borrowing a genuine firm's register entry. They fail the third or fourth, which is why all four matter.

How do you check a firm on the official register?

Reach the register on your own, by typing the financial regulator's web address or using your own bookmark, never a link from the firm. Search for the firm's exact legal name and its reference or licence number. Then confirm three things: the status is current, the entity matches your documents, and the registered contact details match yours.

1. Reach it on your own

   Search for your country's financial regulator yourself, or type its address. Fake register pages exist, so never use a link from the firm, an advert or a message.

2. Search by name and by number

   Try the full legal name and the reference or licence number. Trading names often differ from legal names, so make sure both lead to the same entry.

3. Read the status

   Look for a current status such as authorised or registered. Cancelled, expired or 'no longer authorised' means the firm may not offer regulated services to you.

4. Match the entity to your paperwork

   The company named in the terms, the website footer and the payment instructions should be the one on the register, not a near-identical name.

5. Save what you found

   Take a dated screenshot, or note the reference number, status and registered contact details.

If the firm says it's based in another country, search that country's register too, and check whether it may serve customers where you live. Being authorised somewhere isn't the same as being authorised everywhere.

Is the firm allowed to do what it's offering you?

A firm on the register may only do what its permissions cover. Permission to arrange insurance or give mortgage advice doesn't mean it may hold your money or manage investments. Read the permissions listed on the register entry and match them, line by line, to the exact service you're being offered.

Registers often describe permissions in technical language, but the questions behind them are simple. If the firm will hold your money, may it hold client money? If it will choose investments for you, may it manage investments? If someone is telling you what to buy, is the firm permitted to advise?

Watch for two gaps. Some firms act as agents of another firm: look that firm up too, and check the agent is listed under it. And some registers record businesses for one narrow purpose, such as anti-money-laundering registration for crypto firms, without any permission to offer investments. That isn't an endorsement, whatever the website implies.

How do you spot a clone firm?

A clone firm copies a real, authorised firm's name, address and reference number, then adds its own website, email address or contact number. The register entry looks right because it belongs to the genuine firm. What gives a clone away is a mismatch between the contact details you were given and the ones on the register.

Then contact the genuine firm through the details on the register, not the ones you were sent. Ask whether the person who approached you works there and which account you would pay. If the real firm has never heard of them, you've found a clone, and the regulator will want to know.

What do warning lists and online searches tell you?

A regulator's warning list names firms and websites it believes are operating without permission or copying real firms. If the firm appears on it, stop. If it doesn't, that proves little: scam outfits change names and web addresses often, and a new one may not have been reported yet. Absence from the list isn't a clean bill of health.

Search the list more than once: by the firm's name, its website address and any number or email you've been given. Scammers reuse contact details across different names, so a number can match even when the name doesn't.

An ordinary web search helps too: try the firm's name with words such as scam, complaint or withdrawal. Treat reviews with care, because glowing ones can be bought, and a firm claiming decades of history with a brand-new website has told you something.

Where will your money actually go?

Before you pay, confirm that the receiving account is in the name of the firm you checked, or of the bank or custodian named in its terms, and that you confirmed the details through the firm's registered contact channels. Paying a person, a crypto wallet or a company with a different name is never normal for a genuine investment.

• The payee name matches the firm on the register, or the custodian named in the terms you're signing.
• You confirmed the account details through the contact details on the register, not only from an email or message.
• Any change of bank details is a reason to stop and re-check, because fraudsters intercept and alter payment instructions.
• You're never asked to buy crypto and send it to an address, or to split a payment into smaller amounts.
• Withdrawals can only be paid to an account in your own name.

If the answer to 'where does my money go?' is a wallet, a personal account or a company you can't find on any register, stop. That one answer outweighs everything else you've been told.

Who will hold your money and investments?

Ask who will hold your money and any investments you buy, and whether the account will be opened in your name. With an authorised firm, client money and investments are usually held with a bank or custodian, kept separate from the firm's own money and recorded as yours. Ask these questions in writing, and keep the replies.

• Will the account be opened in my name, and will my money and investments be held separately from the firm's own, by a named bank or custodian?
• Is that bank or custodian named in the terms I'm signing?
• Will statements come to me directly from the firm or custodian, not just from the person selling to me?
• What happens to my money and investments if the firm stops trading, and does any protection scheme apply?

What should a firm-checking checklist include?

A good checklist records each check, where you looked, what you found and the date. It covers the register entry and permissions, contact details, independent contact with the firm, warning lists, where the money goes, who holds it and the written terms. If any line ends in 'couldn't confirm', the safe default is to wait.

Keep the completed checklist with your decision journal. If you don't go ahead, reporting a clone or unauthorised firm to the regulator takes minutes and may protect someone else.

Should you check an education firm like Dividario too?

Yes. Scammers copy education businesses as well as investment firms, and anyone who asks for your trust should expect to be checked. Dividario teaches: it never takes, holds or manages anyone's money, takes no commissions and never asks you to pay into an investment. Anyone using our name to ask for investment money isn't us.

Our trust page explains who we are and how to check us.

Checking a firm: common questions