IC Markets is not one company. It is a group of separately licensed entities, and the protections you receive depend entirely on which one holds your account. A trader in Sydney, a trader in Berlin, and a trader in Singapore can each use the IC Markets brand yet sit under different regulators, different compensation schemes, and different leverage limits. This article maps the group's entities, the licences behind them, and the gaps a newcomer should check before funding.
The brand name "IC Markets Global" is a marketing label, not a legal entity. It is most often used for the offshore onboarding route. Treat the licence, not the logo, as the thing that protects your money.
IC Markets was founded in Sydney in 2007 and has operated online since 2008. That history is sometimes cited as a trust signal, and nineteen years is a long run for a retail forex broker. Longevity alone does not tell you which protections apply to your specific account, so treat the founding date as context rather than a safety guarantee, because the entity, not the brand age, is what determines your recourse.
IC Markets runs at least five licensed entities across four continents. International Capital Markets Pty Ltd holds the Australian licence and serves Australian residents. IC Markets (EU) Ltd, licensed in Cyprus, serves the European Economic Area. IC Markets (KE) Ltd serves Kenya under the Capital Markets Authority. IC Markets Ltd operates from The Bahamas under the Securities Commission. Everyone else, including most readers outside those regions, is onboarded to Raw Trading Ltd in Seychelles.
Why this matters: client money rules, compensation, and leverage caps are set by the entity's home regulator, not by the brand. The same trading platform can sit on a tier-one licence in one country and on an offshore licence in another. Confirm the legal name on your client agreement before you compare costs, because the name decides your recourse.
Two licences anchor the group's credibility. The Australian entity, International Capital Markets Pty Ltd, holds AFSL 335692 from ASIC. ASIC requires segregated client accounts, minimum capital, and regular reporting, and disputes can be taken to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). The European entity, IC Markets (EU) Ltd, holds CySEC licence 362/18 and falls under MiFID II, with access to the Investor Compensation Fund (ICF) up to EUR 20,000 per eligible client.
Both are genuine tier-one regimes. The practical difference for a retail client is the compensation backstop. CySEC clients get the ICF up to EUR 20,000, while Australian clients rely on segregated trust accounts and AFCA access rather than a statutory fund. Neither licence covers clients routed to the Seychelles or Bahamas entity, which is the trap most newcomers miss.
Raw Trading Ltd holds licence SD018 from the Seychelles Financial Services Authority. The Bahamas entity holds SIA-F214 from the SCB. The Kenya entity holds CMA licence 199. These regimes require segregated funds and basic conduct rules, but they do not run statutory investor compensation schemes comparable to the ICF or AFCA.
A concrete gap sits in the Seychelles entity. It substitutes a private Lloyds of London insurance policy capped at USD 1,000,000 per client for any statutory compensation. That is a commercial contract, not a government-backed fund, and it pays only on the policy's terms. The CySEC entity, by contrast, offers the EUR 20,000 ICF. UK residents should note there is no FCA-regulated IC Markets entity; the FCA has issued a public warning, and UK sign-ups are routed to the Seychelles entity with an explicit acknowledgment that it is unregulated by the FCA.
IC Markets offers three core account types. The Standard account is commission-free with spreads from about 0.8 pips on EUR/USD. The Raw Spread account charges a commission of USD 3.50 per lot per side and advertises spreads from 0.0 pips. A cTrader raw variant charges USD 3.00 per lot per side. The minimum deposit across these accounts is USD 200.
The 0.0 pip figure is a published minimum, not a typical spread. During news events or low-liquidity sessions the live spread widens. Commissions are per side, so a round turn on the Raw Spread account costs USD 7.00 per standard lot. Compare the all-in cost, not the headline spread, when you evaluate the broker, because the commission quietly dominates on a raw account.
All entities offer MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, and cTrader on desktop, web, and mobile. IC Markets positions itself for algorithmic and high-frequency strategies, permitting Expert Advisors on every account type and offering a free VPS once trading volume clears a stated threshold. Execution runs through aggregated liquidity from multiple providers rather than a single dealing desk.
There is no proprietary web terminal. Your workflow depends on MT4, MT5, or cTrader, and that is worth knowing before you commit, because switching platforms later means rebuilding indicators and templates. Third-party reviews cite very large monthly volumes, but those numbers move and should be confirmed on the day you trade rather than quoted as fact.
On 1 July 2024, CySEC imposed two fines on IC Markets (EU) Ltd totalling EUR 250,000. One EUR 200,000 penalty addressed circumvention of initial-margin protection rules, which the regulator recorded as a repeat of a 2021 breach. The other EUR 50,000 addressed best-execution and cost-disclosure failures. IC Markets stated it disagreed with the second decision and intended to appeal.
Two readings are possible, and both are fair. The fines show CySEC actively supervises its licensees, which is a feature of a real tier-one regime rather than a sign of capture. They also show a specific entity breached conduct rules more than once. Read them as evidence the licence is enforced, not as a clean bill of health, and check the CySEC register for the current status before you open an EU account.
Retail leverage is capped at 1:30 on the ASIC and CySEC entities under local rules, matching the ESMA product intervention standard. The Seychelles entity can offer up to 1:1000. Negative balance protection is available on the ASIC, CySEC, and Kenya entities but not on the Seychelles FSA entity, where the Lloyds policy is the backstop instead.
Higher leverage multiplies both gains and losses. A 1:1000 offer is not a benefit for most retail clients; it is a risk setting that can wipe an account faster than a 1:30 cap would allow. Check which limit applies to your entity before you size positions, because the limit is decided by the regulator, not by your preference.
IC Markets does not accept clients from the United States, Canada, or several other restricted jurisdictions. If you live in a blocked region, none of the entities above can onboard you, and using a VPN to bypass the residence check breaches the client agreement. Read the restricted-country list on the official site for your own residence before you apply, because the block is applied at account opening rather than at deposit.
This article describes published licence data and regulator actions. It is not investment advice, and nothing here creates a regulatory protection for funds held with any IC Markets entity. Confirm all licence statuses on the relevant regulator's own register before opening an account, because licensing can change.