“Regulated” appears in marketing far more often than it appears in registers. The word on its own carries no information: regulated by whom, for what activity, and with what consequences if the firm fails?
Each of those is checkable in a few minutes, and the answer is frequently narrower than the claim.
Establish the three facts
- Which authority. Not a country — a named regulator. Our jurisdiction pages name the supervising authority for each country we cover.
- Which permission. Registration for anti-money-laundering purposes is not the same as authorisation to hold client assets, which is not the same as a securities licence. Firms routinely hold the narrowest of these and describe it in the broadest terms.
- Which entity. The registered entity is often not the brand you interact with. A group may hold a licence in one jurisdiction through one subsidiary while serving you through another that holds nothing.
Go to the register, not the firm
Every regulator that licenses or registers firms publishes a searchable register, and that register — not the firm’s footer — is the authority. Search by the legal entity name rather than the brand. If the firm will not tell you which legal entity holds the permission, that is itself an answer.
Many authorities also publish a warning or alert list naming firms they believe are operating without authorisation. Checking that list is often faster than confirming a positive.
Understand what the permission actually covers
Categories differ sharply by jurisdiction, and the vocabulary is not interchangeable. A VASP registration under a FATF-derived regime is mostly an anti-money-laundering obligation. A CASP authorisation under the European framework is broader. A qualified custodian status is a legal statement about how client assets are treated if the firm fails.
That last distinction is the one with the most consequence and the least marketing attention — see segregation of client assets.
Registration is not protection
A registered firm can still fail, and registration rarely means deposit insurance. What it typically buys you is a supervisor with jurisdiction, published requirements the firm must meet, and a route to complain. Those are real, and they are also narrower than the impression the word “regulated” creates.
Reading a jurisdiction page alongside the register is the fastest way to see the gap between what a regime requires and what a firm implies it has.
Not advice. Conisec reports for information only. Nothing in this article is financial, legal, tax or security advice. Verify against the primary sources linked above before acting on anything.
