CaspianFX is an independent guide to forex and CFD brokers for the Caucasus and Central Asia. This page explains exactly how we research and compare brokers — what we check, how we verify it, and, just as importantly, what we deliberately refuse to publish until we have tested it ourselves. We would rather show you a verified fact and an honest gap than a confident number we cannot stand behind.
The criteria we review against
Every broker we cover is assessed against a fixed set of criteria, in a deliberate order that puts your safety ahead of cost. We start with regulation and the safety of client funds, because a low spread on an unregulated broker is worth nothing if you cannot get your money back. Only after a broker clears the safety filter do we look at the practical factors that affect day-to-day trading.
- Regulation & safety of funds. Which regulators license the broker, which legal entity serves each country, and whether that entity is currently authorised.
- Swap-free account availability. Whether a genuine swap-free account (no overnight swap charge) exists, and what a reader must check in its terms — a factual product feature, never a religious selling point.
- Trading platforms. Which platforms the broker supports (MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView, proprietary apps).
- Track record. The year the broker was founded and its regulatory history.
- Account types & funding. The account structure and, where the broker publishes it, deposit and withdrawal methods relevant to traders in our markets.
- Market coverage (geo-availability). Which of our three markets across the Caucasus and Central Asia a broker actually accepts — confirmed against the broker's own affiliate-programme terms or live signup flow, never assumed from general marketing. See the geo-availability section below.
How we verify a licence against the register
We do not take a regulatory claim from a broker's marketing page, a press release, or another affiliate blog. For every licence we report, we identify the specific legal entity named in the broker's own documentation, then confirm that entity on the relevant regulator's official public register — the regulator's site, reached directly, never a link from an advert. We check that the entity is listed, currently authorised (not lapsed, suspended or withdrawn), and permitted for the relevant activity.
For this audit we treat a defined set of strict, well-resourced authorities as “Tier-1” regulators: FCA, ASIC, CySEC, DFSA, FSCA. That label is an editorial classification we apply consistently — it reflects the strength of the supervisory regime, not a payment or a partnership. Where a licence is reported as pending rather than granted, we say “pending” and never describe the broker as regulated by that authority until the register confirms it. The full step-by-step process a reader can follow is set out in our guide on verifying a broker.
For our three markets specifically, we check the regional register in addition to any international licence:
- Georgia — National Bank of Georgia (NBG). NBG licenses local brokerage/forex-dealing entities serving non-resident clients and has tightened retail protections (margin close-out, negative-balance protection, a bonus ban, a cooling-off period). We check whether a broker holds a genuine NBG licence for a Georgian entity — and we never describe the separate, internationally regulated entity most Georgian residents actually trade through as “NBG-regulated”, because it is not.
- Kazakhstan — ARDFM/National Bank (national regime) and AFSA (AIFC). These are two distinct regimes, easily confused: ARDFM plus the National Bank supervise the national market, while AFSA regulates the separate AIFC free zone under English common law, where retail forex access is effectively restricted to qualified/professional investors. We check AFSA's own Financial Promotions Alerts and the ARDFM register, and we state plainly that neither currently supervises the offshore broker most residents use.
- Azerbaijan — CBAR (Central Bank of Azerbaijan). CBAR absorbed the now-liquidated FIMSA's functions but does not license retail forex/CFD dealing. There is no domestic retail forex regime to check a broker against — we say so directly rather than imply a protection that does not exist.
Geo-availability verification (which markets a broker actually accepts)
A broker's own marketing rarely lists every country it excludes, and third-party aggregators are often stale or wrong — several brokers' own restricted-country pages returned an access-denied response when we checked directly, which is itself a data point we record rather than paper over. So we treat “markets served” as a confirmed fact, not an assumption: a market only appears against a broker once we have verified acceptance on that broker's own affiliate-programme terms or its live signup country-selector, for the specific countries we cover (Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan).
Until that confirmation happens, the field is left empty — the same honest-null principle we apply to ratings and spreads, extended to geography. This is why some brokers on our site show market coverage for only one or two of our three countries even though they operate globally: we have not yet confirmed the others, so we do not claim them. Where a broker is confirmed not to serve a market (for example, one broker in this cluster confirmed not to accept Kazakhstan), we exclude it from that market's shortlist entirely rather than list it with a caveat a reader might miss.
The honest-null policy
This is the part of our methodology that most distinguishes us. A large amount of forex comparison content publishes precise-looking star ratings, “typical” spreads and minimum-deposit figures that were never independently tested — numbers copied between sites, or supplied by the broker, and presented as if they were findings. We will not do that.
Where we have not independently verified a figure, we leave it blank rather than fill it in. We do not open live brokerage accounts, deposit funds, or execute trades — this is a register-verification and disclosure-comparison methodology, not hands-on account testing, and we say so rather than imply otherwise. Concretely, we do not publish a star rating, a specific spread, or a minimum deposit for a broker unless it comes directly from the broker's own published, dated disclosure. In our downloadable dataset those fields are explicitly null until such a source exists. In our prose we tell you the figure varies by account and changes often, and to check the current number on the broker's own site. A blank is an honest statement that we have not measured something; a fabricated number is not.
- Star ratings — withheld entirely; a rating implies hands-on testing we do not perform, so we do not publish one.
- Spreads and commissions — withheld; they vary by account and change constantly, so a single quoted figure misleads.
- Minimum deposits — withheld until verified directly with the broker for the reader's country.
- Withdrawal times — never quoted as a guaranteed number; we explain what actually affects speed instead.
Affiliate disclosure & our independence
CaspianFX is funded by affiliate commissions: some links to brokers are partner links, and if you open an account through one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We are transparent about this on every page. Crucially, commercial relationships never change what we report. Brokers cannot pay for inclusion, for a better write-up, or to remove an unfavourable fact. Our regulatory findings come from the registers, not from our partners, and a broker's commission rate plays no part in whether or how we cover it.
We are an independent EU-based publisher, Lead Media OOD (Bulgaria). We are not a broker, we do not hold client funds, and we do not give investment advice or trading signals. We compare brokers; the decision, and the risk, are yours. Trading is legal for residents in all three markets we cover, but the brokers are offshore and not locally supervised — we report that picture honestly rather than imply local oversight that does not exist.
Authorship & expertise
Forex and CFD trading is a peak “Your Money or Your Life” subject, so authorship
matters. Our research and drafting is done by Pipex, a fully
disclosed AI research agent — never presented as a human, and carrying
SoftwareApplication schema, never a fabricated Person. Full
disclosure of what Pipex does and does not do is at
/about-the-ai/.
Because this is peak-YMYL content, published output is reviewed and signed off by a named human before it goes live: Eitan Gorodetsky, Editorial Strategist, Lead Media (last sign-off 28 June 2026). We will not attach a fabricated author or invented credentials to financial content — the credential named here is real and verifiable, and this pairing (disclosed AI plus a named human reviewer) is a deliberate, documented editorial decision, not an oversight.
Update cadence
Regulatory status changes, brokers gain and lose licences, and account terms move. We review our broker and market data on a rolling basis and re-verify regulatory facts against the registers when we refresh a page. Each page carries a visible “last updated” date so you can see how current the information is — this page was last reviewed on 23 June 2026. Our compiled regulation dataset is versioned by year and republished when the underlying facts change.
Corrections
If you believe we have a regulatory fact wrong, tell us and we will check it against the register and correct it. Accuracy on regulation is non-negotiable for us — getting it wrong is a real risk to a reader, which is the whole reason this methodology exists. You can reach the editorial desk at hello@caspianfx.com.
Frequently asked questions
Does CaspianFX open real trading accounts to test brokers?
No. We do not open live accounts, deposit funds, or execute trades with any broker we cover, so we never make first-person experiential claims like “withdrawal took 24 hours.” Our review is a register-verification and disclosure-comparison methodology, not hands-on account testing — and we say so plainly rather than imply otherwise.
Which regulators do you check, and how?
We verify the specific legal entity named in a broker's own documentation directly on the regulator's official public register — never from a broker's marketing page or another affiliate site. For our strict "Tier-1" set (FCA, ASIC, CySEC, DFSA, FSCA) that means the regulator's own register lookup. For our three markets we separately check Georgia's National Bank (NBG), Kazakhstan's dual regime (ARDFM/National Bank nationally, AFSA for the AIFC), and Azerbaijan's CBAR (Central Bank of Azerbaijan) — and we state clearly that none of these three currently supervises the offshore entity most residents actually trade through.
What does “markets served” (allowedGeo) actually mean?
It means we have confirmed, on the broker's own affiliate programme terms or live signup flow, that residents of that specific country are accepted — not that we assume it from the broker's general marketing. Until that confirmation happens for a given country, we leave the field empty rather than guess. See the geo-availability section below for the full policy.
Why do some brokers show no rating, spread, or minimum deposit?
Because we have not independently tested it. Ratings, spreads and minimum deposits change constantly and are easy to copy between sites without verification — we would rather leave a figure null than publish a number we cannot stand behind. Our honest-null policy is explained in full above.
Who writes CaspianFX's content, and who reviews it?
Content is researched and drafted by Pipex, our disclosed AI research agent (see /about-the-ai/ — it is never presented as a human, and carries SoftwareApplication schema, never Person). Because forex/CFD is a peak "Your Money or Your Life" topic, published output is reviewed and signed off by Eitan Gorodetsky, Editorial Strategist, Lead Media, before it goes live.
Can a broker pay for a better review or inclusion?
No. CaspianFX earns affiliate commissions, disclosed on every page, but commercial relationships never change what we report. A broker's commission rate plays no part in whether or how we cover it, and regulatory findings come from the registers, never from our partners.
CaspianFX is an independent editorial desk for resident traders in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan — markets where no strong local retail forex regime exists and offshore licensing is the practical reality. We verify every licence against the issuing authority's register, state candidly what that offshore regulation does and does not protect, and cover the funding and withdrawal routes that actually work for lari, tenge and manat. No payment is accepted for coverage.