The FCA rule that has nothing to do with leverage.
Most compliance tooling checks how much leverage a client can take. The FCA also bans an entire asset class from retail outright, and a cap check will never find it, because the instrument is a breach at any leverage at all.
What the FCA allows a retail client to hold.
Maximum leverage by asset class. The last two rows are where the UK parts company with the European regimes.
- Major currency pairs: 30:1
- Minor currencies, gold, major indices: 20:1
- Commodities other than gold, minor indices: 10:1
- Government bonds: 30:1
- Shares and other assets: 5:1
- Crypto-assets: Not permitted
Not capped. Banned.
COBS 22.6 came into force on 6 January 2021. It prohibits the sale, marketing and distribution to UK retail clients of any derivative or exchange-traded note referencing unregulated transferable cryptoassets.
That is not a leverage rule, so leverage tooling cannot see it. Setting crypto to 2:1 does not make it compliant. There is no ratio that does.
- Checked as an existence question, not a margin question
- Any symbol a retail group can open a position in counts
- Close-only and disabled symbols correctly excluded
- A finding names the symbol, the group and the server
Thirty to one here. Five to one across the channel.
The UK permits 30:1 on government bonds. Under ESMA and CySEC the same instrument caps at 5:1. That is a six-fold difference on one row, and it is the row a broker running both a UK entity and an EU entity is most likely to get wrong, because the FX rows above it are identical and invite the assumption that the rest matches too.
FCA, answered plainly.
30:1 on major currency pairs and 20:1 on minor pairs. Gold and major indices are 20:1. Other commodities and minor indices are 10:1. Government bonds are 30:1 and shares are 5:1.
No. COBS 22.6 has prohibited the sale, marketing and distribution of crypto derivatives and ETNs to UK retail clients since 6 January 2021. It is a ban rather than a cap, so no leverage setting makes it compliant.
The currency and index rows are the same. Government bonds are not: 30:1 under the FCA against 5:1 under ESMA. And crypto is capped at 2:1 in the EU but banned outright for UK retail.
Two separate passes. One compares the leverage each group applies per symbol against the cap for that asset class. The other asks whether any group can open a position in a prohibited instrument at all. The second is the one most processes miss.
No. We read. Nothing we run can change a symbol, a group or an account, so the worst case for your environment is that we see something you would rather we had not.
The FCA rule that has nothing to do with leverage.
Most compliance tooling checks how much leverage a client can take. The FCA also bans an entire asset class from retail outright, and a cap check will never find it, because the instrument is a breach at any leverage at all.
What the FCA allows a retail client to hold.
Maximum leverage by asset class. Note the last two rows: they are where the UK parts company with the European regimes, and where a passported book gets caught.
Not capped. Banned.
COBS 22.6 came into force on 6 January 2021. It prohibits the sale, marketing and distribution to UK retail clients of any derivative or exchange-traded note referencing unregulated transferable cryptoassets.
That is not a leverage rule, so leverage tooling cannot see it. Setting crypto to 2:1 does not make it compliant. There is no ratio that does.
What matters is whether a retail group can open a position in the instrument at all. If it can, the breach exists, and it has existed since the day the symbol became tradeable.
- Checked as an existence question, not a margin question
- Any symbol a retail group can open a position in counts
- Close-only and disabled symbols correctly excluded
- A finding names the symbol, the group and the server
Thirty to one here. Five to one across the channel.
The UK permits 30:1 on government bonds. Under ESMA and CySEC the same instrument caps at 5:1. That is a six-fold difference on a single row of the table, and it is the row a broker running both a UK entity and an EU entity is most likely to get wrong, because the FX rows above it are identical and invite the assumption that the rest matches too.
Existence, not leverage
A banned instrument is a breach at any leverage. We check whether a group can trade it at all, which is a different question from what margin it carries.
Retail and professional apart
The ban applies to retail. A professional book may legitimately offer what a retail book may not, so each group is checked against the rules that govern it.
Timestamped from first detection
A finding records when the instrument became tradeable, not when someone noticed. That is the record you want when asked how long it was on sale.
FCA, answered plainly.
30:1 on major currency pairs and 20:1 on minor pairs. Gold and major indices are 20:1. Other commodities and minor indices are 10:1. Government bonds are 30:1 and shares are 5:1.
No. COBS 22.6 has prohibited the sale, marketing and distribution of crypto derivatives and ETNs to UK retail clients since 6 January 2021. It is a ban rather than a cap, so no leverage setting makes it compliant.
The currency and index rows are the same. Government bonds are not: 30:1 under the FCA against 5:1 under ESMA. And crypto is capped at 2:1 in the EU but banned outright for UK retail.
Two separate passes. One compares the leverage each group applies per symbol against the cap for that asset class. The other asks whether any group can open a position in a prohibited instrument at all. The second is the one most processes miss.
No. We read. Nothing we run can change a symbol, a group or an account, so the worst case for your environment is that we see something you would rather we had not.