Licensed Here vs WikiFX: Which Broker License Checker Can You Actually Trust?

Why the checker you use matters as much as the check

Before you deposit money with a broker, a crypto exchange or a payment app, one question matters more than fees, spreads or bonuses: is this company actually allowed to serve customers in my country? If it isn't, you have no regulator to complain to, no compensation scheme behind you, and often no realistic way to get your money back.

Most people don't search a regulator's register directly. Official registers are fragmented, written for lawyers, and list companies by legal name rather than by the brand you see in an app store. So people turn to third-party checkers that promise a simple answer.

That convenience comes with a catch. A checker is only as trustworthy as its data sources and its business model. If a site earns money from the companies it rates, or blends official records with unverified opinions, its "safe" or "unsafe" label can mean very different things from what you assume.

This comparison looks at two very different approaches:

WikiFX, one of the best-known broker rating platforms, with a mobile app, a scoring system and a database of tens of thousands of brokers worldwide.
Licensed Here (licensedhere.com), a newer, narrower tool that checks crypto exchanges, brokers and payment apps in the EEA and UK against official EU registers only, and shows the source and check date for every answer.

We compare them on what they cover, where their data comes from, how they make money, how transparent they are, and where each one falls short. At the end you'll find a short guide to verifying any licence yourself, so you don't have to trust either tool blindly.

Licensed Here vs WikiFX at a glance

The short version: WikiFX is broad and global but mixes official records with its own scores, field surveys and user reviews. Licensed Here is narrow, Europe-only, and answers one question strictly from official registers.

	WikiFX	Licensed Here
What it answers	"How good or safe is this broker?" (a score out of 10)	"Is this brand licensed to serve customers in my country?" (a verdict per country)
Geographic scope	Global; claims 80,000+ brokers and 60+ regulators	30 EEA countries + the UK (31 total)
What it covers	Mainly forex/CFD brokers; sister site WikiBit covers crypto exchanges	Crypto exchanges, investment brokers and payment / e-money apps
Data sources	Public regulator data, user contributions, its own field surveys, trader complaints	ESMA interim MiCA register, ESMA investment-firm (MiFID) register, EBA payment and e-money register, GLEIF
Output	Composite score (e.g. 9.52) plus reviews, exposures and survey photos	One of nine fixed verdicts, each linked to the register entry and dated
Opinions and reviews	Yes, user reviews and complaints are part of the product	None; it says "scam" only when a regulator does
Business model	Free app with in-app purchases ($0.99–$48.99), ads, broker "business cooperation"	States it takes no referral fees and does no paid ranking
Main criticism or limit	2024 reporting alleged brokers could pay to raise scores; WikiFX says commercial deals don't affect scores	No UK FCA register or national registers yet; Europe only; launched in preview

Read on for what each of those rows means in practice.

What WikiFX is and how it works

WikiFX is a global broker information platform best known for its mobile app, published in the App Store by WIKIFX COMPANY LIMITED. According to its App Store listing, it provides information on more than 80,000 brokers and over 60 regulatory authorities, including the FCA, ASIC, NFA and CySEC.

The core of the product is a WikiFX Score, a number out of 10 shown next to each broker. The app says the score evaluates a broker across four areas: regulatory status, business compliance, risk control and field surveys. On the website, well-known brokers display scores such as 9.52 or 9.41.

Around that score, WikiFX layers several other features:

Field surveys. WikiFX says its teams in 30+ countries and regions visit brokers' registered business addresses and publish photos, videos and inspection reports.
Risk exposure and complaints. Traders can report withdrawal denials, slippage or brokers that disappear. WikiFX also runs a mediation service and reports over 14,900 resolved cases.
User reviews. Traders rate brokers on deposits and withdrawals, trading conditions and support.
Trading tools. Exchange rates, an economic calendar, news and MT4/MT5 information.

The app is free to download with in-app purchases, from $0.99 up to $48.99, including annual VIP-style plans. The website also shows advertising (broker listings marked "AD"), a premium tier, an enterprise offering and "business cooperation" options for brokers.

WikiFX also has sister brands. WikiBit applies a similar rating approach to crypto exchanges, and WikiEXPO runs industry events.

The strength of this model is breadth. If you want to look up an obscure offshore broker in South-East Asia or Latin America, WikiFX probably has a page for it, often with user complaints you won't find anywhere else. The weakness, as we'll see, is that a single score blends official facts, the platform's own judgement and unverified user input, and the company has commercial relationships with the brokers it rates.

What Licensed Here is and how it works

Licensed Here takes the opposite approach. It doesn't score how "good" a company is. It answers one narrow question: is this brand licensed to serve customers in my country? You type a brand, app or website, pick a country, and get a verdict.

As of 10 November 2026, it covers the 30 countries of the European Economic Area plus the United Kingdom, and checks 300 brands. That works out to 9,300 verdicts: one for each brand in each country.

Where the data comes from

Licensed Here reads three official registers in full:

ESMA's interim MiCA register: crypto-asset service providers authorised under MiCA, where each may operate, and ESMA's list of firms offering crypto services without authorisation.
ESMA's register of investment firms (MiFID): investment firms and their branches across the EEA.
The EBA's register of payment and e-money institutions: payment and e-money firms and the countries each may serve.

It also uses GLEIF's open data to confirm companies' Legal Entity Identifiers and parent companies. On 10 November 2026, those registers listed 6,732 firms with an active licence and 189 firms that ESMA flags as offering crypto services without authorisation.

How a brand becomes a verdict

The hard part of licence checking isn't the register; it's linking a brand to the company that legally serves you. An app called one thing is often operated by a differently named legal entity. Licensed Here links brands to firms using the registers themselves, the brand's own terms and legal pages, and GLEIF group records. An AI model reads the legal pages and quotes the companies named, but every quote is checked word for word and a person reviews every brand's links before they count. The AI never decides a verdict.

Then nine fixed rules are applied in order, and the first one that matches becomes the verdict:

Regulator warning: the country's regulator has named one of the brand's websites.
Clone alert: a regulator warns a website imitates a licensed firm.
Non-compliant: ESMA lists the firm as providing crypto services without authorisation.
Licence withdrawn: a relevant licence was withdrawn and nothing replaced it.
Authorised: the brand's firm holds the right licence from the country's own regulator.
Passported here: the right licence comes from another EEA country, and the register lists this country as one it may serve.
Wrong licence: a licence covers the country, but for a different service.
Licensed elsewhere: an active licence exists, but not for this country.
No licence found: none of the linked firms holds a licence in the registers read, and every register checked is cited.

Every verdict links to the register entry it rests on and shows the date it was checked. The full logic is published on the Licensed Here methodology page.

The house rules

Licensed Here publishes four rules for itself: every fact names its register and check date; it says "scam" only when a regulator does; it doesn't rank firms or take referral fees, listing alternatives A–Z; and "no record is not guilt", because registers lag and list firms under other names. A planned watchlist will email you when a register grants, withdraws or warns about a licence behind a brand you follow.

Head-to-head: six things that decide which one to trust

1. Data sources

WikiFX describes its data as compiled from publicly available sources and user contributions, then adds its own field surveys and complaint reports. That gives a richer picture of a broker's reputation, but you usually can't tell which part of a score comes from a regulator and which part comes from WikiFX or its users.

Licensed Here uses only official registers (ESMA, EBA) plus GLEIF company data. It leaves out reviews, surveys and complaints entirely. The answer is thinner, but every element can be traced back to a government or EU-agency source.

Edge: Licensed Here for verifiability; WikiFX for context.

2. Coverage

This is WikiFX's clearest advantage. It claims 80,000+ brokers and 60+ regulators worldwide, so it covers markets that Licensed Here doesn't touch: Australia, the US, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the offshore jurisdictions where many problem brokers are registered.

Licensed Here covers 31 countries (EEA + UK) and 300 brands at the time of writing. It also covers types of firm that WikiFX's main product doesn't focus on: crypto exchanges under MiCA and payment / e-money apps. And it doesn't yet read the UK's FCA register or national registers, so some valid licences won't show.

Edge: WikiFX, clearly, unless you live in Europe and use crypto or payment apps.

3. What the answer actually means

A WikiFX score of 8.5 is a judgement: it combines licensing with risk control, compliance history and survey results, weighted in a way the public pages don't spell out. Two traders can read the same number differently.

A Licensed Here verdict is a classification: "Passported here" or "Wrong licence" has one defined meaning, decided by a published rule order. It doesn't tell you whether a broker has good spreads or helpful support, only whether it is allowed to serve you where you live.

Edge: Licensed Here for the legal question; WikiFX for an overall impression.

4. Independence and business model

WikiFX earns money from app subscriptions, advertising and commercial relationships with brokers. In January 2026 it published a framework stating that commercial cooperation does not affect scores or reviews, and that marketing deals run through a separate system. Whether you accept that depends on how much you trust the separation; the allegations in the next section are why many traders are sceptical.

Licensed Here states it takes no referral fees and does no paid ranking, and lists alternatives alphabetically. Because the verdict comes from fixed rules over public registers, there is also less room for anyone's money to change an answer.

Edge: Licensed Here.

5. Transparency

WikiFX shows survey photos and user complaints, which is a form of transparency. But on the website pages we reviewed, the scoring method is not published in detail.

Licensed Here publishes its full rule order, its source list, its known blind spots and a correction process, and dates every fact.

Edge: Licensed Here.

6. Ease of use

WikiFX is a polished mobile app with tools, news and a large community. Licensed Here is a simple web search: brand plus country, one answer. It also offers an embeddable check for other websites.

Edge: WikiFX for features; Licensed Here for speed to a single answer.

Criticisms and limits of each

Neither tool is perfect. Here is what to keep in mind before relying on either one.

WikiFX: the pay-for-score allegations

In June 2024, crypto news outlet DL News reported on company documents describing a programme in which brokers pay an "integrity deposit" per country. According to the report, one sales pitch priced positive reviews shown to users in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam at $128,100 for a year. The article cited a broker whose score in Thailand reportedly rose from 1.41 to 7.06 after it joined, then fell back to 1.51.

The same report quoted a consultant who said WikiFX targets new brokers with low scores before offering to help them improve, and found that sister site WikiBit gave high ratings to crypto platforms that anti-scam groups had flagged. WikiFX and WikiBit did not respond to DL News's requests for comment. Other industry figures have made similar public claims, and WikiFX's January 2026 framework is its response: it says scores are independent of partnerships and advertising.

There are also practical limits. Because the score blends official status with WikiFX's own judgement and user input, a high score doesn't prove a firm is licensed where you live, and a low score doesn't prove it isn't. Some users report that the same broker can look different depending on the country version of the app you use.

Licensed Here: narrow by design, and still new

Licensed Here's limits are mostly ones it publishes itself:

Europe only. If you live outside the EEA or UK, it can't help you yet.
No FCA register yet. UK verdicts rest on the EU registers alone, because reusing the FCA's register needs the FCA's permission.
No national registers or banks. A firm can hold a national licence, such as a bank licence, that won't show. The EU has no downloadable register of banks.
Brokers' passports. ESMA doesn't publish where investment firms may serve customers, so for brokers licensed in another country the verdict often can't confirm a country either way, and it says so.
Update frequency. ESMA's MiCA register is an interim list updated about once a week, and registers are currently refreshed by hand.
Small brand list. 300 brands at the time of writing, against WikiFX's tens of thousands.
Preview stage. The site launched as a preview while verdicts were checked.

The key difference is that Licensed Here's gaps are visible: it tells you which registers were read, and its "no licence found" verdict explicitly says it is not proof of fraud. A missing licence is a reason to dig further, not a conviction.

How to verify any licence yourself in five steps

Whichever tool you use, the final word belongs to the regulator. Here is how to check a broker, exchange or payment app directly. It takes about ten minutes the first time.

Find the legal entity, not the brand. Open the platform's terms and conditions or legal page and look for the company name, registration number and the regulator it names. Brands and legal entities rarely share a name. If you can't find a legal entity at all, treat that as a warning sign on its own.
Look up the company's LEI. Search the company name on GLEIF's LEI search (search.gleif.org). The Legal Entity Identifier confirms the exact legal name, country and parent company, which makes register searches far more reliable.
Search the register for the right type of firm.
- Crypto exchange in the EU: ESMA's interim MiCA register, on the MiCA page of esma.europa.eu.
- Broker or investment firm in the EU: ESMA's registers (registers.esma.europa.eu, MiFID investment firms), then the home country's national regulator.
- Payment or e-money app in the EU: the EBA register of payment and e-money institutions, on eba.europa.eu.
- UK: the FCA Financial Services Register (register.fca.org.uk).
Check the licence covers your country and the right service. An EU licence lets a firm serve other EEA countries only if it has passported there. A payment licence doesn't authorise crypto trading, and an investment-firm licence isn't an e-money licence. Licensed Here calls these "Passported here" and "Wrong licence"; on a register you'll find them under passporting or permitted activities.
Search warning lists. Check the FCA Warning List, your national regulator's warnings, and ESMA's list of non-compliant crypto entities in the MiCA register. Clone firms copy the name and registration number of a real licensed company, so compare the website address and contact details on the register with the site you're actually using.

If the register details don't match the website, or the firm is licensed but not for your country, don't deposit. And if a platform pressures you to move fast, that alone is reason to slow down.

Which one should you use?

They answer different questions, so the honest answer depends on where you live and what you're checking.

Your situation	Better fit	Why
You live in the EU, EEA or UK and want to know if a crypto exchange is MiCA-authorised for your country	Licensed Here	Reads ESMA's MiCA register directly and gives a per-country verdict
You're checking a payment or e-money app in Europe	Licensed Here	Covers the EBA register, which broker-focused tools usually don't
You need a citable answer, for a complaint, a bank or a journalist	Licensed Here	Every verdict links to the register entry and shows its check date
You're checking an offshore or Asian forex broker	WikiFX	Far wider global coverage; Licensed Here only reads EU registers
You want to read other traders' withdrawal complaints	WikiFX	User complaints and exposures are central to its product
You want trading tools, news and a calendar in one app	WikiFX	Licensed Here does one job only

A sensible routine is to use both for what they're good at. Use WikiFX to see what traders are saying about a platform, especially outside Europe. Use Licensed Here, or the registers directly, to settle the legal question for your country. Treat any score as an opinion and any register entry as a fact.

The bottom line

WikiFX is the bigger, more feature-rich platform, and for brokers outside Europe it is often the only aggregated source. But its single score mixes official records with its own judgement and user input, and serious, unresolved questions have been raised about whether commercial relationships influence ratings, which WikiFX denies.

Licensed Here is far narrower: 31 countries, 300 brands and three EU registers at the time of writing, with the UK's FCA register still missing. Within that scope, it gives what a score can't: a rule-based answer you can trace to an official source, with no referral fees attached.

If you're in Europe and about to deposit with a crypto exchange, broker or payment app, the more important question isn't "how many stars does it have?" It's "is it licensed where I live?" That's the question Licensed Here was built to answer.

Frequently asked questions

Is WikiFX reliable?

WikiFX is useful for context, such as user complaints and coverage of brokers worldwide, but its score is not a regulatory status. It blends official records with WikiFX's own assessment and user input, and 2024 reporting alleged that brokers could pay to improve their ratings, which WikiFX says is not the case. Always confirm the licence on the regulator's own register.

What is the best WikiFX alternative for Europe?

If your main question is whether a crypto exchange, broker or payment app is licensed in your EEA country or the UK, Licensed Here checks that against ESMA and EBA registers and cites the source and date for each verdict. For a global broker directory with reviews, there is no direct like-for-like replacement.

Does a high WikiFX score mean a broker is licensed in my country?

No. A firm can be licensed in one country and not allowed to serve customers in another. Check that the licence covers your country and the type of service you're using.

Does "no licence found" on Licensed Here mean the company is a scam?

No. It means none of the firms linked to the brand holds a licence in the registers Licensed Here reads. The firm may hold a national licence or an FCA authorisation those registers don't show. Treat it as a reason to check further, not as proof of fraud.

How often is the data updated?

WikiFX updates continuously, including user reviews. Licensed Here shows the date it last checked each register on every verdict; ESMA updates its interim MiCA register about once a week.

Do either of them cover the UK?

WikiFX lists FCA-regulated brokers. Licensed Here covers the UK as a country, but at the time of writing UK verdicts rest on EU registers only, because the FCA register isn't shown yet.

Is Licensed Here paid by the companies it checks?

It states that it takes no referral fees and doesn't rank firms or sell placement. Alternatives are listed alphabetically.

Figures for Licensed Here are as of 10 November 2026, from licensedhere.com and its methodology page. WikiFX figures are from its App Store listing and website. Allegations about WikiFX are as reported by DL News (June 2024); WikiFX did not respond to DL News's requests for comment, and in January 2026 published a framework stating that commercial cooperation does not affect its scores. This article is for information only and is not financial advice.