Why Trust CompareForexBrokers

We’ve reviewed every ASIC-regulated forex broker in Australia with our own funds since 2014. Here’s how we keep the rankings honest.

At a glance. Founded 2014. AFS Authorised Representative No. 001274082 (under Bardin Capital Pty Ltd, AFSL 247858). 30+ brokers tested with live accounts. David Levy, Head of Content, is the final reviewer on every published page.

The promise

If you’re reading this page, you’ve probably noticed that every other forex broker comparison site reads roughly the same. Glowing reviews. Vague methodology. Bonus offers above the fold. The same five brokers ranked top regardless of who’s running the test. We’ve spent eleven years deliberately building the opposite of that, and this page is where we lay out the rules so you can hold us to them.

CompareForexBrokers was founded in November 2014, originally launching at compareforexbrokers.com.au. As we expanded into international markets, the main site moved to compareforexbrokers.com in 2019. We’ve relaunched the .com.au domain in May 2026 as a dedicated Australian site, focused exclusively on ASIC-regulated brokers.

We exist to help Australian retail traders pick a broker that won’t burn them. The site doesn’t try to cover every broker on earth. It covers the 30 or so brokers that hold a current Australian Financial Services Licence and accept retail clients in Australia. That narrow focus is the thing that makes the rankings useful.

Editorial independence

The single biggest question on a comparison site is whether the rankings can be bought. On this site, they can’t.

Three rules:

1. No broker pays for placement. A broker cannot rank higher by paying us. There is no “premium listing” tier. There is no sponsored review badge. The rankings are an output of our scoring model. The model is described in full on the methodology page.
2. Affiliate relationships are disclosed and isolated. Some brokers we cover have an affiliate relationship with us. When a reader clicks through to a broker from this site and opens an account, the broker may pay us a commission. That commercial relationship has zero input into the score. The full advertiser disclosure explains how the firewall works.
3. The same model applies to brokers we love and brokers we don’t. Pepperstone and IC Markets have been at or near the top of the rankings since the site started. CMC Markets and IG sit consistently in our top tier. Several other brokers have moved up and down, dropped off, or rejoined. The model decides. We don’t bend it because a broker is a long-standing partner or because they’re a new entrant we’re trying to support.

Our regulatory status

CompareForexBrokers operates as a Corporate Authorised Representative under Australian financial services law. The current AFS Rep number is 001274082, and we operate under the AFSL of Bardin Capital Pty Ltd (AFSL 247858).

What that means in practice: we are authorised under the Corporations Act 2001 to provide general financial product information about CFDs and forex to Australian readers. We are not licensed to provide personal financial advice. None of the content on this site takes your personal financial circumstances into account, and none of it should be treated as a recommendation to act.

If a broker review or guide ever crosses the line from general information into personal advice, that’s our error. The contact details are on the contact page and we’ll fix it.

How we test brokers

Every broker rating on this site comes from a live account that we open, fund and trade. Not a demo. Not a phone call to the broker’s BDM. A real account at the broker’s Australian ASIC-regulated entity, funded with our own AUD, used to place real trades during real market hours.

The full testing protocol sits on the methodology page. The short version:

• 8 weighted criteria make up the score: trading costs (25%), trust and regulation (20%), trading experience (15%), platforms (15%), customer service (10%), range of markets (5%), education (5%) and funding (5%).
• 100+ data points are recorded per broker per testing cycle.
• Spreads are recorded over 24 hours covering the Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York sessions using the IceFX SpreadMonitor tool on MT4.
• Execution speed is measured with two purpose-built MT4 expert advisors (ExTest_ForExpat and our internal Broker Latency Tester EA).
• Customer service is benchmarked with a fixed list of test queries sent during AU business hours.
• Funding and withdrawal is tested by depositing and withdrawing AUD via every advertised method.

Tests run on a monthly cadence for the most-trafficked brokers (Pepperstone, IC Markets, CMC, IG, OANDA), and at least quarterly for the rest of the shortlist. Every broker gets a full annual review where the rating is rebuilt from scratch.

Fact-check workflow

Every published page on this site goes through a four-stage editorial process before launch.

Stage 1: Drafting. Either Justin Grossbard, David Levy, or one of our research contributors writes the first draft. Drafts are written from raw data captured during testing, not from broker-supplied marketing copy.

Stage 2: Independent test verification. Spread, execution and platform claims are cross-checked against the testing logs. AFSL numbers are verified on ASIC Connect. Any number that can’t be verified is removed or flagged.

Stage 3: Fact-check by David Levy. David is our Head of Content and is the final reviewer on every published page. He’s based on the .com side of the business and brings an outside perspective to the AU content. Nothing ships without his sign-off.

Stage 4: Humanizer pass. Every page receives two humanizer sweeps for tone, accuracy and AU regulatory voice. Banned vocabulary, em dashes, US spellings, off-shore broker references that crept in from a global draft. All caught and fixed before publish.

When a reader emails to flag an error, we add a fifth stage: same-day correction and a public note in the page’s revision history.

How often we update

Static facts (a broker’s AFSL number, their founding date, their headquarters) are updated when they change. ASIC has a feed for AFSL register changes. We watch it.

Live trading data is on a rolling schedule:

• Spreads: monthly snapshot for the top 10 brokers on the site, quarterly for the long tail. Every published spread carries a date stamp.
• Platform features: when a broker pushes a release. MT5 builds, cTrader updates, Next Generation feature releases. We re-test within 30 days.
• Pricing changes: when a broker amends their PDS. We track the pricing-change announcements and re-rate any broker whose costs move materially.
• Full broker rating: annual cycle. Every broker on the shortlist gets a complete top-to-bottom re-rating once per year.

The “Last updated” date at the top of every page is the actual date of the most recent edit. Not a template variable that auto-bumps. If you see a January 2024 stamp on a review, that’s because we haven’t touched the page since January 2024 and you should treat the trading data accordingly.

ASIC and AFCA respect for AU clients

We are based in Melbourne and we write for Australians. That has practical consequences for the trust signals on this site.

ASIC is the regulator we cite. Every AFSL number on the site is sourced from ASIC Connect. Every leverage limit we quote (30:1 majors, 20:1 minors and gold, 10:1 other commodities, 5:1 shares, 2:1 crypto) traces back to ASIC’s Product Intervention Order. We don’t quote FCA, ESMA or CySEC rules unless we’re explicitly contrasting jurisdictions.

AFCA is the dispute-resolution body we point readers to. If a broker on this site mistreats you and won’t fix it, your free path is through the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. Every ASIC AFSL holder offering retail CFDs must be an AFCA member. We confirm that membership before listing a broker. If a broker drops AFCA membership, they come off the site.

The CSLR is mentioned where relevant. The Compensation Scheme of Last Resort, operational since April 2024, is the last-resort safety net for unpaid AFCA determinations. It does not cover trading losses or general broker insolvency, and we say so on every review. Some readers misread the CSLR as an Australian equivalent of the UK’s compensation scheme. It is not.

The ATO is cited on tax content. We’re not licensed to give tax advice. Every page that touches CFD or forex tax treatment links to ATO TR 2005/15 and recommends a registered tax agent.

Who we are

CompareForexBrokers was founded in 2014 by Justin Grossbard and Noam Korbl from a small office in Melbourne. The site has grown to cover 30 ASIC-regulated brokers, with a research team that has logged thousands of hours testing live accounts since launch.

The current operating company is Compare Forex Brokers Pty Ltd, registered in Australia. The Australian office is at Flat 1/650 Inkerman Rd, Caulfield North VIC 3161. The contact phone is 0412 156 618.

• Justin Grossbard, Co-Founder and Strategic Head of Research. Trading since 1998. Full bio.
• David Levy, Head of Content and Fact-Checker. Final reviewer on every published page.
• Research contributors. Live-account testing across the 30-broker shortlist.

How to push back

We get things wrong. Spreads change without notice, an AFSL gets surrendered between our checks, a broker rolls out a platform update we miss for a week. When you spot it, the fastest way to flag it is via the contact page or directly via email through that form.

We aim to acknowledge corrections within 24 hours and publish the fix within 72 hours. Material errors get a dated correction note at the bottom of the affected page.