Worked example
Practising on ATC Brokers's numbers
This is an exercise sheet, not a review. We are going to take three things that ATC Brokers publishes — a spread, a ladder of account types and a list of licences — and turn each of them into something you can do arithmetic with. By the end you should be able to repeat the whole exercise on any firm you come across, which is the actual skill being taught.
The figures we are working from
Nothing below is our estimate. Where a firm has not published something, or we could not read it on a source we trust, the box says so instead of guessing — a habit worth copying when you build your own broker notes.
Exercise one — turn the spread into money
ATC Brokers does not publish a EUR/USD spread we were able to verify, so there is no honest arithmetic to do on this page. Do not substitute a number you read on a comparison site: an unverified spread quietly becomes an unverified cost, and then an unverified plan. Use one of the other examples on the practice index for this exercise and come back to this file for the account ladder below.
Exercise two — read the account ladder
Account tiers are a pricing structure dressed as a status ladder. ATC Brokers offers 0 rungs. Read them as a question — what does each rung ask of me, and what does it give back? — rather than as a set of prizes to climb towards.
Exercise three — what this licence list means for you
A long licence list is not automatically a good sign. What matters to a beginner is a narrower question: which entity would hold my money, and who supervises that entity? Those are often not the same as the impressive name at the top of the list. Here are ATC Brokers's lines, each with a plain reading.
| Regulator | Entity on the register | Number | What that means for a beginner |
|---|---|---|---|
| FCA · United Kingdom | ATC Brokers Limited | 591361 | a top-tier regulator: compensation scheme, capital rules and a public register you can search yourself |
| CIMA · Cayman Islands | ATC Brokers Limited | 1448274 | an offshore registration: a company exists and pays a fee, but expect little practical recourse from that entity |
| FSA Seychelles · Seychelles | ATC Brokers LTD | SD078 | an offshore registration: a company exists and pays a fee, but expect little practical recourse from that entity |
1 of these line is top-tier — held by ATC Brokers Limited. If you are onboarded to a different entity than those, the protections attached to the top-tier line are not yours, however prominently the regulator's initials appear in the marketing. 2 lines are offshore registrations; treat those as a company address rather than as supervision.
The record behind these numbers
- ATC Brokers' own products page states ATC Brokers Limited (UK) is authorised and regulated by the FCA (FRN 591361), ATC Brokers Limited (Cayman Islands) by CIMA (FRN 1448274, 190 Elgin Avenue, George Town), and ATC Brokers LTD (Seychelles) by the Seychelles FSA (FRN SD078, Block B, Global Village, Jivan's Complex, Mont Fleuri, Mahe).
- CIMA's own quarterly list of securities investment business licensees (31 March 2022) shows licence 1448274 ATC Brokers Limited, licence date 5 November 2018.
- The FSA Seychelles capital-markets register lists ATC Brokers Limited, trade name ATC Brokers, at Block B, Global Village, Jivan's Complex, Mont Fleuri, Mahe (register page does not print licence numbers).
What we could not verify
The following are unconfirmed and are deliberately left blank rather than estimated: founded: not verified from a primary source; minDeposit: not verified from an account-spec page; maxLeverage: not verified; spreadEurusd: not verified; accountTypes: per-account terms not captured; segregatedFunds / negativeBalanceProtection: client agreement PDFs not extracted; publiclyListed: not verified. Confidence in this file overall: high. When you build your own notes on a firm, keep a list like this one — the gaps are more useful than the figures, because they tell you what to go and check.
Run the same exercise on another firm
pipdojo.com does not rank brokers, does not award badges and does not tell you where to open an account. This page exists so the arithmetic you learn in the curriculum has real numbers to bite on.