Worked example
Practising on Squared Financial's numbers
This is an exercise sheet, not a review. We are going to take three things that Squared Financial 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
Squared Financial 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. Squared Financial offers 3 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.
- StandardThe entry rung. Whatever the published spread applies to, it is almost always this one — so this is the rung your arithmetic above describes.
- ProA higher rung usually trades a tighter spread for a commission, a larger deposit, or a status test. Convert both pricing models to money per lot before you decide either is cheaper.
- DemoA higher rung usually trades a tighter spread for a commission, a larger deposit, or a status test. Convert both pricing models to money per lot before you decide either is cheaper.
Account names as published: Standard, Pro, Demo. Platforms listed: MT4, MT5.
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 Squared Financial's lines, each with a plain reading.
| Regulator | Entity on the register | Number | What that means for a beginner |
|---|---|---|---|
| CySEC (licence under voluntary renunciation) · Cyprus | Squared Financial (CY) Ltd | 329/17 | a mid-tier regulator: real supervision and a register, usually with a smaller or capped compensation scheme |
| None confirmed — named in a CySEC settlement decision · Seychelles | SQ Sey Ltd | not verified | an offshore registration: a company exists and pays a fee, but expect little practical recourse from that entity |
No top-tier line appears on this file. That does not make the firm illegitimate, but it does mean the compensation-scheme and capital-rule protections a beginner usually assumes are present are not evidenced here. 1 line is offshore registration; treat those as a company address rather than as supervision. We could not confirm a licence number on 1 line, which is exactly the kind of gap you should close yourself on the regulator's own register before depositing.
The record behind these numbers
- Squared Financial's own announcement states that Squared Financial (CY) Ltd has formally initiated a voluntary renunciation of its CIF licence, authorisation number 329/17, and will no longer onboard new clients under CySEC.
- CySEC published a board decision on 19 November 2025 recording a settlement of EUR 50,000 with SQ Sey Ltd over a possible violation of the authorisation requirements of article 5(1) of the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law between 26 October 2022 and 16 September 2024.
- The company's own account page lists a zero minimum deposit on its entry account and a 500 USD minimum on its second account type.
- The CySEC entity is registered in Cyprus under company registration number 355968.
What we could not verify
The following are unconfirmed and are deliberately left blank rather than estimated: founded; spreadEurusd; segregatedFunds and negativeBalanceProtection; a separately reported EUR 35,000 CySEC fine — decision document not read; status of any Seychelles licence; negative balance protection. Confidence in this file overall: medium. 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
PipMentor 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.