Worked example
Practising on STARTRADER's numbers
This is an exercise sheet, not a review. We are going to take three things that STARTRADER 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
STARTRADER 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. STARTRADER offers 4 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.
- DemoThe entry rung. Whatever the published spread applies to, it is almost always this one — so this is the rung your arithmetic above describes.
- StandardA 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.
- ECNA 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.
- Prime ECNA 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: Demo, Standard, ECN, Prime ECN. Platforms listed: MT4, MT5, WebTrader, App.
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 STARTRADER's lines, each with a plain reading.
| Regulator | Entity on the register | Number | What that means for a beginner |
|---|---|---|---|
| FSA Seychelles · Seychelles | STARTRADER Limited (reg. 8427362-1) | SD049 | an offshore registration: a company exists and pays a fee, but expect little practical recourse from that entity |
| FSCA · South Africa | STARTRADER International Pty Ltd | FSP 52464 | a mid-tier regulator: real supervision and a register, usually with a smaller or capped compensation scheme |
| ASIC · Australia | STARTRADER Prime Global Pty Ltd (ACN 156005668) | 421210 | a top-tier regulator: compensation scheme, capital rules and a public register you can search yourself |
| CMA (UAE) · United Arab Emirates | STARTRADER Global Financial Consultation & Financial Analysis LLC | 20200000241 | an offshore registration: a company exists and pays a fee, but expect little practical recourse from that entity |
| FSC Mauritius · Mauritius | STARTRADER Financial Markets Limited (Company No. 212229 GBC) | GB24203371 | an offshore registration: a company exists and pays a fee, but expect little practical recourse from that entity |
| FCA · United Kingdom | STARTRADER Broker Limited | 821704 | a top-tier regulator: compensation scheme, capital rules and a public register you can search yourself — no longer active |
| None — Cyprus company registration (payment facilitation only) · Cyprus | STARTRADER (CY) Limited (HE421001) | not verified | 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 STARTRADER Prime Global Pty Ltd (ACN 156005668). 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. 4 lines are offshore registrations; 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
- STARTRADER Limited is a Securities Dealer regulated by the FSA of Seychelles under licence SD049, registration number 8427362-1, per the company's own regulation page.
- STARTRADER International Pty Ltd is a South African Financial Services Provider regulated by the FSCA under FSP number 52464.
- STARTRADER's website displays reverse-solicitation notices to visitors in Spain and Italy stating it is not licensed by the CNMV or CONSOB and that those regulators' protections do not apply.
- The company states it operates a network of licensed entities and has announced additional licences, including an SCA licence; the full current entity list was not confirmed for this record.
- The STARTRADER site is behind bot protection, so parts of the regulation page could not be read directly and were sourced from the page's indexed text.
- STARTRADER's regulation page lists five licensed entities: CMA (UAE) licence 20200000241 (Category 5, Introduction and Promotion), ASIC licence 421210 held by STARTRADER Prime Global Pty Ltd (ACN 156005668), FSCA FSP 52464, FSC Mauritius licence GB24203371 held by STARTRADER Financial Markets Limited (Company No. 212229 GBC), and FSA Seychelles SD049 (https://www.startrader.com/regulation/).
- The FSA Seychelles capital-markets register lists STARTRADER LIMITED at Block B, Room 2, No.2, Global Village, Jivan's Complex, Mont Fleuri, Mahe, Seychelles (https://fsaseychelles.sc/regulated-entities/capital-markets).
- STARTRADER's Client Agreement (November 2023) states client money is held separate from the firm's own money in "Segregated Accounts" with an approved bank, and separately warns that the firm does not guarantee an account will not fall into a negative balance in adverse market conditions (https://www.startrader.com/pdf/STARTRADER-Client-Agreement-Nov-2023.pdf).
- STARTRADER's own press release states the broker revealed a rebrand at the beginning of 2026 under the theme 'Built on Trust. Driven by Growth.', and presented its post-rebrand vision at iFX EXPO Dubai 2026 (16 February 2026) (https://www.startrader.com/pr/startrader-trading-volume-q1-record).
- The archived STARTRADER regulation page (6 Oct 2025) lists STARTRADER Broker Limited under FCA reference 821704, while the FCA register records that this firm 'can no longer provide regulated activities and products, but previously was authorised by the FCA and/or PRA' (https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=0010X00004G4DFDQA3).
- The archived STARTRADER regulation page (6 Oct 2025) also lists STARTRADER (CY) Limited (HE421001, Limassol) as a Cyprus-registered payment-services facilitator that does not offer regulated financial products or trading services (https://web.archive.org/web/20251006043745/https://www.startrader.com/regulation/).
What we could not verify
The following are unconfirmed and are deliberately left blank rather than estimated: founded; hq; minDeposit; maxLeverage; spreadEurusd; segregatedFunds; negativeBalanceProtection; publiclyListed; accountTypes; full regulation page could not be retrieved directly; headquarters; negative balance protection; founded — broker's own press-release boilerplate states founded in 2019; conflicting secondary claims exist (an Instagram post says 2013, WikiFX says 1997, Tracxn says 2022); no regulator-register incorporation date located; minDeposit — broker's account pages publish no minimum-deposit figure per account type; its FAQ only repeats generic industry ranges ($5–$100+); the $50 figure seen on directories could not be confirmed from a primary source; spreadEurusd — only advertised floors are published (Standard 'as low as 1.3 pips', Prime ECN 'from 0.0 pips'); no typical EUR/USD spread is stated; negativeBalanceProtection — company page notes NBP 'does not apply to all', and the Client Agreement states no guarantee against negative balances in adverse market conditions; seed sourceUrl https://www.startrader.com/regulation/ returns HTTP 403 to curl (bot protection) but serves full content to browsers/web fetchers — not treated as dead; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines entity claims — not confirmed from a primary source. Confidence in this file overall: low. 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.