Key takeaways
- Start from your clients and partners, not from the cheapest option.
- Recognition drives banking and liquidity access.
- Substance requirements are a real, recurring cost.
- Many brokers combine a fast entity now with a regulated one later.
The criteria that matter
- Target clients: which markets you serve and which you exclude.
- Recognition by banks, LPs, PSPs and clients.
- Speed to launch.
- Substance: office, local directors, officers.
- Capital requirements.
- Tax and reporting.
- MetaQuotes: how easily the activity requirement is met.
Applying them
Fast and lean: Saint Lucia. A licence quickly: Comoros. A regulated long-term brand: Mauritius or the Bahamas.