EC Markets Review for New Zealand Traders

Is EC Markets safe? FMA licence, EC Markets Financial Limited (previously CTRL Investments Limited or MahiFX Limited)

Yes, EC Markets Financial Limited, trading as EC Markets, holds a derivatives issuer licence from the Financial Markets Authority, and the licence status is Active. The Financial Markets Authority granted the licence on 20 January 2015, and I read this on the FMA register on 19 September 2026. The company also holds the registration FSP197465 on the Financial Service Providers Register, and that registration is a separate thing from the licence: the derivatives issuer licence is what authorises the issuing of derivatives to a New Zealand client. David Levy fact-checked the figures and credentials on this page, and the work behind it is reading the statement and reading the register, nothing more.

One thing will catch you if you check the register yourself. The register lists this licensee under a legal name that carries two former names, CTRL Investments Limited and MahiFX Limited, and the register page for the licensee still sits at the address ending /ctrl-investments-limited/. A name the company no longer uses is in the address of the page you will land on, and the page you have found is the right one.

What the FMA licence covers

The Financial Markets Authority states that anyone offering contracts linked to an exchange rate in New Zealand must hold a derivatives issuer licence, and that a licensed derivatives provider must give a client a product disclosure statement before they trade. The statement here is only for offers of derivatives made in New Zealand (statement, page 21), and the company says on page 14 that it is licensed by the Financial Markets Authority as an issuer of derivatives, and that should the licence be withdrawn or a stop placed on the issuance of its statement it may be unable to transact. The FMA also classes retail forex trading as derivatives trading, not currency dealing, and it recommends New Zealanders avoid overseas forex services it has not licensed. You can read more about FMA regulated brokers and the full register on our dedicated page.

EC Markets client money protection and dispute scheme

EC Markets Financial Limited, trading as EC Markets, is the issuer of the products and is registered in New Zealand as a private limited liability company under the New Zealand Companies Act 1993 (statement, page 19). It was incorporated on 30 March 2010 and was registered as a foreign company in Australia on 8 August 2011 (page 19).

Who a New Zealand client contracts with

The company quotes both the buy and the sell price in a trade, and all transactions are entered into with EC Markets as principal (statement, page 7). It earns a commission from its hedging counterparties based on the volume of hedged positions, and those commissions are incorporated into prices (page 15). The hedging counterparty is EC Markets Global Limited, registered in the Cayman Islands (page 19). Neither the company’s nor its hedging counterparties’ creditworthiness has been assessed by an approved rating agency (page 13).

Where a New Zealand client’s money is held

All client funds are held separate from the company’s own funds in trust accounts, and the customer funds accounts are held with major banking institutions (statement, page 18). Funds in your trading account are held in trust but are not segregated from other customer funds within the trust account (page 13). A consequence of that pooling is that your funds may be used to meet the payment obligations of other customers, and a default by another client may cause you loss (page 18). To mitigate the risk that a default by another client causes a loss to the customer funds accounts, the company says it will use its own company funds in the short term to cover any customer balance shortfall while it pursues the defaulting customer (page 18). You receive no interest on balances in the trading account or the customer funds accounts, and the company is entitled to retain any interest earned on them (page 19).

What happens if the company fails

If the company became insolvent and a deficit arose, a customer might become an unsecured creditor of the company (statement, page 18). The Financial Markets Authority names insolvency of the provider as a risk to read the statement for, and says a client may be an unsecured creditor. The company holds professional indemnity insurance to compensate customers for loss or damage attributed to breaches of relevant legislative obligations, though decisions on the policy sit with the third party provider (page 14).

How to complain, and who hears it

The company is a member of the Financial Dispute Resolution service in New Zealand, membership number FM1028 (statement, page 20). It seeks to acknowledge a complaint promptly and provide a substantive response within no more than 30 days (page 20). The Financial Dispute Resolution service will only investigate once the company has been given the opportunity to resolve the complaint, so a formal complaint must first be lodged in writing with the company (page 20). The service charges no fee to investigate or resolve a complaint referred to it (page 20).

EC Markets at a glance: 11 key facts

The table below sets out what the issuer’s own paperwork says, line by line. I built it from the Product Disclosure Statement and the FMA register, and every entry carries the page it came from, so you can check any of it against the document yourself.

EC Markets funding methods and withdrawal times

Funding a trading account by bank transfer or wire carries no fee from the company, though your own bank may impose a charge (statement, page 17).

Deposit methods (NZ clients)

The company accepts Visa, Mastercard, and wire transfers (statement, page 17). Credit card deposits appear on instant bank verification, and wire transfers take two to five business days to clear (page 17).

Withdrawals

The company charges no withdrawal fees, though some banks use intermediary banks whose charges are your responsibility (statement, page 17). The minimum withdrawal amount is ten New Zealand dollars or the equivalent in another currency (page 17). Withdrawal requests are processed within 5 business days once accepted, and funds are only returned in your base currency (page 18). After funds are first deposited from a credit card, those funds may only be refunded to that same credit card, and any additional amounts only to the verified bank account (page 18).

EC Markets account types and minimum deposit

Opening an account runs through a questionnaire that assesses your financial capacity, knowledge and experience in trading financial products including derivatives (statement, page 21). Funds must be deposited in your base currency, and funds received in another currency are automatically converted when credited (statement, page 17). The company also operates a swap free Islamic account and invites interested parties to contact customer service (statement, page 17). On the cost side, the statement sets out a monthly inactivity fee where there is no trading activity for 120 consecutive days and a monthly low activity fee where no transaction is opened or closed within 120 consecutive days: the fee is NZD 10 per month over 120 days and NZD 50 per month over 365 days, charged retroactively for the whole inactivity period (statement, page 16).

Minimum deposit

Activating a trading account requires a minimum deposit of NZD 250 or the equivalent in another currency (statement, page 21).

EC Markets markets

The statement sets out the contracts on offer on page 5: over the counter, non-deliverable CFDs on shares, ETFs, indices, commodities, foreign exchange and cryptocurrencies, traded on a margin or leveraged basis. In its worked example the statement posts margin of 1%, so the exposure is amplified or leveraged by a factor of 100 times the margin (statement, page 9). If you are new to these instruments, our guide to CFD trading explains what a CFD is and how it is treated in New Zealand.

EC Markets leverage and margin for New Zealand clients

The company closes positions automatically on a margin close-out event: it closes the least profitable positions at the market rate applicable at the time until there is enough account equity to support the margin, which could mean all open positions are closed (statement, page 6). It states on page 6 that close-out occurs when your margin level is less than or equal to 50% of the required margin to support your open positions, and its glossary states on page 25 that the same event occurs when your margin level is less than or equal to 15% of the required margin. The statement gives both figures, each on its own page, and I do not choose between them. Both pages carry the same second trigger: close-out after 5 business days of being in breach of the margin requirement. The close-out exists, the statement says, to significantly decrease the probability of you losing more than the amount that is in your trading account (statement, page 22).

Before any of that, the company may alert you through notifications in the trading platform when the account reaches a specific percentage or less of the required margin, though it warns that in a fast moving market there may be little time between alerts or no time to warn at all (page 6). You can manage the risk yourself with limit orders, stop loss orders and take profit orders, which the statement warns may still fail to execute at or even around the price specified in exceptionally volatile or illiquid conditions (statement, page 11). There is no cooling off period in relation to CFD transactions (page 12), and the statement says plainly that there is a possibility you will lose more than the funds you have deposited (page 23).

How leverage interacts with margin on this account

The overnight financing fee, also called the swap fee, is the interest charged for holding a position open each night, debited from the trading account whether the position is long or short (statement, page 16). A position counts as held overnight if it is open at 12:00 am in the GMT+3 time zone, which the statement notes means the fee can fall during the day for a client in the New Zealand time zone (page 16). A position held overnight on Wednesday incurs three times the daily overnight financing charge, because trades require a two day settlement period (page 16).

EC Markets customer support

The company is based in Auckland, with a registered office at Level 1, 1 Albert Street, Auckland 1010, and a phone number of +64 9 302 0798 (statement, page 19). If you trade through the New Zealand session, our market hours guide sets out the trading session in New Zealand time.

Should you open an account with EC Markets?

Yes, if you are comfortable contracting with a licensed derivatives issuer you have read for yourself, because the statement puts the licence, the trust account structure, and the dispute route in writing. No, if you need a tested view of costs or execution before you deposit, because I cannot give you one.

The Financial Markets Authority describes leveraged forex trading as borrowing money to place a bet, with the full borrowed amount repayable on a loss, and it says it regularly receives complaints and enquiries from consumers who have lost money in online forex trading. Weigh that against what the statement commits to. Before depositing, I would read pages 6, 18, and 23 of the statement, confirm the licence status on the register, and satisfy yourself that the pooled trust structure and the close-out terms are ones you accept.