SCB

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB) regulates securities and investment business in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas under the Securities Industry Act. Broker groups commonly place a Bahamian entity alongside their European ones and route non-EEA clients to it, which makes the SCB one of the licences a retail trader is most likely to encounter without looking for it.

What the licence requires

A registered firm must meet minimum capital appropriate to its category, appoint fit-and-proper directors and officers, maintain a local presence, submit audited annual accounts and comply with anti-money-laundering obligations. The SCB conducts inspections and publishes enforcement actions, so supervision is real rather than nominal.

What it does not carry is the product intervention machinery of a European regulator: no standing leverage cap, no mandated negative balance protection, no standardised risk warning, and no detailed client assets rulebook of the kind the FCA operates.

Leverage and retail protections

There is no statutory leverage limit, and Bahamian entities routinely offer several hundred to one. Client classification and suitability testing are not required in the MiFID sense. Where negative balance protection is offered it is a contractual term in the client agreement, not a regulatory guarantee — and a contractual term can be varied on notice.

If a broker fails

There is no investor compensation scheme. Segregation and the firm's own capital are the protections, with recovery through Bahamian insolvency proceedings. The Bahamas has a functioning commercial court system, but the cost of using it from abroad exceeds a retail account balance.

Verifying a licence

The SCB publishes a register of registered firms and a list of public warnings. Match the exact legal entity from your client agreement against the register — not the trading brand — and confirm the registration category covers dealing in securities. ProForexBrokers.com checks which company a client actually contracts with, because a group advertising an FCA licence on its homepage may route you to the Bahamian entity at signup.

Who an SCB broker suits

A Bahamian entity suits traders who want leverage unavailable in Europe from a supervised rather than merely registered firm, and who accept that the broker's own solvency is what stands behind the balance. It does not suit a trader whose priority is a compensation backstop.