How We Check a Broker

The first filter: can you actually use it

A broker is only considered for a ranking if a resident of South Africa can open an account, fund it and withdraw from it. That means checking that local cards and bank transfers in ZAR, and e-wallets, are accepted for funding, and that the withdrawal route back to a South African reader exists.

If any part of that chain fails, the broker is not ranked, however good the platform looks. This filter comes first because a trading account you cannot fund or cash out of is of no use to a reader in Johannesburg, Cape Town or anywhere else in the country.

Why the live price can differ from your broker quote

The live price on this site and the quote on your platform can differ because they are taken at different moments and from different venues. Bitcoin trades continuously across many exchanges, so the reference price of 77000.0 is a snapshot, while FxPro's BTC/USD quote reflects its own liquidity and updates tick by tick. A difference of a few dollars is normal and does not mean either figure is wrong.

The gap widens around news, low-liquidity periods and weekends, when bitcoin can move sharply and spreads on the broker side may widen. Because one pip in BTC/USD is 1.0, a move of even $100 is 100 pips, so small timing differences translate into visible pip movements. The site's calculators use its own snapshot consistently, which is why a margin or pip-value output may not match your platform to the cent.

The practical rule is to treat the site's price as a planning input and your platform's quote as the executable one. Before you place an order, recalculate margin and pip value from the price your platform shows, using the same formulas: lot size times 1.0 for pip value, and lot size times price divided by the leverage cap for margin. That keeps your sizing tied to the quote you can actually trade.

Where each class of figure on this site comes from

Every live BTC/USD price, pip value and margin figure is calculated from the reference price of 77000.0 that FxPro publishes for the instrument, and all rand conversions use the ZAR rate shown at the time of generation. Broker facts such as maximum leverage of up to 1:200 for retail and up to 1:500 for eligible/professional clients come directly from the FxPro entity that serves South Africa, FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL, and are stored with the date they were last confirmed.

Local funding methods listed on the site are limited to local cards, bank transfers in ZAR and e-wallets, and each is recorded only because FxPro names it for South African clients. The regulator caveat that FxPro is licensed by the FCA and CySEC and that an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence is reproduced exactly as supplied, because the entity behind your own account determines which protections apply. No figure is inferred from a competitor or a forum.

Where a number depends on your account rather than the instrument, the site states the dependency instead of a value. Spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are described only in terms of what they consist of and what they depend on, never as a number, because those are set by FxPro per account and can change. The worked margin example of about $385.00 for a 0.10-lot bitcoin position at 1:200 is the only margin figure published, and it is tied to the stated leverage cap.

The formula behind each calculator, in plain words

The pip value calculator multiplies your lot size by 1.0, because one pip in BTC/USD equals 1.0 and one standard lot is 1 BTC, then converts that USD amount to rand using the ZAR rate displayed at the time. For example, 0.10 lots gives a pip value of $0.10 before conversion. The result is shown in both USD and R so you can see the rand exposure directly.

The margin calculator divides the notional value of the position by the leverage cap. Notional value is lot size multiplied by the reference price; for 0.10 lots at 77000.0 that is $7,700.00, and dividing by 1:200 gives about $385.00. The site does not offer a leverage selector above the stated caps of 1:200 for retail and up to 1:500 for eligible/professional clients, because those are the maximums available in South Africa and not targets.

The position-size calculator works backwards from the rand amount you are willing to risk. It takes your risk in rand, converts it to USD at the displayed ZAR rate, then divides by the distance in pips between your entry and stop, where each pip is worth 1.0 per lot. The output is a lot size in BTC, which you then check against the margin requirement using the same notional-value formula so the position fits your account.

What refreshes automatically and what is checked by hand

The BTC/USD reference price and the ZAR conversion rate refresh automatically from the feed FxPro provides, and every calculator output recalculates from those two inputs each time the page loads. That means pip values, notional values and margin examples move with the market without anyone editing the page. The 77000.0 figure shown in examples is the reference price at the time of writing, not a live quote.

Broker facts are reviewed by hand. The maximum leverage caps, the list of local funding methods, the serving entity name and the regulator caveat are checked against FxPro's own disclosures on a scheduled cycle and whenever a reader flags a discrepancy. They are never changed by the price feed. Each stored fact carries the date it was last confirmed, so an outdated entry is visible rather than silently carried forward.

Anything that cannot be confirmed from FxPro or a regulator is left out rather than filled with an estimate. Spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are not auto-populated and are not hand-guessed; they are described only by what they depend on. This split keeps the live mathematics honest while preventing an account-specific number from being presented as if it were universal.

How a broker fact is dated and re-checked

Each broker fact is stored with the date it was last confirmed against FxPro's published terms, and that date is what the site treats as its freshness marker. Leverage caps, funding methods, the serving entity and the regulator caveat are all dated this way. When the date ages past the review interval, the fact is queued for a manual check rather than left to drift, so an old entry is visible as old.

Re-checking means going back to the source: FxPro's own legal and account pages for the South African entity, and the FSCA register for the licence reference. The wording of the caveat that FxPro is licensed by the FCA and CySEC and that an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence is compared word for word. If the source has changed, the stored fact and its date are updated together so the two never separate.

A reader report is treated as a trigger for the same manual check, not as proof on its own. If you see a leverage cap, funding method or entity name that no longer matches your account, the site logs it and re-verifies against FxPro. Nothing is changed on the strength of a single report until the source confirms it, which keeps the dated record meaningful rather than reactive.

What happens when two sources disagree

When two sources disagree, the regulator and the serving entity's own legal documentation win over any secondary description. For South Africa that means the FSCA register and FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL's published terms take precedence over a comparison site, a forum post or a marketing page. If the disagreement touches leverage, the stated caps of 1:200 for retail and up to 1:500 for eligible/professional clients are used only if the entity's own terms confirm them.

If the conflict cannot be resolved from those primary sources, the site withholds the figure rather than picking a side. A number that two credible sources dispute is worse than no number, because a trader may size a position on it. In that case the page describes what the figure depends on and points you to your own account documentation, which is the only place your actual terms are recorded.

Disagreements about the live price are handled differently, because a price is a timestamped observation rather than a fact to be settled. The site keeps its reference price and ZAR rate as the single inputs for all calculations, and any difference from a broker quote is explained as timing and venue rather than corrected. That keeps the arithmetic reproducible even when quotes legitimately differ.

What is deliberately left out and why

Spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are deliberately not published as numbers because they are set by FxPro per account and change with market conditions and account type. Publishing a figure would present an account-specific cost as if it were universal, and a trader could size a position on a number that does not apply to them. The site instead states what each cost consists of and what it depends on.

Also left out are any leverage ratio beyond the stated caps of 1:200 for retail and up to 1:500 for eligible/professional clients, and any funding method not on the confirmed list of local cards, bank transfers in ZAR and e-wallets. Naming an unconfirmed channel or a higher ratio would misrepresent what is available in South Africa under the entity that serves the region, FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL.

Finally, the site does not publish performance claims, profit examples or guarantees, and it does not name individual authors or testimonials. Trading bitcoin on leverage is high-risk and can lose more than a planned amount in fast markets, so the page avoids anything that reads as a promise. What remains is the instrument definition, the formulas, the dated broker facts and the regulator caveat, which are the parts a reader can actually check.

The limits of our testing

We do not run live money through every broker and we do not test every account type. Our checks are documentary and editorial: we read the broker's published terms, platform notes and entity details, and we say what we found.

A check is a snapshot, not a guarantee. Conditions change, and a page that was accurate on the date it was read can fall out of date, which is why every figure carries the date it was verified and why corrections are handled openly.

Where the numbers come from

Figures on this site come from the broker's own documents, and each figure is recorded with the date it was read. We do not carry a number forward without noting when it was last checked against the source.

Where a cost depends on the account type, the instrument or the entity, we describe what it consists of and what it depends on rather than quoting a figure we were not given. That is why some pages explain a cost structure instead of printing a number.

How to reproduce any number on this site

You can reproduce every calculator output with the reference price, the ZAR rate and the instrument definition of 1 lot = 1 BTC and pip = 1.0. For pip value, multiply lot size by 1.0 and convert to rand at the displayed rate. For margin, multiply lot size by the reference price to get notional value, then divide by the leverage cap; 0.10 lots at 77000.0 gives $7,700.00 notional and about $385.00 margin at 1:200.

For position size, take the rand amount you are willing to risk, convert it to USD at the displayed ZAR rate, and divide by the stop distance in pips, remembering that each pip is worth 1.0 per lot. Then check the resulting lot size against the margin formula so the position fits your account at the stated cap. Every step uses only the published inputs, so a discrepancy usually means a different price or rate was used.

If your result differs from the site, check three things in order: the reference price, the ZAR rate and the leverage cap you applied. The site uses 77000.0 and the caps of 1:200 for retail and up to 1:500 for eligible/professional clients; substituting a live quote or a different cap will change the output, which is expected. Confirm your own account's entity and terms with FxPro before relying on any reproduced figure.

The known limits of this method

The biggest limit is that the site's figures are illustrative, not executable. The reference price of 77000.0 and the ZAR rate are snapshots, so a margin figure of about $385.00 for 0.10 lots at 1:200 will differ from what your platform shows the moment BTC/USD moves or your account currency differs. Treat every output as a planning estimate and confirm it on MT4, MT5, cTrader or FxPro Edge before you trade.

A second limit is that account-specific costs are deliberately absent. Because spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are not published as numbers, the calculators cannot show your true cost of holding a position overnight or the full round-trip expense. You must obtain those from FxPro for your own account type. The site also does not model slippage, gaps or weekend moves in bitcoin, which can be large relative to the pip size of 1.0.

The third limit is jurisdictional. The leverage caps of 1:200 for retail and up to 1:500 for eligible/professional clients apply in South Africa, but the entity that serves you is FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL, and protections can differ from those of the FCA- or CySEC-licensed entities. The site cannot tell you which entity your account sits with; only your account documentation can, so verify it before relying on any figure.