Zero Markets earns a Silver Standard rating, anchored by genuine tier-1 regulation through ASIC and New Zealand’s FMA, though its offshore Mauritius and St Vincent entities carry meaningfully weaker protections and recurring withdrawal-delay complaints stand out as the primary risk flag. Zero Markets is a legitimately licensed, mid-tier forex and CFD broker whose safety profile depends heavily on which of its regulated entities a client actually opens an account with.
Introduction
Is Zero Markets safe to trust with client capital? This Zero Markets review finds a broker with a genuine tier-1 regulatory footprint in one part of its corporate structure and a materially weaker offshore footprint in another — a split that any prospective client needs to understand before opening an account.
Zero Markets is the trading name used across a group of related entities rather than a single legal person. In Australia, Zero Financial Pty Ltd has operated as an authorized representative of First Prudential Markets Pty Ltd, which holds an Australian Financial Services Licence from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC license number 244040). A separate entity, Zero Markets (NZ) Limited, holds a Market Making licence from New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA license number 569807). The group also operates offshore entities under licences from Mauritius’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) and, according to the broker’s own Trustpilot listing and third-party trackers, from St Vincent and the Grenadines. The broker’s retail platform operates at zeromarkets.com. Founded in 2017 and headquartered administratively in Mauritius with an operating presence in Sydney, Zero Markets has built a footprint as a mid-sized, execution-focused ECN/STP broker offering forex, indices, commodities, share CFDs, and crypto CFDs. Based on the regulatory split described below, Zero Markets lands in the Silver Standard band under our methodology — legitimate and licensed, but not a top-tier pick for clients who prioritize maximum regulatory protection.
Regulation & Safety
Zero Markets is regulated, but not uniformly: its Australian and New Zealand entities clear our tier-1 floor tests, while its Mauritius and offshore entities do not. That distinction — not the broker’s marketing — is what determines how much protection a given client actually has.
| Regulator | Tier | Licensed Entity | License Number | Key Client Protections |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASIC (Australia) | Tier 1 | Zero Financial Pty Ltd (AR of First Prudential Markets Pty Ltd) | 244040 (AFSL of First Prudential Markets) | ASIC leverage caps (30:1 majors), negative balance protection, AFCA dispute resolution |
| FMA (New Zealand) | Tier 1/2 border | Zero Markets (NZ) Limited | 569807 | Market Making licence, disclosure obligations, dispute resolution scheme membership |
| FSC (Mauritius) | Tier 2 | Zero Markets group entity | AML/licensing oversight; leverage and disclosure rules largely left to firm policy | |
| FSA (St Vincent & the Grenadines) | Tier 3 | Offshore entity referenced in broker contact listings | Company registration only; no meaningful retail trading safeguards |
Under our four-factor methodology, a regulator only earns tier-1 status once it clears activity licensing, product controls, capital safeguards, and enforcement oversight. ASIC and the FMA clear all four for their respective Zero Markets entities. The Mauritius FSC clears licensing and AML oversight but leaves leverage limits to the firm. The SVG registration, common among offshore forex brands, functions as a company incorporation rather than a trading-specific licence, so it fails our product-controls and enforcement tests outright.
One additional flag: third-party regulatory trackers report that an ASIC Authorised Representative licence previously held by a Zero Financial entity (AR number Revoked 001273819) was revoked. As of the date of this review, no active ASIC investor alert or public enforcement action against the current licensed entities was identified, and the broker’s core ASIC/FMA licences remain active — but the revocation record is worth independent verification through ASIC’s and the FMA’s public registers before funding an account, particularly if you intend to trade under a Mauritius or SVG-registered entity rather than the Australian or New Zealand one.
Execution Quality & Trading Costs
Zero Markets’ published cost structure is competitive against ECN-broker benchmarks, though independently verified, real-time execution data (latency in milliseconds, documented slippage percentages) is not publicly disclosed by the broker or by third-party monitoring services, so this review cannot state those figures with the numerical precision the topic deserves — any source claiming exact millisecond figures for this broker should be treated with skepticism absent an independent audit.
Account Types & Spreads
On pricing, Zero Markets runs four core account types. The Standard and Islamic Standard accounts charge no commission with spreads from roughly 1.0 pips on EUR/USD. The Super Zero and Islamic Raw accounts advertise raw spreads from 0.0 pips plus a commission in the range of $2.50–$3.50 per side per lot — broadly in line with the $3–$7 round-turn commission typical among ECN/raw-spread competitors such as Pepperstone, FP Markets, and IC Markets. All accounts run on MT4 and MT5, support Expert Advisors, hedging, and scalping, and permit a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots.
Non-Trading Fees
On non-trading fees, the broker’s own materials and multiple aggregators indicate no formal inactivity fee is currently listed, though several user reviews on Trustpilot report confusion over withdrawal-related charges, with at least one reviewer explicitly asking the broker to disclose withdrawal fees more clearly on its website. That gap between stated policy and user experience is itself a data point worth weighing alongside the headline spread numbers.
Trader Reputation & Market Presence
Public sentiment toward Zero Markets is mixed: trading conditions and support responsiveness draw frequent praise, while withdrawal and verification delays are the most persistent and recurring complaint theme across independent platforms. Under our four-factor methodology, we cross-referenced Trustpilot listings, WikiFX’s dealer database, and Forex Peace Army threads against the broker’s own disclosures to separate one-off frustration from systemic patterns.
On the positive side, reviewers repeatedly cite fast live-chat response times, named support staff resolving issues quickly, and smooth demo-to-live account transitions. Several long-term users report clean deposit and withdrawal cycles with no unexpected costs.
On the negative side, a recurring cluster of complaints centers on withdrawal processing delays, particularly for first-time withdrawals, which several users attribute to KYC/AML re-verification requests. WikiFX’s dealer database recorded a small number of user complaints (single digits as of this review, a figure that fluctuates and should be checked against the live WikiFX listing), including allegations of blocked withdrawals after profitable trading periods. It is worth noting that similar withdrawal-delay complaint patterns appear across most retail CFD brokers in this size tier, so the presence of such complaints is not unique to Zero Markets — the relevant question is volume and resolution rate relative to peers, and on that specific comparison, public data is too thin to draw a confident conclusion.
Strengths & Weaknesses
This Zero Markets review finds a broker whose core Australian and New Zealand licences are genuinely solid, offset by an offshore entity structure and a recurring withdrawal-complaint pattern that keep it out of the top regulatory tier.
- Genuine tier-1 licensing via ASIC and FMA entities
- Competitive raw-spread pricing ($2.50–$3.50/lot) against peer ECN brokers
- MT4/MT5 with full EA, scalping, and hedging support
- Responsive live-chat support cited across multiple review platforms
- Islamic account options across all account tiers
- Offshore Mauritius/SVG entities offer materially weaker protections
- Recurring user complaints about withdrawal and verification delays
- Historical AR licence revocation on record; independent verification recommended
- No cent/micro account option; $100 minimum deposit is higher than some offshore-only rivals
- Precise execution-speed and slippage data not independently published
Anyone researching whether Zero Markets is safe should weigh which entity they’d actually be signing up with — the answer to “is Zero Markets regulated” is genuinely different depending on the jurisdiction of the account you open.
Overall Verdict
Where entity-level scores diverge, this review reports the highest applicable rating — in this case, the score attached to Zero Markets’ ASIC/FMA-regulated entity rather than its offshore counterpart. On that basis, Zero Markets qualifies for our Silver Standard band: legitimate, actively regulated by at least one tier-1 authority, with generally competitive execution costs and a support reputation that outperforms its withdrawal-complaint record.
Zero Markets suits intermediate to experienced retail traders who specifically open an account through the ASIC- or FMA-regulated entity, understand ECN/raw-spread pricing, and are comfortable completing a full KYC process before their first withdrawal. It is a weaker fit for beginners drawn in through offshore-entity onboarding, or for anyone who needs same-day withdrawal certainty as a priority.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Zero Markets operates through entities licensed by ASIC (Australia) and the FMA (New Zealand), both of which meet tier-1 regulatory standards. It also runs offshore entities under Mauritius FSC and SVG registration, which carry materially fewer protections.
Zero Markets is regulated by ASIC under licence number 244040 (via First Prudential Markets Pty Ltd) and by New Zealand’s FMA under licence number 569807, alongside lower-tier Mauritius FSC and SVG registrations for its offshore entities.
It’s safe in proportion to which entity holds your account. The ASIC- and FMA-regulated entities carry segregated funds requirements and dispute-resolution access; the offshore entities do not offer comparable statutory protections.
Standard accounts run commission-free with spreads from about 1.0 pips. Raw-spread accounts (Super Zero, Islamic Raw) charge roughly $2.50–$3.50 per lot per side with spreads from 0.0 pips. Some users report unclear withdrawal-fee disclosure.
Withdrawal delays are the most frequently repeated complaint in independent reviews, generally tied to first-withdrawal KYC re-verification. Most reviewers who report delays also report eventual resolution, but the volume of complaints warrants caution and documentation of every request.
Expert Review Notes (Staff Insight)
Staff Insight
The most operationally significant nuance here is entity layering: “Zero Markets” markets itself as a single global brand, but a client’s actual protections depend on which legal entity processes their account — a distinction the broker’s own marketing does not foreground. The historical revocation of an ASIC Authorised Representative licence tied to the group, while not necessarily indicative of current wrongdoing, is the kind of detail that only surfaces through direct registry checks rather than the broker’s own disclosures, and it reinforces the case for independent verification before funding any offshore-entity account. Support quality appears to be a genuine differentiator relative to peers, based on the volume and specificity of positive live-chat mentions across review platforms — but that same responsiveness does not appear to consistently extend to withdrawal-stage communication, where several users describe vague or repetitive responses.
Composite Score Calculation
| Methodology Dimension | Weight | Raw Score (/100) | Score Bar | Weighted Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regulation & Safety | 35% | 68 | 23.8 | |
| Execution Quality & Trading Costs | 30% | 70 | 21.0 | |
| Trader Reputation & Market Presence | 25% | 62 | 15.5 | |
| Expert Review Notes (Staff Insight) | 10% | 65 | 6.5 | |
| Composite Total | 66.8 | |||
Note on scoring: Raw scores in this table reflect this outlet’s qualitative assessment of the publicly available evidence gathered above — regulatory tier mix, competitive but unverified execution costs, mixed-but-not-alarming reputation data, and entity-layering transparency concerns. They are not derived from proprietary latency or slippage telemetry, which Zero Markets does not publish and which no independent auditor was identified as having verified as of this review.
