The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
Exness is a Cyprus-headquartered online broker offering leveraged trading in forex, metals, energies, indices, cryptocurrency CFDs and stock CFDs. Clients trade through MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, and Exness's own Exness Terminal web platform and Exness Trade mobile app, choosing between Standard accounts, which require a minimum deposit around $100, and Pro, Raw Spread or Zero accounts, which require roughly $1,000 and charge a per-side commission near $3.50 in exchange for tighter raw spreads. The firm operates as principal counterparty to most client trades rather than routing every order to external liquidity: it prices positions with a proprietary algorithmic engine, holds the resulting risk on its own balance sheet, and offers negative balance protection so a client cannot lose more than their deposit. It differentiates on payout speed and pricing transparency rather than product breadth. Exness has said it processes more than 2 million client withdrawal requests a month, with about 98 percent clearing automatically without manual review, and it publishes raw tick data so clients and third parties can independently check its pricing against the market. Exness was founded in 2008 by Petr Valov, who remains the group's chief executive; he is described in press coverage as having built much of the company's original pricing infrastructure himself. The company later moved its base to Cyprus and obtained a Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission license for its Cyprus entity, then added a UK Financial Conduct Authority license for Exness (UK) Ltd in 2016. It now holds licenses across roughly a dozen jurisdictions, including the FCA, CySEC, the Seychelles FSA, South Africa's FSCA, Kenya's CMA, Mauritius's FSC, the British Virgin Islands FSC and Curacao's CBCS, though its FCA and CySEC entities do not onboard retail clients, who trade instead through the offshore entities. Since at least 2016 Exness has published financial performance reports reviewed by Deloitte, covering trading volumes, client withdrawals, partner commissions and the ratio of its own funds to client funds. Its monthly trading volume, tracked in these disclosures and in trade press coverage, crossed $1 trillion for the first time in October 2021, passed $3 trillion in February 2023, exceeded $4 trillion in August 2023, and peaked at $4.8 trillion in October 2023; Finance Magnates reported a record 836,873 active monthly traders in March 2024. Exness has continued expanding its regulated footprint into new regions. In October 2025 it opened its first Middle East and North Africa office, in Amman, Jordan, after securing an operating license from the Jordan Securities Commission, part of a broader push into MENA markets alongside its established presence in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
