Is DBG Markets legit? A real ASIC licence and its clones

DBG Markets’ ASIC licence 247017 is real, searchable, and was issued in 2004. For clients in Vietnam, the risk does not sit in that licence. It sits in two other layers: websites copying the broker that regulators have already named, and complaints about friction when withdrawing, even from the real site.

The paperwork: three licences you can look up

DBG Markets operates through several legal entities, meaning the specific companies whose name is on the contract you sign, each with a licence you can look up:

Both major licences are real. DBG Markets (Australia) Pty Ltd: ASIC AFSL 247017, ACN 091 532 946, issued 10/03/2004, with a Sydney address, so the licence is more than 20 years old.

DBG Markets (UK) LLP: FCA FRN 469459, at 77 Marsh Wall, Canary Wharf, London. On paperwork alone, DBG is “harder” than many of the brokers in our warnings section.

The ASIC licence itself states what it allows (quoted word for word in the box below).

Line (c) is the one to read slowly: a “Market Making” licence means this entity is allowed to make a market, taking the other side of its clients’ orders.

The broker can be the party on the opposite side of your trade. This model is legal, but it carries a structural conflict of interest that you should know about before you trade, not after.

The real point in its favour: unlike brokers with a proprietary platform such as Mitrade, DBG runs real MT4/MT5.

You can export your execution history, meaning the moments your orders were actually filled, run EAs, and compare ticks against another price source. With a market-making broker, as long as you have independent tools to check it with, you still have a way to verify what happens.

“This licence authorises the licensee to carry on a financial services business to: (a) provide financial product advice for the following classes of financial products: (i) foreign exchange contracts… (c) make a market for the following financial products: (i) foreign exchange contracts; to retail and wholesale clients.”

One field in the FCA register explains the whole maze

The FCA register lists the licensed domain of the UK entity: www.dbglondon.co.uk.

Now put that next to the domains that the FCA and the BCSC named in their warnings: dbgmarkets-ink.com, dbgmfx.com, dbginternational.com, dbgmarketsglobal.com, dbgforexa.com, dbgmarketltd.com, m.dbg-coltdfx.cc, pc.dbg-coltdfx.cc. Not one of them matches the licensed domain.

That resolves the paradox of a real licence that still calls for caution. It is also your whole self-defence strategy in a single action: type the domain by hand instead of clicking an ad link, then compare the characters in the address bar with the domain recorded in the register. If one character is off, stop.

Two separate layers of risk: do not lump them together

Layer one: copycat sites already named by two regulators

For clients in Vietnam, this is the most serious risk. On 29/01/2024, the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC, Canada) added the name “DBG Markets” to its Investment Caution List.

The two websites named in the listing are m.dbg-coltdfx.cc and pc.dbg-coltdfx.cc, not the broker’s official domain. The BCSC says this entity “claims to operate an online cryptocurrency trading platform” and is not recognised as an exchange or registered as a dealer in BC.

The BCSC does not use the word “fake”. It names the entity along with its domains, and it is the domains that give away that this is not the original broker.

Separately, the FCA (UK) warned about a clone of DBG Markets: the impostors built several websites, borrowing the real DBG’s slogan, logo and licence details to build trust and then trick people into depositing.

In short, the DBG Markets name is being “borrowed” as bait. Someone looking for a broker through a Facebook ad or a Telegram message can easily click a copycat domain, see the right logo and the line “ASIC regulated”, and send money to the impostor without ever knowing.

This pattern is laid out in more detail in our article on fake forex brokers posing as reputable ones.

Layer two: complaints about withdrawal friction, even on the real site

On international forums and in Vietnamese trader communities in 2024, complaints appeared about slow withdrawals, repeated verification requests, and at least one case of an account being locked or a large withdrawal being refused.

Some of them may have come from victims of the clones rather than clients of the real site.

But even after ruling out clones, the common thread of “several rounds of verification at withdrawal” is still a signal worth testing yourself with a small amount, rather than taking anyone’s recommendation on trust.

Checking the ASIC register yourself: a 2-minute skill for any broker

This skill works for any broker advertising “ASIC regulated”, not only DBG Markets. The ASIC register is public and needs no account.

Open ASIC Connect, go to Professional Registers, and choose Australian financial services licensee. Enter the AFSL number taken from the broker’s website footer. This is the most important tip: start from the number, not the name, because a name can be duplicated or borrowed and a licence number cannot.

Compare the legal entity name the register returns with the name on your account-opening contract. If they differ, stop. Finally, check the status and the authorised scope of activity, because being licensed does not mean being allowed to do everything.

For DBG Markets, the search shows that AFSL 247017 is real. But that is only half the story. The other half: is the entity holding the licence the same entity that receives your money, and which websites are borrowing that exact number as bait?

The same approach works for other regulators: the FCA Register (UK) and the CySEC register (Cyprus). The full process is in our article on how to check a forex broker before you deposit.

Steps for anyone who still wants to open a DBG account

Because DBG’s biggest risk is “landing on the wrong site”, the job to do before depositing a single dollar is to verify things by hand, which takes about 3 minutes.

On ASIC Connect, enter 247017: the result must return exactly “DBG Markets (Australia) Pty Ltd”. Do the same with FRN 469459 on register.fca.org.uk: the address, entity name and website must all match.

Only reach the broker through a domain you have looked up yourself. Never click links in ads or messages, because the copycats live off your mistaken clicks.

And watch where your deposit goes: a real broker takes money into a company account through a payment gateway. Being asked to transfer to a personal account is the clearest sign of a clone, so stop right there.

Only once you are sure you are on the real site do you move to the test: deposit the smallest amount you are prepared to lose, and complete KYC before trading.

Place a few trades, then try withdrawing part of the balance in the first week, with screenshots of when you placed the request and when the money arrived. That is a direct test of the exact problem DBG gets complaints about.

Make use of MT4/MT5: save your execution history as an independent record in case you need to compare later. Only add capital once the deposit, trade and withdraw cycle has run smoothly with a small amount.

My answer to the question in the title

On paperwork, DBG Markets is the “hardest” broker in our proceed-with-caution group: a real set of Tier-1 licences (ASIC 247017, FCA 469459) plus a real MT4/MT5 platform. Tier-1 here means the group of strictest regulators, such as the FCA and ASIC.

Three things keep it out of the “peace of mind” group: the name is copied so widely that the BCSC and the FCA had to issue warnings; the ASIC licence is a market-making one, so the broker can take the other side of your orders; and the complaints about withdrawal friction in some regions.

For clients in Vietnam, the most worrying way to lose money is the copy, and the consequences of a copy are exactly the same as those of a scam broker.

In our ranking of 20 brokers, we deduct points from brokers whose names have been cloned, for exactly that reason: a clean broker that is easy to impersonate still shifts the checking work onto you.

Spotted something inaccurate? Tell us and we will check it and publish a correction.