Broker affiliate rules by regulator: FCA, ESMA and CySEC, ASIC, and offshore

Regulators hold the broker responsible for its partners' marketing. That is why partner agreements are full of content rules: if your page breaks a financial promotion rule, the broker is the one fined. Brokers respond by auditing partner content, geo-blocking traffic from countries where they are not licensed, and terminating partners who promise returns or hide risks.

Retail CFD marketing in the UK falls under the financial promotion rules, and since 2023 the Consumer Duty expects brokers to check that partners' content is fair, clear and not misleading. Brokers may pay affiliates for UK traffic but usually only to FCA-regulated entities, and introducing clients for a fee can itself be a regulated activity (arranging) that needs authorisation or an appointed representative arrangement. Expect prominent risk warnings with the percentage of retail accounts that lose money, no bonuses, and no 'make money' language.

ESMA's product intervention measures banned bonuses and set leverage caps for retail CFDs across the EU; national regulators then adopted them permanently. CySEC, which licenses many of the brokers whose programmes you will see, issued circulars requiring brokers to keep a register of their affiliates, vet their content and stop paying partners who use misleading material. Some EU countries (Belgium, for instance) ban retail CFD marketing outright; brokers geo-block them and will not pay for that traffic.

ASIC's design and distribution obligations require brokers to define a target market and make sure distribution, including through affiliates, stays within it. Its product intervention order caps retail leverage and bans inducements for opening an account. Partners promoting to Australians cannot offer sign-up bonuses and should expect the broker to supply approved copy.

Anyone who solicits US retail forex customers for compensation is generally required to register as an Introducing Broker with the CFTC and become an NFA member. Very few international brokers accept US clients at all, so most programmes exclude US traffic entirely and claw back any commission from it.

Many brokers route international partner programmes through an offshore entity because the rules there allow higher leverage and bonuses. Partner rules are looser, but the client protections are too, and some onshore regulators (the FCA and ASIC in particular) treat marketing of an offshore entity to their residents as a breach. Our programme profiles name the entity you would actually contract with so you can see which rulebook applies.

Across jurisdictions the same conditions appear in partner agreements. Treat them as a minimum for your own content.