Is HighMarkets a scam?

Short answer: we have found no evidence that HighMarkets has defrauded anyone, and we are not saying it has. What we have found is that it runs on the same company and the same licence as Algobi, a broker we rate Scam / Avoid, and that HighMarkets itself does not appear as a declared trade name on the licence's register entry. We score it 3.1 out of 10.

The check anyone can repeat

HighMarkets discloses DXA Seychelles Limited, company number 8438281-1, FSA Seychelles licence SD218. Algobi discloses the same three. Open the FSA Seychelles list of licensed securities dealers and you will find DXA Seychelles Limited there, listed under the trade name ALGOBI, at Providence Complex, Office A17 C, with an algobi.com support address. HighMarkets is not named on that entry, and the address on the HighMarkets site is a different one.

That matters because looking a broker up on its regulator's register is the single check the entire industry tells retail clients to perform. Perform it for HighMarkets and the brand is not there.

Source: FSA Seychelles, regulated entities, capital markets, and the legal disclosures on highmarkets.com and algobi.com. All checked 2 September 2026.

What the licence covers, and what it does not

It is a real licence from a real government regulator, and plenty of firms in this bracket have nothing at all. It is also our weakest tier. No investor compensation scheme, so a failure leaves nothing behind your balance. No ombudsman with jurisdiction to order a payout. No statutory retail leverage cap. Segregation not mandated by the regime and no custodian bank named.

The comparison worth holding on to: a UK-regulated firm puts you in front of the FSCS, which covers eligible investment claims up to 85,000 pounds per person per firm, and the Financial Ombudsman Service. Here both of those figures are zero.

The case against our own score

We think it should be stated plainly. No regulator has warned about HighMarkets. We found no accessible complaint record. The company discloses its entity, registration number and licence openly rather than hiding behind a shell, which is more than a large part of this market manages. Registers go stale, and a missing trade name may be an administrative lag rather than a decision.

The score still lands where it lands, because 55% of the weight in our method sits on regulation and fund safety, and an offshore licence with no compensation scheme cannot score well on either no matter what else is true. If the register is updated to name HighMarkets, or a fee and withdrawal schedule is published, the score moves and the changelog records it.

Before you deposit

Check that the entity on your account agreement matches the entity on the register. Check that the payment descriptor on your bank statement matches it too. Get the withdrawal processing time in writing before you fund. And treat any account manager who asks for a further deposit before releasing an existing balance as the end of the conversation, because there is no legitimate mechanism that works that way.