VenturoFX Review: The CySEC Licence Number Is Not Real

VenturoFX's site claims authorisation by CySEC under licence CIF 123/12. We checked the CySEC register on 10 September 2026: no current or former Cypriot investment firm holds that number. The FCA published a warning against the firm on 4 September 2026. We score VenturoFX 1.1 out of 10.

Quick facts

Most reviews open with spreads. This one opens with a single sentence from VenturoFX’s own footer, because everything else depends on whether that sentence is true.

VenturoFX Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) under license number CIF 123/12.

It is not true, and it takes about four minutes to establish that for yourself. Here is how we did it.

What the CySEC register shows

CySEC publishes every Cypriot investment firm it authorises, with the licence number, the incorporation number, the approved domains and the date of authorisation. It publishes a second list of firms whose authorisation has been withdrawn, so a lapsed licence still leaves a trace.

We read both on 10 September 2026. There were 251 current Cypriot investment firms. VenturoFX Ltd appears on neither list, and licence number 123/12 is not held by any of them. A Cypriot licence written as “123/12” would mean firm 123, authorised in 2012. No such authorisation exists.

Note what that is and is not. It is not a weak licence, or an offshore one, or a licence with narrow permissions. It is a licence number printed on a website that no regulator has issued to anybody.

The address gives it away before the register does

VenturoFX gives its registered address as School Lane, Cookham, Maidenhead, in Berkshire. CySEC authorises investment firms incorporated in Cyprus. A company registered in England cannot hold a Cypriot Investment Firm licence, and a firm operating from England while dealing with UK residents needs FCA authorisation, which brings us to the second document.

The FCA warning

On 4 September 2026 the Financial Conduct Authority added VenturoFX to its warning list. The entry names the website venturofx.com, the phone number 7348024401 and the same Cookham address the site publishes, which means the FCA is describing this operation and not a similarly named one.

The FCA’s wording is standard and worth reading literally:

This firm may be providing or promoting financial services or products without our permission. You should avoid dealing with this firm and beware of scams.

The consequence is in the same entry. Deal with an unauthorised firm and you have no access to the Financial Ombudsman Service and no protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. There is no third body that steps in instead.

The leverage line, and the loophole inside it

VenturoFX advertises leverage up to 1:500 on forex, metals and indices, then adds that professional clients may request higher leverage subject to a risk assessment.

Under Cypriot rules, which the site claims to operate under, retail leverage on major currency pairs is capped at 1:30. The gap between 1:30 and 1:500 is not a competitive advantage. It is the arithmetic difference between a supervised firm and one that answers to nobody. The professional-client sentence is the part to notice: in a regulated firm, professional status requires you to meet two of three tests on portfolio size, trading frequency and work history, and it is granted reluctantly because it strips protections away. Offered as an upgrade, it is a sales line.

How the money goes in

The funding methods listed are Viva, Mastercard, Skrill, SEPA transfer, Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT.

Three of those seven are crypto. That matters for one reason: a card payment can be reversed through a chargeback and a bank transfer can sometimes be recalled, while a transfer of USDT to an address you were given over the phone is final the moment it confirms. When a funding page leads with crypto, the question to ask is what the operator gains from a payment method that cannot be undone.

The site also states no minimum deposit while describing professional accounts as typically starting at $25,000 for meaningful execution. The first figure gets you registered. The second is what the call is for.

Small things that point the same way

• The footer reads © 2019 VenturoFX Ltd. A firm claiming a live 2012 licence has not touched its own copyright line in seven years.
• The site links to a page it labels CySEC Register. It does not link to a register entry, because there is not one to link to.
• The postcode on the site is SL6 9QH and the postcode on the FCA warning is SL9 9QH. Cookham is SL6. SL9 is Gerrards Cross, thirty minutes away. One of the two was typed rather than copied from a company record.
• Nowhere on the site is there a statement that client money is held in segregated accounts. Legitimate firms say so, at length, because they are required to.

What the score is made of

We score every broker on six weighted pillars and publish the method at our scoring method. VenturoFX scores 1.1 out of 10.

The complaint pillar is the one we have marked generously and we want to be plain about why. VenturoFX is new enough that there is no body of withdrawal complaints yet. We are not going to invent one. A firm can be a scam before anyone has finished being scammed by it, and the licence claim is sufficient on its own.

If you have already deposited

None of this is legal or financial advice, and the order below is what people who recover money tend to have done early rather than a promise of any outcome.

1. Stop depositing. The most common pattern is a request for one more payment to release a withdrawal, described as tax, a compliance fee or a margin top-up. There is no such fee at any real broker.
2. Screenshot everything now, including the footer with the licence claim, your account balance, the deposit confirmations and the chat or call log. Sites like this one change their text.
3. Card payments: contact your bank and ask about a chargeback. UK and EU card schemes generally allow 120 days from the transaction or from the date you expected the service, and the reason code you want is goods or services not provided. Say the firm is on the FCA warning list and give the date.
4. Bank transfers: ask your bank to attempt a recall immediately, and ask about the Contingent Reimbursement Model if you are in the UK.
5. Report it to the FCA through its consumer contact centre and to Action Fraud if you are in the UK.
6. Ignore anyone who contacts you offering to recover the funds for a fee. Recovery fraud follows the original fraud closely and often uses the same client list. No genuine recovery service asks for money up front.

Where to look instead

The check we ran here is one you can run on any broker before you fund an account: find the licence number on the site, open the regulator’s own register, and see whether the number returns the company. If the number returns nothing, or returns a different company, stop there. That single step would have caught every broker we have filed under Scam.

Reviews of firms whose register entries do check out are linked below.

Answered in detail

Safer alternatives

Rated Trusted or Neutral against the same six pillars. These link to our own reviews, not to the brokers, and no broker can pay to appear here.

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