EXANTE review.

Overview

EXANTE is the trading name of EXT LTD, a Cyprus limited company with registration number HE 293592, authorised by CySEC under licence 165/12. [CySEC] It has been operating since 2011 and positions itself at professional and institutional clients rather than beginners — the pitch is breadth of market access, not a simple app.

The scale of that access is the differentiator: EXANTE advertises over 2 million financial instruments across 50+ markets through a single account and its own platform. Very few brokers in our catalogue offer bonds, futures and options alongside equities and FX from one login.

What stood out during verification was the honesty of its UK disclosure — see the regulation section. Most brokers overstate their regulatory position. This one understates it, in precise language that turns out to be exactly right.

Overview Table

Facts List

• CySEC-authorised since 2012 under licence 165/12 [CySEC]
• Registered on the FCA register under FRN 589898
• Cyprus company registration HE 293592
• Over 2 million instruments across more than 50 markets
• Proprietary platform on desktop, web and mobile — no MetaTrader
• Asset segregation under MiFID II
• Custody held with major custodians in Europe and Asia
• Operating under the EXANTE brand since 2011
• Aimed at professional rather than retail beginner clients
• Publishes an explicit warning about fraudulent websites using its name

Key Takeaways

• CySEC licence verified — EXT Ltd, 165/12, on the register. [CySEC]
• The FCA registration is real but narrow. FRN 589898 is ‘EEA Authorised — Services (UK) of an Overseas Firm’, and EXANTE says itself it operates in the UK only to service pre-existing contracts under Supervised Run-Off.
• That disclosure is accurate, which is rarer than it should be. We verified the number and the status independently and the broker’s description matched exactly.
• Do not confuse EXT LTD with XNT Ltd (FRN 620980, No longer authorised) — a similarly named entity on the same register.
• Over 2 million instruments, 50+ markets, from one account.
• No MetaTrader. Proprietary platform only, which suits its professional audience and may not suit an MT4 habit.
• Retail cost transparency is limited — pricing is aimed at professionals and not published in a simple retail table.
• EXANTE itself warns about fraudulent sites using its name. Type the address rather than following a link.

Licenses & Regulation

We searched the registers by brand and by corporate name — searching only the brand is how a real licence gets missed — and checked every number against the register itself.

Regulatory Licences

The UK position, stated accurately by the broker

EXANTE’s own legal footer says: EXT LTD “is subject to the rules and regulations of the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN: 589898). As an EEA authorised firm holding FCA SRO status, EXT LTD operates in the UK for a limited period to carry on activities which are necessary for the performance of pre-existing contracts.”

We checked FRN 589898 directly. The register returns EXT LTD, EEA Authorised, business type “Services (UK) of an Overseas Firm”, effective 18 October 2012. The broker’s description of its own status is precise and complete — it claims no more than the register supports, and it explicitly tells you the UK permission is a run-off arrangement rather than an open door for new UK clients.

We are calling that out because the opposite is the norm. A large share of the brokers we review present a legacy or narrow UK registration as though it were full retail authorisation. This one does not.

A name to be careful with

The FCA register also lists XNT Ltd, FRN 620980, No longer authorised since 31 December 2020. It is a separate record from EXT LTD and we make no claim about any relationship between them — but the names are close enough that a reader checking the register could land on the wrong one and draw the wrong conclusion in either direction. The entity to check is EXT LTD, 589898.

As a Cyprus Investment Firm, client money must be held separately from the firm’s own, and eligible claims are covered by the Cyprus Investor Compensation Fund up to €20,000 per client if the firm fails. That is real protection, and materially less than the UK’s £85,000 — worth knowing if you are comparing against a UK-authorised broker.

Three brands in the marketing, one entity in the contract

We fetched exante.eu from ten countries. The legal footer names EXT LTD (Cyprus HE 293592, CySEC 165/12) in every single one — this is the entity you would contract with wherever you stand. But the marketing line above it advertises three:

Advertising a firm as “regulated by FCA” without giving its reference number is the one detail that makes the claim uncheckable by the reader it is aimed at. LHCM Ltd never appears in the legal footer served to any of the ten countries — including on exante.eu/uk/, which still carries the EXT LTD Cyprus footer.

A correction to our earlier verdict on XNT Ltd

An earlier version of this review warned readers not to confuse EXT LTD with XNT Ltd (FCA FRN 620980, No longer authorised since December 2020), and said we made no claim about any relationship between them.

EXANTE’s own anti-fraud notice settles it: it tells readers to “match any mention of EXANTE with our legal name [EXT, XNT, etc.]”. The broker asserts XNT as one of its own legal names. So the lapsed FRN 620980 is not a coincidental near-match — it belongs to this group, and its UK authorisation ended at the close of the Brexit transition. That is consistent with the Supervised Run-Off status EXT LTD discloses, and it is more candid than most groups manage.

One country gets an extra entity

The UAE is the only one of the ten whose footer changes: it gains EXT Limited (DIFC Representative Office), licence CL7447. The issuing regulator is not named alongside it. A representative office is not a contracting entity — the agreement is still with EXT LTD in Cyprus.

Singapore is excluded, but only after the page loads

A Singapore IP is served the full, unrestricted site. The page’s own shipped text carries a banner reading “We do not provide services to residents of Singapore” and a notice that the firm “is not licensed, approved, registered or in any other way authorised or regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore” — neither of which was rendered to us. The exclusion is applied in the browser, not at the door.

How to Trade

EXANTE offers direct market access across equities, ETFs, bonds, futures, options, commodities and currencies from a single multi-currency account. This is a different model from the CFD-only brokers that dominate this catalogue: you are largely dealing in the underlying instruments on their home exchanges rather than in derivatives issued by the broker.

That matters for risk. Exchange-traded instruments carry the risks of the instruments themselves; where leverage or derivatives are used, losses can exceed expectations quickly. The platform’s breadth is an advantage for someone who knows what they are doing and a hazard for someone who does not.

Account Types

EXANTE presents a single multi-asset, multi-currency account rather than tiered retail account types, consistent with a professional-client focus.

We could not verify a published minimum deposit or a retail fee schedule from a primary source. For a professional-focused broker that is normal — pricing is often negotiated — but it does mean a retail-sized client cannot easily compare total cost against a broker that publishes a table. We have scored cost transparency accordingly rather than assuming it is competitive.

What it actually costs — from the published disclosure

EXANTE publishes no account-type table and no minimum deposit; pricing is per asset class, drawn from its Cost and Charges disclosure:

• Stocks and ETFs: from 0.02 USD per share per side (US equities); 0.05% per side on European equities
• Currencies: 0.01% of traded volume per round trip
• Futures: from 1.5 USD per contract; options from 1.5 USD per contract
• Bonds: from 9 basis points, plus 0.3% per year custody (stocks and ETFs are 0%)
• Inactivity fee: 50 EUR per month — but only if all three apply: no trade for 90 days, no open positions, and a balance under 5,000 EUR
• 90 EUR per trade placed through the dealing desk, and 90 EUR for a manual close on a margin call
• Margin above 100% utilisation is charged at the equivalent of 100% per annum on the excess

Overnight financing applies to short positions and FX only; the rates are published solely inside the client area, so no figure is publicly checkable. Everything else carries no overnight fee — unusual, and in the client’s favour.

Negative Balance Protection

As a CySEC-authorised firm, negative balance protection applies to retail-categorised clients under the MiFID II product-intervention regime.

This matters more here than at most brokers, because EXANTE’s audience is explicitly professional — and clients who accept professional categorisation give up negative balance protection along with leverage limits and several other retail safeguards. If you are offered a professional upgrade, that is what is being traded away.

Trading Instruments

EXANTE advertises access to over 2 million financial instruments across more than 50 markets — equities, ETFs, bonds, futures, options, commodities and currencies.

Unlike the instrument counts most brokers publish, this one is credible precisely because it is exchange-listed breadth rather than a curated CFD list: 50+ venues multiplied by their listings reaches seven figures without marketing arithmetic. Verify that the specific markets you need are included before opening an account, because breadth of this kind is rarely uniform.

Education & Analysis

EXANTE publishes market insights, updates and a media centre alongside its platform documentation. Its material is pitched at an audience that already trades, and there is no beginner curriculum of the sort a first-time CFD trader would need — consistent with the professional positioning.

As always, broker-published analysis comes from a firm that earns when you transact. Useful, but not independent research.

Special Offers

We found no deposit bonus or promotional credit offer, which is expected: CySEC restricts promotional inducements to trade for retail clients. A large bonus offered in this broker’s name should be treated as evidence you are dealing with an impersonator rather than the firm — a live concern here, given EXANTE publishes its own warning about fraudulent websites.

Opening an Account

Expect full identity and appropriateness checks under MiFID II before trading. Two things worth doing at signup: confirm the entity on your client agreement is EXT LTD, and confirm you are being onboarded as a retail client unless you have deliberately chosen otherwise.

Given the broker’s own fraud warning, type the address yourself rather than following a link from an email or a message.

Deposits & Withdrawals

Client assets are segregated under MiFID II and held with major custodians in Europe and Asia. Eligible claims fall under the Cyprus Investor Compensation Fund up to €20,000.

We could not verify deposit methods, withdrawal fees or processing times from a primary source, and have not stated any. Ask before funding, particularly about withdrawal timelines on multi-currency accounts.

Customer Support

EXANTE publishes a contact page, a help centre and a document centre, and describes a dedicated service model for its clients. Support is reachable by email and on three regional phone lines — Cyprus, the DIFC in Dubai, and Poland — with registered offices published in Limassol and Dubai. Published opening hours we could not confirm from a primary source, so none are stated here.

Prohibited Countries

Eligibility depends on which entity may accept you and changes over time. Note specifically that the UK registration is a run-off permission for pre-existing contracts — it should not be read as an open route for new UK retail clients. Confirm during account opening.

Conclusion

EXANTE is one of the more interesting brokers we have reviewed, for a reason that has nothing to do with its marketing. Its regulatory disclosure is accurate. It tells you its UK permission is a limited run-off arrangement for existing contracts, and when we checked FRN 589898 against the FCA register, that is precisely what the register said. In a sector where the standard move is to imply more coverage than exists, understating your own position is worth something.

The substance behind it is real too: a CySEC licence verified on the register, MiFID II asset segregation, custody with established custodians, and genuine multi-asset breadth across 50+ markets.

The honest limitations are cost transparency and audience fit. Retail pricing is not published in a form that allows a straightforward comparison, and the whole proposition — proprietary platform, no MetaTrader, professional framing — assumes you already know what you are doing. A first-time trader is not the customer here and should not try to be.

FAQ