Research methodology

We measure the clarity, completeness and accessibility of information a platform publishes. We do not measure profitability, safety, suitability or trustworthiness, and we make no claim to audit any operator.

1. Corporate identity — operating entity, jurisdiction, registered address and contact channels stated in public documentation.
2. Commercial terms — completeness and version dating of fee, financing and administrative charge schedules.
3. Risk disclosure — prominence, clarity and jurisdictional specificity of risk warnings.
4. Operational transparency — availability of uptime, incident or maintenance history.
5. Client protection — complaints procedure, escalation route and data handling documentation.

• 5 — complete, dated, easy to locate.
• 4 — present and clear, with minor gaps or dating issues.
• 3 — general statements only, lacking specifics.
• 2 — fragmentary or inconsistent across documents.
• 1 — not located in public material.

The headline score is the mean of the five pillars, rounded to one decimal place. Pillar scores are always published alongside it so readers can weight them differently.

• Used: operator documentation, terms, policies and public regulator registers.
• Used: publicly published status pages and incident notices.
• Not used: affiliate reviews, paid placements or unattributed screenshots.
• Not used: anonymous testimonials or unverifiable performance claims.

Public documentation changes, and regional entities differ. A score reflects a moment in time from one vantage point. It is not a substitute for reading the current documents that apply to your own account and jurisdiction.

See the framework in practice in our LW Management review, or read the underlying reasoning in evaluating platform transparency and regulation and trader protection.