Most people who want to launch a brokerage start with the wrong question: which licence should I get? The licence matters, but it is one decision among a dozen that decide whether the business survives its first year.
Below is the honest version of how a brokerage actually gets built, the order the pieces need to arrive in, what each one really costs you in time, and where new owners most often lose money.
1. Decide the model before anything else
A brokerage is not one business model, it is several. You can operate as a pure agent sending flow to a prime broker, run a hybrid book, or take full risk internally. Each choice changes your capital requirements, your regulator options, your technology stack and the profile of the people you need to hire.
Write down who your client is, retail beginners, experienced traders, or introducing brokers bringing volume, before you speak to a single vendor. Everything downstream is a consequence of that answer.
- Target market and languages you will actually support
- Risk model: A-book, B-book or hybrid
- Average deposit and expected client lifetime
- Whether partners and IBs are core to your growth
2. Jurisdiction and licensing
Licensing is a trade-off between cost, time, credibility and the markets you can legally serve. An offshore licence can be live in weeks and let you test the business; a tier-one licence takes months, needs real capital and staff on the ground, but opens payment providers, banks and client segments that offshore entities simply cannot reach.
A common and sensible path is to start where you can operate quickly and honestly, prove the model, then apply for the stronger licence with revenue already on the table.
3. Technology and liquidity
Your platform, CRM, back office and liquidity are one connected system, not four purchases. Traders judge you on execution quality and withdrawal speed, and both are decided by choices you make here.
Negotiate liquidity on the instruments your clients will actually trade, and test spreads and slippage during news events, not on a quiet afternoon demo.
- Trading platform and mobile experience
- Liquidity provider and bridge configuration
- CRM, client portal, KYC and reporting
- Risk management dashboards from day one
4. Payments, banking and compliance
Payments are where most launches stall. Deposits are easy to promise and hard to arrange: providers want a licence, a clean business plan, a real website and a compliance officer who answers questions properly.
Prepare your AML policy, onboarding flow and complaint handling before you apply, not after a provider rejects you. Rejections leave a trail.
5. Getting the first clients
A brokerage without a distribution plan is a very expensive piece of software. Decide early whether you grow through partners and IBs, through paid acquisition, through education and content, or through a regional sales team, and staff for that choice.
The first hundred funded clients are the hardest and the most informative. They tell you what your real cost per client is, and whether the model you designed in step one survives contact with the market.
The launch sequence in short
- 01Model & marketClient profile, risk model, revenue assumptions.
- 02Entity & licenceJurisdiction, capital, directors, compliance framework.
- 03Tech stackPlatform, CRM, back office, liquidity and bridge.
- 04PaymentsPSPs, banking, KYC/AML, withdrawal policy.
- 05Go-to-marketPartners, funnels, pricing, support and retention.
Launch readiness checklist
Answer three quick questions and get a checklist tailored to your project.
Where I come in
I have spent my career on the operator side of this industry, building brokers, running commercial teams and helping firms fix the parts that quietly cost them money. If you are planning a launch, I can shorten the expensive learning curve.
Ricardo Dias on LinkedInCommon questions
- How much capital do I need to start a brokerage?
- It depends entirely on the licence and risk model. An offshore agent model can start with a modest budget, while a regulated entity taking market risk needs regulatory capital plus operating runway for at least twelve months.
- How long does a launch take?
- A simple offshore setup can be trading within a few months. A tier-one regulated launch is realistically nine to eighteen months from first decision to first client.
- Can I run a brokerage with a small team?
- Yes, at the start, but never without real compliance and risk oversight. Those two roles are not optional, and outsourcing them badly is how firms lose their licence.