How Trading Quarters reviews trading services

The overall Quarter Score is a considered judgment across the four areas, not a mechanical average: a serious failure in safety and regulation caps the overall score no matter how good the platform is. A score summarises our research at the date of verification. It is not a prediction, a guarantee of safety or profitability, or advice that a service suits you.

How information is gathered

Research starts with primary material, in this order:

• The documents that govern the relationship: terms of service, account agreements, fee schedules and bonus terms.
• Regulatory registers and official filings, checked at the regulator — not the provider's summary of them.
• The provider's official product pages and disclosures.
• Direct testing of the service where we have an account and can observe behaviour first-hand.

Marketing copy, rankings on other websites and unverifiable testimonials are not evidence and are not used as sources.

Direct testing, official documentation and provider claims

Not all information can be established with equal confidence, so important facts in our articles are labelled with one of four evidence statuses:

We do not claim to have personally tested every platform we cover. Where a review relies on documentation rather than direct testing, the evidence labels make that visible.

How fees and bonus terms are evaluated

Fee assessments use the provider's current published schedules, worked through for realistic account sizes and trading patterns rather than the best case the marketing highlights. We look for the costs that surface later: funding charges, inactivity fees, withdrawal fees, currency-conversion margins and swap rates.

Bonus terms are read in full before an offer is described. A bonus write-up states the conversion requirements, time limits, regional eligibility and withdrawal restrictions — and treats promotional credit as what it is: conditional credit, not cash.

How regulatory claims are checked

When a provider claims a license, we check the regulator's own register for the named entity and confirm which entity would actually hold a new customer's account. Many brands operate several entities under different regulators; the protections that apply to you depend on the entity behind your account, and our reviews say which one that is, where it can be determined.

How regional differences are handled

Availability, pricing, leverage limits and bonus eligibility often differ by country. Reviews state the region their findings apply to, flag known regional differences, and avoid presenting one region's terms as universal. Readers should always confirm what applies in their own country of residence.

How affiliate relationships are separated from editorial decisions

Trading Quarters may receive compensation when readers use certain links. That compensation never determines what we review, what we conclude, or how services score. The full policy is set out in the affiliate disclosure and editorial policy; in short: verdicts are written from the evidence first, and commercial links are added — or omitted — afterwards. A provider cannot pay to change a score, and we cover services with which we have no commercial relationship at all.

How often important pages are reviewed

Reviews, comparisons and bonus pages display the date their facts were last verified. Pages whose facts move quickly — fees, bonus terms, partner codes — are re-checked on a regular cycle and whenever a provider announces a material change. If you find something outdated, the corrections policy explains how to report it.

How corrections are handled

Factual errors are corrected promptly once confirmed, and material corrections are noted visibly on the affected article with the date of the change. Each article keeps an update history for material changes. Only spelling, formatting and clarity edits are made silently.

What Trading Quarters cannot independently verify

Honesty about limits is part of the method. We cannot verify:

• A provider's internal finances, solvency or the true state of customer-asset segregation beyond what documents disclose.
• Execution quality across all market conditions, account tiers and regions — testing samples behaviour; it cannot prove it.
• Future conduct. A provider that treats customers well today can change its terms, ownership or practices tomorrow.
• Claims that live only in marketing — "insured", "audited", "regulated" — unless a document or register substantiates them.

Why ratings are not financial advice

A Quarter Score describes a service, not your situation. It does not account for your finances, experience, objectives or risk tolerance, and it cannot make a leveraged product safe or a volatile asset stable. Nothing on this site is personal financial advice or an inducement to trade — see the financial risk warning.