Review Standards: How We Judge JustMarkets

Every broker page on this site, including our JustMarkets review, follows one fixed set of checks. We publish the method because a review you cannot audit is just an advert with better grammar. If you are in Nairobi, Mombasa or Kisumu and about to send money to an offshore broker for the first time, these are the exact questions we ask before we write a single word.

What We Actually Check

We test six things, in this order. A broker that fails the first one rarely earns a good score on the rest.

For JustMarkets, the licence question is the interesting one. Kenyan clients are served through the broker's global offshore structure rather than a Kenya-incorporated company. JustMarkets is available in Kenya but is not regulated by the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya (CMA), the body that licenses online forex trading here under the Capital Markets (Online Foreign Exchange Trading) Regulations, 2017.

That is a fact, not a verdict. It simply tells you where your protection sits.

The Licence Question

JustMarkets operates under its international regulatory entities, including an FSA Seychelles licence for its global-facing service. That means there is a regulator, there are rules, and there is a supervisor you can complain to. What it does not mean is that a Kenyan trader gets the same protections a CMA-licensed broker must provide: a minimum paid-up capital of KES 50 million, mandatory segregation of client funds, capped leverage, and submitted audits.

In practice, your protection with an offshore entity depends on the specific licence it holds and how that regulator enforces fund segregation. Ask the broker which legal entity your account sits under, then check that entity against its regulator's public register. If the answer is vague, that vagueness is your answer.

The CMA has also issued cautionary statements warning residents about unlicensed online forex entities, and it directs victims to its Capital Markets Fraud Investigation Unit. That is worth knowing as background on what unlicensed operators look like in this market, not as a reason to avoid the global broker category altogether.

Regulation, Up Close

Retail forex and CFD trading is legal and regulated in Kenya.

Any entity offering online forex to Kenyan residents must hold a valid CMA licence, in one of three categories: a dealing licence (principal or market maker), a non-dealing licence (acting as an agency or STP), or a money manager licence. Around ten non-dealing forex brokers were CMA-licensed as of our review. Central Bank of Kenya oversees the wider FX market.

JustMarkets advertises leverage up to 1:3000 on its global terms. No Kenya-specific leverage terms were found, so the global offshore policy applies to Kenyan clients. High leverage is a tool with a sharp edge: it lets you control a large position with a small deposit, and it also means a small adverse move can close that position. If you are new to this, start at the lowest leverage your account allows and treat the maximum as a number you never touch.

Negative balance protection is not confirmed as an explicit blanket statutory mandate under CMA rules, so verify it directly with whichever broker you choose.

Costs and Account Structures

JustMarkets keeps its pricing simple, which we like for beginners. The spread is the gap between the buy and sell price, and it is how the broker earns money on commission-free accounts. A commission is a separate fee charged per trade, usually paired with a tighter spread.

Account types and minimums vary slightly depending on the source page you read, so confirm numbers inside your own account dashboard before funding. The broker also advertises commission-free withdrawals and no overnight charges for all clients. Overnight charges, called swaps, are fees for holding a position past the end of the trading day. JustMarkets states that swap-free accounts are available by default for Muslim clients, and Kenya sources confirm Islamic account availability. Kenya's population is roughly 10 to 11 percent Muslim, concentrated in coastal and north-eastern regions, so this matters for a meaningful slice of local traders.

Funding and Local Reality

The mobile-money question decides more Kenyan broker choices than anything else. M-PESA is the dominant channel here, and Kenya-specific sources report that JustMarkets supports local bank transfers and M-PESA alongside cards, e-wallets such as Skrill and Neteller, and cryptocurrency.

One detail trips up beginners. JustMarkets lists USD, EUR, ZAR and NGN as account currencies, but no KES-denominated account was indicated. If you fund a USD account from an M-PESA wallet holding shillings, a conversion cost applies somewhere in the chain. It is usually small per trade and meaningful over a year of active trading. Ask support to show you the conversion rate applied to a test deposit before you commit real size.

Kenya has no hard cap that prevents you funding a foreign broker. Exchange controls were repealed back in 1993, and the shilling floats. That said, reporting thresholds exist: FX purchases or sales above USD 10,000 require documentation, and investments abroad exceeding USD 500,000 need CBK approval through your bank. For most retail accounts, neither number is relevant.

Where the Friction Shows

No broker is frictionless. Three limits show up repeatedly with global brokers serving Kenya.

The first is withdrawal routing. Offshore entities often process payouts through international payment rails before money reaches M-PESA, so a withdrawal that is instant in theory can take longer in practice. Test it early rather than discovering it when you need funds.

The second is tax paperwork, and it surprises almost everyone. Forex and CFD profits are treated as ordinary income for most Kenyan retail traders, not capital gains. They are added to your taxable income and taxed on graduated bands running from roughly 10 percent up to a top marginal rate of 35 percent. Trading through a company shifts the rate to 30 percent corporate tax. Tax residents file an annual return declaring worldwide income, including foreign-sourced trading gains, between 1 January and 30 June, with installment tax dates in April, June, September and December. Deductible costs include platform fees, internet and training. Verify your own position with the Kenya Revenue Authority.

The third is the local scam ecosystem that grew around the broker category. Ponzi-style forex investment schemes, account manager cons promising guaranteed returns via M-PESA, and fake cloned platforms are the recurring patterns the CMA warns about. They are not brokers.

What This Means for a Decision

Our standards are not designed to talk you out of trading with an international broker. They are designed to make sure you know what you are buying. For Kenyans, JustMarkets checks several boxes: a long operating history since 2012 under the Just Global Markets group, MT4 and MT5 access, M-PESA funding, low entry minimums from USD 10, swap-free accounts, and instruments spanning forex, metals, indices, crypto and shares.

Consider it if you want low entry costs, mobile-money funding, MetaTrader access, and you are comfortable that your legal counterparty is an offshore entity regulated by FSA Seychelles rather than a locally licensed firm.

Avoid it if your priority is local regulatory recourse, KES-denominated accounts, or a broker you can escalate to the CMA if a dispute arises. In that case, look at firms on the CMA licensee register and compare their spreads and funding against what you would get offshore. The trade-off is real: local licensing buys you recourse, and it usually costs you leverage and sometimes spread width. Neither choice is wrong, but make it consciously rather than by default.