What the CMA is and whom it supervises

The Capital Market Authority is the authority supervising capital markets in the United Arab Emirates: who may offer investment services to residents of the country, under which conditions, and with which ongoing obligations. No firm may solicit clients in the UAE without its express authorisation, and the register of licensed firms is public.

For the client, the practical difference is ongoing supervision: a licensed firm does not pass an exam once — it remains subject to inspections, periodic reporting and sanctions if it fails to comply. A licence can be suspended or revoked, and that is precisely what makes it valuable.

What it demands from a licensed firm

The obligations a firm takes on when obtaining and maintaining a licence of this kind include, among others:

  • Minimum regulatory capital: the firm must prove its own solvency, separate from client money.
  • Segregation of funds: client money is held in accounts separate from the company's operating capital.
  • Independent audits: financial statements audited by recognised external firms.
  • Periodic reporting: regular information to the regulator on operations, risk and compliance.
  • AML/KYC policies: identity verification and transaction monitoring to international standards.
  • Formal complaints handling: defined response deadlines and the client's right to escalate to the regulator.

How licence categories are structured

Capital-markets regulators do not issue generic licences: they authorise specific categories of activity. The most common are brokerage (dealing for clients), dealing on own account, investment advice, portfolio management and custody of assets. A firm may only carry out the activities its licence lists — nothing more.

That is why, when evaluating any broker, it pays to look not only at whether it holds a licence but for what. The exact scope of every licence is recorded in the regulator's public register, together with the number and the legal name of the authorised entity.

What licence 0012705 covers

AP Markets Ltd. — Dubai Branch operates under CMA licence No. 0012705 and serves UAE residents and nationals. This means a UAE client's contractual relationship is with the supervised branch, with all the protections described above: segregated funds, audits, a complaints channel and the right to escalate to the CMA as supervisory authority.

International clients, by contrast, contract with AP Markets Ltd., the entity registered in Saint Lucia (IFC 2026-00139). A corporate registration is not a financial licence — we explain that plainly on that entity's page — which is why this site always distinguishes between the registered entity and the licensed branch.

How to verify a licence (ours or anyone's)

  • Locate the exact licence number and the full legal name — not the trading name.
  • Look it up in the public register of the regulator the firm claims, not on the firm's own website.
  • Check that the authorised category of activity matches the service you are being offered.
  • Distrust anyone boasting of being «internationally regulated» without citing a number, a regulator and a specific entity.

If a broker makes any of these four steps difficult, that is all the information you need.