Get connected with the best prime broker for your fund.

  • Safely connect with regulated prime brokers
  • Switch to a better prime broker for execution and custody
  • No costs or fees for using our prime broker finder
Start-up and small-to-medium sized hedge funds, professional traders and institutions can use our prime broker finder service to connect with the most appropriate prime brokers for their specific style of trading.

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How Our Prime Broker Finder Works

1. Find

Tell us what you need a prime broker for in our comparison tables.

3. Choose

Select which prime brokers you would like to compare and connect with.

3. Connect

We introduce you to the most appropriate prime brokerage for your specific needs.

⚠️ FCA Regulation

All prime brokers that operate in the UK must be regulated by the FCA. The FCA is the Financial Conduct Authority and is responsible for ensuring that UK prime brokers are properly capitalised, treat customers fairly and have sufficient compliance systems in place. We only feature prime brokers that are regulated by the FCA, where your funds are protected by the FSCS.

What services do prime brokers offer?

Prime brokers facilitate investment activity on behalf of a hedge fund very often with capital borrowed against the hedge fund itself. As hedge funds can be active with numerous brokers, a prime broker enables greater visibility on performance as all trades are settled through the prime broker. Their responsibilities can vary depending upon what is right for you and your hedge fund.

Trade execution

Prime brokers have experienced dealers to manage online trading with more complex order voice brokerage services. Prime brokers will provide their clients with an online trading platform with dedicated lines as well as dealers to execute orders over the phone (voice dealing).

Clearing & give ups

Prime broker clients can trade through smaller brokers and spread orders across multiple execution brokers, then give up to a main clearing prime broker to maintain execution anonymity. Brokers give up trades so that their underlying clients can spread orders across different dealers to reduce market movement.

Securities lending

When hedge funds and traders have short positions the underlying shares need to be borrowed. Prime broker’s securities lending departments enable their clients to borrow securities directly from a prime broker to reduce financing costs and the risk of holding a long-term short-position.

Clients services

Prime brokers will have dedicated client services departments to provide back-office support for their clients to handle complex corporate actions, clearing issues, and general account management.

Risk management & financing

Clients of prime brokers can manage cross-exchange positions with SPAN margin facilities to ensure minimal margin requirements on hedged and offset positions with overall portfolio risk management.

Reporting & portfolio technology

A hedge fund can outsource the proper compliance and regulatory processes needed to run a hedge fund to their prime broker through consultancy services and risk management technology.

Capital introduction

One of the major value adds of prime brokers is their network of clients. Hedge funds can take advantage of a prime broker’s network to generate an inflow of capital and new business and increase their visibility.

What markets do prime brokers cover?

Prime brokers cover all the major asset classes including:

  • Forex Trading
  • Equity Trading
  • CFD Trading
  • Futures Trading
  • Options Trading
  • Bond Trading

Forex

Forex prime brokers provide access to tier 1 liquidity venues with low latency and execution facilities for institutional forex traders as well as small brokers, funds and banks. Forex prime brokers can also provide pre-trade risk analysis and control for multiple liquidity providers cross margining and collateral reducing the need for additional credit lines.

Equities

Equity prime brokers provide their clients with direct market access to global equity markets and stock exchanges. Hedge funds can trade physical equities (shares) or DMA CFDs through an equity prime broker directly or through give-up agreements with executing brokers. Equity prime brokers also prove corporate action services and stock lending services (for short positions) as well as access to IPOs and new issues.

Direct market access

Prime brokers provide direct market to the underlying markets their clients trade derivatives contracts on. DMA (Direct Market Access) is available on equities through stock exchanges, commodities and indices through futures and options exchanges foreign exchange through multiple liquidity providers.

CFD (contracts for difference)

Prime brokers that offer CFDs (contracts for difference) enable their clients to trade directly on a stock exchange’s order book by buying and selling the underlying shares and wrapping the client’s positions in a CFD. This enables hedge funds to build up large equity positions without having to disclose underlying ownership. Prime brokers may also allow clients with large equity CFD positions to vote on corporate actions by taking instructions to vote a specific way on their client’s behalf.

Futures & Options

Futures brokers and options prime brokers provide direct market access to futures exchanges like ICE, CBOE, EUREX and CME. Futures and options prime brokers will either deal direct for customers or act as a middle man for smaller brokerages that use a prime brokers exchange membership to provide access to the exchange for their clients.

Prime Brokers FAQs:

Good Money Guide can help you find the right prime broker with our prime broker finder tool. You will have a few questions to answer about the size of your hedge fund, your main investment methods and how often you trade, as well as any additional features that you may require. The finder tool will take about 10 minutes to complete.

A mini prime broker is simple a prime broker that accepts small institutional accounts. Mini prime brokers are more appropriate for start-up and new hedge funds. Use our comparison tables to compare the best UK based mini prime brokers authorised and regulated by the FCA. Choose or switch to a mini prime broker that offers the most markets, best pricing and client security.

Prime brokers are for institutional accounts so there is not a definitive list of prime brokers. However, with our prime broker comparison service, you can choose from prime brokers which may suit your needs and which can make it easier to choose the best prime broker for you.

The top-tier prime brokers are shutting down all their smaller accounts so start-up hedge funds need a mini prime broker or mid-tier prime broker.

Our prime broker finder tool can help your start-up hedge fund find top prime brokers that are most appropriate for your investment strategy.

If you have a small hedge fund take you can find a mini prime broker here. We work with the best prime brokers for small to medium-sized hedge funds that can assist with your trading and fund strategy, including custodian services, regulatory umbrellas, research, analysis and outsourced back-office systems. Use our comparison tables to compare the best UK-based mini prime brokers authorised and regulated by the FCA. Choose or switch to a mini prime broker that offers the most markets, best pricing and client security.

Prime brokers make money by charging a fee or commission for facilitating the transactions for the funds that they manage. This fee is normally called a “spread”.

Publically traded online trading platforms like IG, CMC Markets, City Index (owned by StoneX) and Interactive Brokers are generally safer as they must report their financial status to the stock exchange and investors more frequently than private companies. By keeping an eye on a company’s share price you can see how healthy its balance sheet is.

There is no guarantee that any trading platform will not go bankrupt, but there are ways to keep an eye on the health of the company behind it.

Funds up to £85k are predicted by the FSCS if a broker defaults, but not above that amount, unless insurance is in place.

An FX prime brokerage can offer access to the currency markets around the World at the best prices, as well as funding and clearing services to foreign exchange traders. In addition to the provision of securities, collateral and operational efficiencies there can be many other benefits for forex traders.

Larger prime brokers focus on providing wholesale services to large clients who can then provide the most relevant version of a large prime brokers services to the end client. This enable large prime brokers to focus on their core clients and smaller prime brokers to provide a more appropriate bespoke service to small hedge funds and traders.

While some prime brokers are proprietary trading firms, that does not make all proprietary trading firms prime brokers. A proprietary trading firm is a firm that trades it’s own money, whereas a prime broker is a firm that providers brokerage services to traders, funds and smaller brokers reselling their services.

Yes, funds can transact and execute trades through more than one prime broker. However, funds will have to nominate a single prime broker as their main account.

A prime broker is a funds main account whereas an executing broker is another broker a fund deals with that will execute orders for them and give them up to the main prime brokerage account.

Brokers such as IG, Saxo Markets and Interactive Brokers that provide DMA or hedge client positions allow scalping where traders buy and sell positions quickly in order to take small profits and losses.

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