IC Markets Kenya: CMA Licence No. 199, and the Company That Actually Holds Your Account

What is genuinely checkable about IC Markets

• Costs are published in a checkable form: USD 3.50 per lot per side on Raw Spread, USD 0 commission with spreads from 0.8 pips on Standard (checked 2 September 2026)
• IC Markets (KE) Limited is a public, searchable record in Kenya's Capital Markets Authority register (licensees.cma.or.ke) - Non-Dealing Online Forex Broker, licence No. 199 - genuinely verifiable, unlike a purely offshore-only setup
• No minimum deposit on Raw Spread, cTrader Raw Spread or Standard, so an account can be opened small and tested on a free demo first
• Wide platform choice - MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader and TradingView - with MetaTrader servers in Equinix NY4, New York

Explore the specifics

Also on this site: MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 setup and the Equinix NY4 server location against East Africa Time, a free demo that needs no shilling to leave Kenya at all, sign-in help for the portal versus the trading terminals, and support channels with realistic waiting times.

IC Markets Kenya - the verdict in one paragraph

IC Markets (KE) Limited holds a real, checkable Capital Markets Authority licence - No. 199, listed as a Non-Dealing Online Forex Broker on the CMA's own register at licensees.cma.or.ke. That does not automatically make it the entity on your own account: IC Markets' own registration feed defaults Kenya to branch 3, the Raw Trading Ltd (Seychelles, FSA licence SD018) branch used worldwide, alongside a separate CMA-labelled branch on the same feed - so confirm the counterparty named on your client agreement rather than assume the local licence applies. There is no M-Pesa, Airtel Money or PesaLink option either: IC Markets publishes ten account base currencies and no Kenya-specific payment rail, unlike the Thailand and Vietnam rails it does name, so every shilling still converts into one of those ten currencies through a card, e-wallet or wire transfer. The published trading costs themselves are checkable: USD 3.50 per lot per side on Raw Spread, USD 0 commission with spreads from 0.8 pips on Standard, no minimum deposit on either. CFD trading carries a high risk of losing money. Read what other users report on Trustpilot alongside this page, not instead of it.

Two branches, one brand: who actually holds a Kenyan trader's account

IC Markets is a trading brand used by several distinct legal entities. Two matter for a reader in Kenya. The first is Raw Trading Ltd, a Seychelles company (registration 8419879-1) trading as IC and IC Markets Global, holding Securities Dealer's licence SD018 from the Seychelles Financial Services Authority - the entity the broker's own registration feed marks as the default, IB-eligible branch for Kenya (branch 3, FSA), checked 2 September 2026. The second is IC Markets (KE) Limited, a Kenyan company listed in the Capital Markets Authority's own register as a Non-Dealing Online Forex Broker, licence No. 199 - a separate legal entity with its own local licence.

The same registration feed that defaults Kenya to the Seychelles branch also lists a CMA-labelled branch (13) and a third, FSC-labelled branch (12) for Kenya specifically. A branch appearing on the feed is a sign-up routing fact, not proof of which company ends up named on a given client's own agreement - the two are separate facts, and this page keeps them separate throughout. Checking the CMA register and assuming it covers whichever account you were actually opened under is checking a fact that may not match your paperwork.

CMA licence No. 199 - what it is a public record of, and what it is not

IC Markets (KE) Limited is listed in the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya's own register (licensees.cma.or.ke) as a Non-Dealing Online Forex Broker under licence No. 199. That is a public regulator record, not a claim made by the broker on this page - check it directly on the CMA's own site rather than taking any third party's word for it, this one included.

A Non-Dealing Online Forex Broker licence governs how a locally licensed entity may operate in Kenya; it says nothing by itself about which company is named on a specific client's contract, since the broker's own registration feed defaults new Kenyan sign-ups to the separate Seychelles entity instead. Read your own account-opening documents for the counterparty's name before assuming either licence applies to your account.

No shilling account, and no local funding rail either - what replaces M-Pesa

IC Markets publishes ten account base currencies and KES is not one of them, checked 2 September 2026. Nor does the broker publish a Kenya-specific funding rail: its funding page names a Thailand rail (Thai Internet Banking) and a Vietnam rail (Vietnamese Internet Banking) explicitly, and lists no equivalent for Kenya. There is no M-Pesa, Airtel Money or PesaLink option - the broker simply does not offer them, whatever a third-party page may imply.

What is available instead is the same global rail set every client uses: cards and PayPal, Neteller and Skrill (all instant), and bank wire transfer (2-5 business days). Every one of them settles in USD or another of the ten listed currencies, so a shilling deposit converts at least once - at a rate IC Markets does not publish - before it reaches the account. The broker itself charges no deposit or withdrawal fee, which is a genuine, checkable point in its favour; it does not remove the conversion step.

Swap Free is the strongest search angle here - and it is not free

Swap Free is available on Raw Spread and Standard accounts, across MT4, MT5 and cTrader, on 90+ instruments, checked 2 September 2026. IC Markets' own pages use the name 'Swap Free' only - not 'Islamic' or 'Shariah-compliant' - and state no Shariah board and no certification. Overnight swap interest is replaced by a flat per-lot holding fee published per symbol: examples include USD 62 a night on gold (XAUUSD), USD 41.85 on BTCUSD, USD 25 on US30, USD 26 on GBPCHF, USD 16 on GBPJPY, USD 11 on EURUSD, USD 9 on XAGUSD (silver) and USD 9 on AUDCAD.

The broker reserves the right to withdraw swap-free status 'without being obliged to provide any explanation or justification.' A Raw Spread account also keeps its USD 3.50-per-side commission even with Swap Free switched on - the commission line does not disappear, only the swap line changes.

Trading day in EAT, against servers in New York and London

MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 run on servers in the Equinix NY4 data centre in New York; cTrader runs from London, checked 2 September 2026. East Africa Time (EAT) is a fixed UTC+3 with no daylight-saving shift, while New York alternates between UTC-5 and UTC-4 and London between UTC+0 and UTC+1 - so the gap from EAT back to New York is 8 hours in EST months and 7 hours in EDT months for MT4/MT5, and 3 hours in GMT months and 2 hours in BST months for cTrader. In practice, the most active New York hours fall across the Kenyan afternoon and stretch into the evening, while the London session runs almost the same business day as Nairobi's.

The same arithmetic applies to Higher Margin Requirement windows, which the broker times relative to market close and to the weekend and major-news releases rather than to a fixed EAT hour - worth checking against your own terminal clock, particularly around the twice-a-year US and UK clock changes that EAT itself does not follow.

What this page is, and what it is not

This is an independent, affiliate-supported review of IC Markets for readers in Kenya. It is not the broker's own site, it does not accept deposits, and it does not offer trading, legal or tax advice. Every figure above is dated and sourced to the broker's own published pages or to Kenya's Capital Markets Authority register, and the parts we could not verify - a founding year, a specific verification document list - are stated as unverified rather than filled with a plausible-sounding guess.

CFD trading carries a high risk of losing money, and leverage magnifies losses as readily as gains. Verify licence No. 199 yourself on the CMA's own register, read the broker's client agreement for whichever entity is actually named on it, and treat this page as one input among several rather than the final word.