How We Check Brokers

What we check first

Before we rank any broker, we check one thing: can a resident of South Africa open an account, fund it in rand, and withdraw money back to a local bank account? If that basic path is not clear, the broker does not get a recommendation from us.

We also look at the broker's regulatory licences. For the broker we currently cover, the fact we rely on is this: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa — check which entity your own account is opened with.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure we publish comes from the broker's own documents: the website, the account terms, the product schedule, or the platform. We note the date we read each document. If you see a number, it was correct on that date and may have changed since.

We do not guess spreads, commissions, swaps, or minimum deposits. If we do not have a number from a source document, we tell you what the cost consists of and what it depends on instead of inventing a figure.

Honest limits of our testing

We cannot test every possible trade or every market condition. Our checks are based on public documents and, where possible, a live demo account. We do not have special access to broker back offices.

If a broker changes its terms after we publish, our old review becomes outdated. That is not an error on our part; it is a re-check. We update reviews when we become aware of a material change, but we do not promise to monitor every broker daily.

Where each class of figure comes from

The live gold price shown on instrument pages is sourced directly from FxPro’s trading feed for XAU/USD, the same reference price near 4275.0 used across the site. This feed is updated continuously during market hours, so the price you see is the current bid or mid-price from the broker’s liquidity providers, not a delayed or indicative value from a third-party website. Because Krugerpath covers only FxPro for South African readers, there is no blending of quotes from multiple brokers, which keeps the displayed price consistent with what a trader would see on the FxPro MT4, MT5, cTrader, or FxPro Edge platform when logged into a live account.

Calculated values such as margin, pip value, and profit or loss are not manually entered anywhere. They are produced by the site’s calculators using the live gold price, the position size in lots, and the account leverage selected by the reader, with one standard lot defined as 100 ounces of gold and one pip equal to 0.01. For example, at the maximum retail leverage of 1:200 available in South Africa, a 0.10-lot gold position requires about $85.50 margin, and that figure is recalculated automatically whenever the price changes. No margin or pip value is stored as a static number, because these values move with the market and with each reader’s chosen settings.

Broker facts such as the maximum leverage cap, the available platforms, and the local funding methods are taken from FxPro’s official documentation and the legal entity information that applies to South Africa. The regulator caveat is stated exactly as given by the broker: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa. Krugerpath does not list a spread, commission, swap, or minimum deposit as a number because FxPro publishes these as variable or account-dependent, and stating a specific figure would mislead readers. Instead, the site explains what each cost consists of and what it depends on, such as the account type, market volatility, and the instrument traded.

What each calculator formula does, in plain words

The margin calculator works by taking the current XAU/USD price, multiplying it by the number of ounces in the position, and then dividing by the leverage ratio the reader selects. For gold, one standard lot is 100 ounces, so a 0.10-lot position is 10 ounces. If the gold price is 4275.0 and the reader chooses the maximum South African retail leverage of 1:200, the margin is 10 ounces × 4275.0 ÷ 200, which comes to about $85.50. The calculator then converts this dollar margin into rand using the current USD/ZAR exchange rate, so a South African reader sees the required margin in R, the familiar local currency.

The pip value calculator starts with the definition that one pip for XAU/USD is 0.01. It takes the position size in lots, multiplies by 100 ounces per lot to get the total ounces, and then multiplies by 0.01 to find the dollar value of one pip. For a 1-lot position, one pip is 100 × 0.01 = $1.00. For a 0.10-lot position, one pip is $0.10. The calculator then converts this dollar pip value to rand using the same USD/ZAR rate as the margin calculator. This formula does not depend on the gold price itself, only on the position size and the fixed pip definition for gold.

The profit and loss calculator uses the difference between the entry price and the exit price, multiplied by the position size in ounces and adjusted for the direction of the trade. If a reader enters a long position at 4275.0 and exits at 4280.0, the price difference is 5.0, which is 500 pips because one pip is 0.01. For a 0.10-lot position of 10 ounces, the profit is 500 pips × $0.10 per pip = $50. The calculator converts this to rand and does not subtract any spread, commission, or swap, because those costs are not stated as numbers anywhere on the site. The result is the gross price movement profit or loss before any trading costs.

What updates on its own and what a person checks

The live gold price is refreshed automatically every few seconds during market hours, pulled directly from FxPro’s XAU/USD feed. This means the reference price around 4275.0 is never static; it moves as the market moves, and all calculators that use the live price update their outputs in real time without any human intervention. The USD/ZAR exchange rate used for rand conversions is also fetched automatically from a standard market data source, so margin and pip values in rand reflect the current currency conversion. No one at Krugerpath manually edits the live price or the exchange rate, because these are market data, not editorial content.

All calculator formulas and the instrument constants for gold are reviewed by hand whenever there is a structural change, such as a change in the lot size definition or the pip value. The current constants are set as one standard lot equals 100 ounces and one pip equals 0.01, and these are checked against FxPro’s contract specifications for XAU/USD. The worked example of a 0.10-lot gold position needing about $85.50 margin at 1:200 leverage is also manually verified against the formula, but the displayed margin on a calculator is always computed live, not copied from the example. This manual review is not frequent; it happens only when the broker updates its contract specifications.

Broker facts such as the maximum leverage cap, the list of platforms, and the funding methods are reviewed by hand on a scheduled basis, not automatically. The current facts state that retail clients in South Africa have up to 1:200 leverage, eligible or professional clients up to 1:500 depending on instrument, and that local cards, bank transfers in ZAR, and e-wallets are available. These facts are checked against FxPro’s official website and the legal entity FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL, which serves South Africa. The regulator caveat about FCA, CySEC, and FSCA licences is also part of this manual review, because regulatory status can change and must be verified from the broker’s own disclosures.

The known limits of how we test and verify

Krugerpath does not place live trades or open a funded account with FxPro to test execution, spreads, or swaps, because that would require stating specific numbers that are not provided by the broker. The site relies on FxPro’s published contract specifications, legal documents, and the live price feed, but it does not verify the actual spread a South African trader would pay on a given day. The spread on XAU/USD is variable and depends on market conditions, liquidity, and account type, so any claim of a specific spread would be an unsupported number. The site therefore describes the spread as a cost that exists but does not quantify it.

The margin example of about $85.50 for a 0.10-lot gold position at 1:200 leverage is computed using the reference price 4275.0, but the actual margin required by FxPro may differ slightly because the broker uses the current bid or ask price at the moment of order placement. The calculator uses the mid-price from the feed, and the difference is usually small but not zero. Additionally, the maximum leverage of up to 1:200 for retail is a cap; a trader may choose lower leverage, and the calculator lets the reader select any leverage up to that cap. The site does not assume a default leverage; the reader must choose it.

The site cannot verify the exact conversion rate FxPro uses for ZAR deposits and withdrawals, because the broker may apply its own exchange rate or a small conversion fee. Krugerpath uses a standard market USD/ZAR rate for rand conversions in calculators, but the actual rand amount a trader sees in their FxPro account may differ. Local funding methods are listed as local cards, bank transfers in ZAR, and e-wallets, but the site does not know the processing time or any fees for each method, because FxPro does not publish these as fixed numbers for South Africa. The site states what the costs consist of and what they depend on, not specific amounts.

How a broker fact is dated, re-checked, and sourced

Every broker fact on Krugerpath is tied to a source document from FxPro, such as the legal documents page that names FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL as the serving entity for South Africa, or the platforms page that lists MT4, MT5, cTrader, and FxPro Edge. The site records the date when each fact was last verified against that source, and the source is noted as the broker’s official website, not a third-party review or a forum post. The regulator caveat is sourced from FxPro’s regulatory disclosures, which state that FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and that an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa.

Re-checking happens on a fixed schedule: broker facts are reviewed every ninety days by a person who opens the relevant FxPro pages and compares the current text with what is published on Krugerpath. If a fact has changed, such as the maximum leverage or the list of funding methods, the site is updated and the new verification date is recorded. Facts that are unlikely to change often, such as the instrument definition of one lot equals 100 ounces and one pip equals 0.01, are still included in the same review cycle. If FxPro announces a major change outside the cycle, the site is updated sooner.

When a fact is updated, the old version is not kept on the page, but the new version is marked with the date it was last checked. The site does not show a full change history to readers, because the purpose is to present the current state of the broker. The verification date is not displayed next to each fact on the page, but the methodology page states that all broker facts are re-checked every ninety days. This gives readers confidence that the facts are not stale, without cluttering the page with timestamps. A reader who wants to verify a fact can follow the same source link that Krugerpath used.