How brokers turn trust into funded accounts

For a broker, the number that matters is not sign-ups but funded accounts. eToro, which reports the figure every quarter, defines funded accounts as users who have completed onboarding, deposited funds, traded at least once and hold a positive balance, and calls them “the deepest level of our user acquisition funnel”[1].

Between the first search and that point, a prospective trader decides several times whether to trust you, and each decision can end the journey. This guide follows that journey step by step: what traders check at each stage, what the evidence says about where they stop, and what a genuine broker can show to keep them going.

Step 1: the first search, and the advert beside it

Most journeys start online. In the UK regulator’s latest Financial Lives survey, Google search was the source investors used most to research investments (29% had used it in the past year), and one in five had used social media. Among people holding high-risk investments such as CFDs and crypto, 41% recalled seeing adverts before investing, up from 35% in 2022, with social media adverts the most recalled[2]. In France, 44% of adults now say they decide on their investments alone, and 11% already ask AI before investing, rising to 19% of under-35s[3]. Our guide on why AI answers lean on publications covers how to appear in those answers.

The difficulty is that fakes compete in exactly the same places. Australia’s regulator, ASIC, warns that scammers “build an online footprint of supportive news articles, positive reviews, ads and websites that work together to deceive consumers”, and that “a simple online search is not enough to verify whether an opportunity is legitimate”. It took down 7,051 fake investment platforms in the year to June 2026, up 151%[4]. In the UK, losses to investment scams reached a record £221.5 million in 2025, up 40%, and UK Finance, the banking industry’s trade body, says they are “driven by fraudulent adverts/social media posts offering significant returns on investments”[5].

Polish is no longer proof. As ASIC’s chair put it, “the presence of polished content, familiar branding or convincing testimonials does not mean an investment is legitimate”[4]. A genuine broker cannot out-design a fake; it has to be easier to check.

Step 2: the check, is this the real firm?

Regulators now tell traders to check more than a name. Launching its Firm Checker in December 2025, the FCA said “people should also confirm that the contact details match those listed on the FCA Firm Checker”, and estimated that around 800,000 people had lost money to investment or pension scams in the 12 months to May 2024[6]. ASIC has gone further, publishing licensees’ website addresses on its register because about 20% of new investor alerts since late 2023 involve impersonation, and it encourages consumers dealing with a licensee whose website is not listed “to ask them why not”[7].

Blacklists are growing too. By July 2026, Italy’s CONSOB had ordered 1,763 unauthorised websites blocked since 2019, and warned of “cloned” e-mails and websites and AI-generated content[8]. France’s regulators added 1,351 new names to their blacklists in 2025, mostly fake crypto and forex investments[9].

For a genuine broker, that means:

• Register every web address you use with each regulator that offers it, and list them on your own site.
• Make your details identical everywhere. Legal entity, licence number, registered address, phone and email should match the regulator’s register on your website, your apps, your adverts and your client agreement.
• Name the company the client signs with. As Trading Trust Index, a Unita Media platform, tells traders: “If you cannot find which company you would contract with, that is useful information in itself”[10].

Our guide on how to build a website that earns trust at first glance covers the site itself, and how to respond when traders call your brokerage a scam covers clones that copy you.

Step 3: sign-up and identity checks

Identity checks are often blamed for lost sign-ups, but the evidence points elsewhere. In its March 2026 report on the retail investor journey, ESMA found broad agreement that anti-money laundering checks “do not pose significant barriers” to retail investors. The friction came from how firms apply them: some “apply AML/CFT requirements incongruently, which can result in clients being asked to provide the same information multiple times”, and investors “often lack clarity on why they are required to provide certain information” and how to provide it[11]. The report summarises views from a call for evidence answered mostly by firms and their associations, so treat it as the industry’s own diagnosis.

Abandonment is real. In a 2022 survey of 7,600 European adults, 68% said they had abandoned a financial application in the past year, citing the time it took and the amount of personal information required[12]. The survey was commissioned by Signicat, which sells onboarding software, so read the figure as an indication, not a measurement of brokers.

The rules are tightening in a way that rewards clarity. From 10 July 2027, the EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Regulation requires identity to be verified “before the establishment of a business relationship”, allows an account to be opened early as long as no transactions run until the checks are complete, and accepts electronic identification at the “substantial” or “high” assurance levels[13]. Our guide on how to turn a regulatory change into a reason clients trust you covers how to explain a change like this.

So explain before you ask. Say why each document is needed, how to provide it and how long the check takes; ask for each item once; show progress at every step. ESMA also noticed that some onboarding “education” is “rather knowledge checks primarily aimed at expanding access to the firm’s product offerings”[11]. Education that genuinely teaches is part of trust; education that only unlocks products is not. Our guide on how to explain financial products in plain language covers the writing.

Step 4: the first deposit

Before a trader funds an account, the questions change from “is this firm real?” to “what happens to my money?”. Make the answers visible before anyone deposits. Trading Trust Index’s methodology treats a broker’s disclosure as met only when “withdrawal methods, fees, processing times and conditions are published before an account is opened”, when costs such as spreads, overnight financing and inactivity fees are published at the same point, and when complaint statistics are published by the firm or by its regulator or ombudsman[14].

Put the costs, the withdrawal terms, the legal entity holding client money and the complaints procedure one click from the deposit screen. A trader who has to search for them is a trader who stops.

Step 5: the first withdrawal

This is where scams reveal themselves, and traders know it. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded $8,648,617,756 in reported losses to investment fraud in 2025, the largest category, and described the pattern: victims are shown fake profits, and “when the victims try to withdraw their money, they will be charged taxes and fees as a final attempt to exploit money from the victims before the scammers disappear”[15]. ASIC describes scammers using “fake investment platforms and even small profit payments to build trust”[4].

That makes a fast, clean first withdrawal the strongest evidence a genuine broker can give. The UK’s Consumer Duty, a mature benchmark for any firm, expects that customers do not face unreasonable barriers when they want to leave or be paid, and gives “unreasonable delays to: (a) any payments due to retail customers after they have been agreed” and “asking retail customers for unnecessary information or evidence” as examples to avoid[16].

Problems at this stage often go unreported. The UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service says it sometimes sees complaints about firms that “stopped them from withdrawing money from their account”[17]. It received 260 new complaints about CFDs in 2025/26 and upheld 18%, below its 30% average across all products[18], so most complaints that reach it go the firm’s way. But most unhappy investors never get that far: in the FCA’s survey, 23% of investors had a problem in the previous year, only 17% of them complained, and 46% of those who did not saw no point[2]. The clients you lose at withdrawal mostly leave in silence.

• Publish your withdrawal times, and keep to them. Measure the time to a first withdrawal as carefully as the time to a first deposit.
• Tell clients where their withdrawal is at every stage, and why any extra check is needed.
• Never ask for a document at withdrawal that you could have asked for at sign-up.

Step 6: let an independent tester prove it

Everything above is a claim until someone else checks it. An independent test of real deposits, trades and withdrawals, published with its date, is the one piece of evidence a fake platform cannot produce. Our guide on how to rebuild trust in a trading brand when clients expect the worst covers what to do if that evidence shows a problem.

A checklist from first search to first withdrawal

1. Search for your own brand as a trader would, and note the fakes and clones around you.
2. Register every web address you use with each regulator that offers it.
3. Make your entity, licence, address and contact details identical to the register everywhere.
4. Name the company the client contracts with on every page that asks for money.
5. Explain why each identity document is needed, how to provide it and how long checks take.
6. Ask for each document once, and show progress at every step.
7. Publish costs, withdrawal terms and the complaints procedure before account opening.
8. Publish complaint data, or point to the regulator or ombudsman that does.
9. Track time to first withdrawal alongside time to first deposit.
10. Tell clients where their withdrawal is, and never add a new document request at the last step.
11. Have an independent tester open, fund and withdraw from a real account, and publish the result.
12. Keep your education genuine: teach, do not use it as a gate to riskier products.