Last updated: 2 October 2026 Every regulator warning about prop firms and “funded trader” challenges that we could check against the regulator’s own words and the firm’s own archived website. We searched IOSCO’s I-SCAN warnings database and the CFTC’s RED List, then screened every result by hand. A warning means a regulator says a firm isn’t licensed to do something in its jurisdiction. It isn’t a finding of fraud.
The short version
Two European regulators have warned about the prop-firm model itself, not just one company. Belgium’s FSMA (7 March 2024): “The FSMA emphasizes that prop trading companies do not hold any authorization and therefore are not allowed to provide investment services.” Italy’s CONSOB (July 2024) said the challenge “is designed in such a way that it is not easily overcome”, and that people who paid “have not been paid any economic benefit by the “prop firms””
6 warnings name a firm that sold challenges or funded accounts. They come from 6 regulators in 5 jurisdictions (British Virgin Islands, Canada, Spain, United Kingdom, United States), dated January 2023 to October 2025. For each one, an archived copy of the firm’s own site confirms what it sold. Two more warnings target services sold to challenge-takers: a “we’ll pass your evaluation” service that also advertised “20% ROI AFTER 24 HOURS”, and trading robots built for funded accounts.
None of the 10 firms we track is named in any of them. We ran 29 searches of IOSCO’s I-SCAN database and checked all 284 entries on the CFTC’s RED List. Not one hit was FTMO, Topstep, Apex Trader Funding, FundedNext, The5ers, FundingPips, MyFundedFutures, Tradeify, Goat Funded Trader or Take Profit Trader. That isn’t a clean bill of health. The FSMA says prop firms “do not hold any authorization” in Belgium, whoever they are.
Names mislead, both ways. The FCA’s “Apex Trader” warning is about apex-trader.net, not Apex Trader Funding. Its “Funded Trader” warning is about a broker-referral site built on the same template, not a prop firm. Of the 149 I-SCAN results we screened by hand, we kept 10. We list 7 more prop-sounding names separately because we couldn’t confirm what they sold.
Two of the 6 named firms now say they’re closed or offline. True Forex Funds’ site says it “has ceased all operations and will be closing permanently due to financial insolvency” FirstClass Forex Funds’ says “The site is offline for the foreseeable future.” My Forex Funds’ own site talks about the traders affected “when MFF was shut down overnight” in 2023. The CFTC’s case against it was dismissed in May 2025 (see our lawsuits tracker).
The verified warnings
Oldest first. “Regulator’s words” is quoted from the regulator’s page or its I-SCAN record. “What the firm sold” is quoted from an archived copy of the firm’s own site, which is how we checked that each one really was a prop firm or a prop-firm service.
| Date | Regulator | Named in warning | Type | Regulator’s words | What the firm sold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jan 2023 I-SCAN publication date | CNMV Spain | myforexfunds.com (Traders Global Group Inc) | Named firm selling challenges or funded accounts | “Commercial Name: HTTPS://MYFOREXFUNDS.COM Category: Unregistered/Unlicensed entity offering financial products or services Additional Information: TRADERS GLOBAL GROUP INC” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Archived site: “MyForexFunds | Global Prop Trading Firm” |
| 12 Jun 2023 RED List date | CFTC (RED List) United States | True Forex Funds (trueforexfunds.com) | Named firm selling challenges or funded accounts | “A review by the Commission has revealed that this entity is acting in a capacity that appears to require registration, but it is not registered with the CFTC.” Regulator | Archived site: “True Forex Funds has ceased all operations and will be closing permanently due to financial insolvency.” |
| 1 Aug 2023 I-SCAN publication date | BVI FSC British Virgin Islands | First Class Trading Solutions Ltd / FirstClass Forex Funds | Named firm selling challenges or funded accounts | “through the website firstclassforexfunds.co is purporting to provide a trading platform with low spread options to trade forex, crypto, indices, and other financial services business.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Archived site: “Please NOTE our evaluations are on DEMO server.” |
| 31 Aug 2023 FCA “first published” | FCA United Kingdom | FUNDEDSIGNALTRADES (fundedsignaltrades.com) | Service sold to challenge-takers | “This firm is not authorised by us and is targeting people in the UK.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Archived site: “assist the pass prop firm evaluation/challenges” |
| 7 Mar 2024 FSMA page date | FSMA Belgium | Prop trading firms (general warning) | Statement about prop firms in general | “The FSMA emphasizes that prop trading companies do not hold any authorization and therefore are not allowed to provide investment services.” Regulator | — |
| 15 Jul 2024 I-SCAN publication date | CONSOB Italy | “funded trading – prop firms” (general warning) | Statement about prop firms in general | “But the challenge is designed in such a way that it is not easily overcome and there may be an increasing level of difficulty of the trading challenges to be accessed with further outlays from savers.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | — |
| 30 Sep 2024 ASC “date added to the list” | Alberta Securities Commission Canada (Alberta) | Instant Funded Trader (instanttraderfunding.com) | Named firm selling challenges or funded accounts | “Instant Funded Trader is not registered to trade in or advise on securities or derivatives in Alberta.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Archived site: “One-Step Challenge Two-Step Challenge” |
| 14 Apr 2025 date published by regulator (per I-SCAN) | Ontario Securities Commission Canada (Ontario) | Forex Prop Firm (forexpropfirm.com) | Named firm selling challenges or funded accounts | “Forex Prop Firm found at www.forexpropfirm.com is not registered in Ontario to engage in the business of trading in securities.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Archived site: “Trade Up To $10M In Simulated Capital” |
| 15 Oct 2025 FCA “first published” | FCA United Kingdom | Empire Funded (empirefunded.com) | Named firm selling challenges or funded accounts | “This firm is not authorised by us and may be targeting people in the UK.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Archived site: “#1 Fastest Growing Prop Firm Platform” |
| 23 Feb 2026 date published by regulator (per I-SCAN) | CNMV Spain | EA Master Funded (eamasterfunded.com) | Service sold to challenge-takers | “Commercial Name: EA MASTER FUNDED URL: https://eamasterfunded.com Category: Unregistered/Unlicensed entity offering financial products or services” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Archived site: “optimizados para cuentas de fondeo” |
By jurisdiction
| Jurisdiction | Regulator(s) | Verified warnings | Prop-style names not confirmed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain | CNMV | 2 | 0 |
| United Kingdom | FCA | 2 | 1 |
| Belgium | FSMA | 1 | 0 |
| British Virgin Islands | BVI FSC | 1 | 0 |
| Canada (Alberta) | Alberta Securities Commission | 1 | 0 |
| Canada (Ontario) | Ontario Securities Commission | 1 | 1 |
| Italy | CONSOB | 1 | 0 |
| United States | CFTC (RED List) | 1 | 0 |
| Netherlands | AFM | 0 | 1 |
| New Zealand | FMA | 0 | 1 |
| Ukraine | NSSMC | 0 | 3 |
This is what turned up in I-SCAN and the RED List, not a census of every regulator’s site. Regulators that don’t feed I-SCAN, or that publish only in their own language, will be under-counted.
The 10 firms we track: checked, none named
| Firm | I-SCAN searches | Warnings naming the firm | CFTC RED List |
|---|---|---|---|
| FTMO | “FTMO” | 0 | Not listed |
| Topstep | “Topstep”, “Topstep Trader” | 0 | Not listed |
| Apex Trader Funding | “Apex Trader Funding”, “Apex Trader”, “Apex” | 0 | Not listed |
| FundedNext | “FundedNext”, “Funded Next” | 0 | Not listed |
| The5ers | “The5ers”, “5ers” | 0 | Not listed |
| FundingPips | “FundingPips” | 0 | Not listed |
| MyFundedFutures | “MyFundedFutures”, “My Funded Futures” | 0 | Not listed |
| Tradeify | “Tradeify” | 0 | Not listed |
| Goat Funded Trader | “Goat Funded”, “Goat Funded Trader” | 0 | Not listed |
| Take Profit Trader | “Take Profit Trader”, “TakeProfitTrader” | 0 | Not listed |
I-SCAN’s search is loose: it matches any of the words. “Apex” alone returned 173 warnings, about entities like Apex Expert Investment, ApexFuturesFX and Apex Capital Trade. None of the ones we checked was Apex Trader Funding, and we never assume a name match is the same company. Searching “Take Profit Trader” returned 9 results, all about unrelated firms (Traders Profit, Profit Index Traders and others). Searched and checked on 2 October 2026.
Prop-style names we couldn’t confirm
These warnings name something that sounds like a prop firm, but we couldn’t find evidence of what it actually sold. They’re not in the counts above.
| Date | Regulator | Named in warning | Regulator’s words | Why not counted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug 2014 | Ontario Securities Commission Canada (Ontario) | Global Proprietary Traders Inc. o/a Global Prop Traders | “is not registered to engage in the business of (i) trading in securities or (ii) advising anyone with respect to investing in, buying or selling securities.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Predates the retail challenge model; the archived site has no readable text. |
| 26 Jan 2024 | FCA United Kingdom | Challenge Crushers (thechallengecrushers.com) | “This firm is not authorised by us and may be targeting people in the UK.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Name suggests a challenge-passing service, but there’s no Wayback copy and the site is offline. |
| 29 Apr 2024 | AFM Netherlands | Infinity Forex Funds | “This company is a suspected boiler room.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | AFM describes cold-calling (a boiler room), not challenges. No website given. |
| 1 Jul 2024 | NSSMC Ukraine | Forex Prop Firm (FPF) | “It does not hold an Ukrainian financial services licence from the NSSMC, and is not authorised by a licensee.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Same name as the firm Ontario warned about, but no website is listed, so we can’t confirm it’s the same entity. |
| 28 Feb 2025 | NSSMC Ukraine | Aura Funded | “This entity is likely to be offering financial services to Ukrainian consumers.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | No website listed; can’t tie the name to a specific firm. |
| 28 Feb 2025 | NSSMC Ukraine | Alpine Funded | “This entity is likely to be offering financial services to Ukrainian consumers.” Regulator · I-SCAN record | No website listed; can’t tie the name to a specific firm. |
| 6 Jul 2026 | FMA New Zealand | FundedTrusts (fundedtrusts.org) | “Commercial Name: FundedTrusts URL: fundedtrusts.org” Regulator · I-SCAN record | Listed under FMA’s fake investment platforms; no archive copy, site offline. Nothing shows it sold challenges. |
Look-alikes we checked and excluded
| Date | Regulator | Named in warning | Why excluded | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Aug 2025 | FCA United Kingdom | Apex Trader (apex-trader.net) | Not Apex Trader Funding (apextraderfunding.com). The archived site is a generic “Official Website Platform” page pointing visitors to brokers, the same template as the FCA’s “Funded Trader” warning below. | Archived site: “Apex Trader | Official Website Platform” Regulator · I-SCAN record |
| 12 Aug 2025 | FCA United Kingdom | Funded Trader (funded-trader.net) | Despite the name, the archived site describes a broker-introduction “platform”, not a challenge or funded-account firm. | Archived site: “Funded Trader is a tailored platform designed to offer investors a variety of brokerage services” Regulator · I-SCAN record |
| 19 Dec 2025 | FSA Japan | Impersonator of registered high-speed trader “Eagle Seven LLC” | Matched “proprietary trading”, but it’s about impersonating an institutional trading firm, not retail challenges. | — Regulator · I-SCAN record |
Methodology
On 1–2 October 2026 we ran 29 keyword searches of the public IOSCO I-SCAN warnings database: generic terms (funded, funded trader, funded account, prop firm, prop trading, proprietary trading, challenge, trading challenge), the names of the 10 firms we track, and known names (My Forex Funds, Traders Global, True Forex Funds). That gave 149 distinct warnings. We opened the I-SCAN record for each plausible one and, where we could, the regulator’s own page. We also parsed all 284 entries on the CFTC RED List, and read Belgium’s FSMA statement on prop trading firms directly.
A warning counts as a named prop firm only if an archived copy of the firm’s own website (Wayback Machine) shows it selling evaluations, challenges or funded accounts. It counts as a service sold to challenge-takers if the archived site sells challenge-passing or robots for funded accounts. A name alone was never enough. We never treat a similar name as the same company, which is why the FCA’s “Apex Trader” warning is excluded. Dates are the regulator’s own publication date where it gives one, otherwise I-SCAN’s. Every quote was checked word for word against our saved copy of the page.
Limits: I-SCAN covers IOSCO members that choose to report, and its keyword search is fuzzy, so we’ll have missed warnings that don’t use these words. We couldn’t query the FCA’s own Warning List API (blocked from our server), though I-SCAN mirrors many FCA warnings. State-level US regulators aren’t covered. A firm missing from these lists isn’t licensed or approved because of that. Most retail prop firms say they sell simulated trading, which regulators treat differently (Belgium and Italy warn about it; others haven’t said). Court cases are in our lawsuits & enforcement tracker. For what firms disclose about pass rates, see the Pass-Rate Registry, and for rule changes, the Rule Change Index. How we verify: methodology.
How to cite this
Prop Data Lab, “Prop Firm Regulator Warning Map”, updated 2 October 2026, https://propdatalab.com/prop-firm-regulator-warnings/
The table and the CSV are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: copy, chart or republish them, commercial use included, as long as you link back to this page. Citing one warning? Please link the regulator’s page too, and don’t describe a warning as a finding of fraud.
Common questions
Are prop firms regulated?
Mostly not as prop firms. Retail prop firms usually say they sell simulated trading and evaluations, which many regulators don't license. Belgium's FSMA said in March 2024 that prop trading companies 'do not hold any authorization and therefore are not allowed to provide investment services', and Italy's CONSOB warned about 'funded trading' in July 2024. Other regulators have warned about individual firms they say were operating without a licence.
Has any regulator warned about FTMO, Topstep or Apex Trader Funding?
Not in what we checked. On 2 October 2026 none of the 10 firms we track (FTMO, Topstep, Apex Trader Funding, FundedNext, The5ers, FundingPips, MyFundedFutures, Tradeify, Goat Funded Trader, Take Profit Trader) appeared in IOSCO's I-SCAN warnings database or on the CFTC's RED List. The FCA's 'Apex Trader' warning is about apex-trader.net, a different website. Not being on a warning list doesn't mean a firm is licensed.
Which prop firms have regulator warnings?
Verified: myforexfunds.com (Spain's CNMV, Jan 2023), True Forex Funds (CFTC RED List, Jun 2023), FirstClass Forex Funds (BVI FSC, Aug 2023), Instant Funded Trader (Alberta Securities Commission, Sep 2024), Forex Prop Firm (Ontario Securities Commission, Apr 2025) and Empire Funded (UK FCA, Oct 2025). Each says the firm wasn't licensed or registered there. None is a finding of fraud.
Is the FCA 'Funded Trader' warning about a prop firm?
No. The FCA's August 2025 warning is about funded-trader.net. An archived copy of that site describes itself as 'a tailored platform designed to offer investors a variety of brokerage services', not a challenge or funded-account firm.
Does a regulator warning mean a prop firm is a scam?
No. It means the regulator says the firm isn't authorised to offer what it offers in that jurisdiction. The CFTC says inclusion on its RED List 'does not mean that the CFTC or a court has concluded that a violation' has occurred. Check the regulator's own wording and date.