The distinction is not your branding. It’s your operating reality: who bears risk, whose trades are being executed, and whether you provide services to “clients” versus operating a proprietary program.
Own-capital posture. Participants operate within your program rules, without client execution claims.
Execution for clients, onboarding clients, order handling, and client-facing trading services.
These are the things that get you treated like a broker even if you insist you’re a prop firm.
“Clients”, “accounts”, “deposits”, “withdrawals”, “KYC onboarding” framed like a broker.
“We execute”, “we provide liquidity”, “we route orders” — that’s brokerage territory.
Signals like “managed portfolios”, “copy trading”, or “guaranteed payouts” invite scrutiny.
If a random person reading your site thinks they can “open a trading account” with you, deposit money, and you execute their trades — you’re positioned as a broker.
This keeps your marketing aligned to proprietary trading boundaries and reduces bank/PSP friction.
These phrases support the proprietary program posture.
These phrases imply client execution or custody posture.
If your product is client-facing brokerage (FX/CFDs/multi-asset execution), don’t force-fit it into “prop” branding. Use the correct pathway and keep your structure clean.
Order handling, execution routing, or providing brokerage access = capital markets / brokerage permissions.
If users deposit money to trade and you provide a trading service, you’re in brokerage territory.
Custody-like behavior, managed accounts, or copy trading typically triggers other permissions.
If you’re pure prop: start intake here. If you’re brokerage: use the capital markets pathway instead.
