TNFX vs Exness: the licence is not the difference
Most comparisons of an offshore broker against a big name turn on regulation. This one cannot, because the Exness entity whose licence we were able to verify is a Seychelles Securities Dealer, exactly like ours: Exness (SC) Ltd on licence SD025, TNFX Ltd on SD133, both from the Financial Services Authority of Seychelles. That makes this a comparison of products and of reach rather than of supervision. On our own side the position is unambiguous and worth stating before anything else: a Seychelles Securities Dealer licence is not a tier-one licence, and TNFX holds nothing else.
Both platforms
Live chart, on the phone you already have
FSA-licensed broker · Licence SD133
What we verified today, and what we could not
On 3 October 2026 we tried to read exness.com directly. Every request was refused with HTTP 403, including the robots file. So this page publishes no Exness leverage figure, no Exness minimum deposit and no Exness swap-free terms. We are not going to repeat numbers we could not read on their own site, and you should not accept them from a comparison site either.
What we could read was exnessaffiliates.com, which is Exness's own partner site and carries the group's entity list in its footer. That is the table below, quoted from it. For trading conditions, open exness.com yourself and read the footer of the page you are signing up from.
The entities each of us publishes
Exness names seven authorised entities across seven jurisdictions. We name one. Both lists are quoted from the two firms' own sites on 3 October 2026.
To be unambiguous about our own side of it: TNFX Ltd holds one financial licence and no tier-one authorisation. We are not licensed by the FCA, ASIC or CySEC, and we hold no licence in Iraq or anywhere in the Gulf. Verify SD133 on the regulator's own register rather than on our word.
| Firm | Entity | Regulator and number |
|---|---|---|
| TNFX | TNFX Ltd | FSA Seychelles, Securities Dealer SD133 |
| Exness | Exness (SC) Ltd | FSA Seychelles, Securities Dealer SD025 |
| Exness | Exness (VG) Ltd | FSC British Virgin Islands, SIBA/L/20/1133 |
| Exness | Exness (MU) Ltd | FSC Mauritius, GB20025294 |
| Exness | Exness B.V. | Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten, 0003LSI |
| Exness | Exness ZA (PTY) Ltd | FSCA South Africa, FSP 51024 |
| Exness | Exness (KE) Limited | Capital Markets Authority Kenya, licence 162 |
| Exness | Forexite Ltd | FSC Belize, 9110312 |
The Exness entity we could verify for this region, Exness (SC) Ltd, sits with the same regulator as we do - the FSA of Seychelles. Whichever of us you choose, check which entity would actually hold your account before you fund it.
Where Exness is the better answer
Choice of entity. Seven authorised companies means you may be able to be onboarded somewhere other than Seychelles - Mauritius, the BVI, South Africa under the FSCA, Kenya under the CMA. We have one entity and one answer, and if Seychelles does not suit you we cannot offer you a second door.
Scale is the other honest point. A firm that size runs more instruments, more platforms and more local offices than we do, and if what you want is the largest possible operation behind your account, that is a real reason and you should take it.
Where we are the better answer
If you are funding from Iraq, we run local rails: ZainCash, Qi Card and local bank transfer, alongside an Ovadot wallet from $5, card from $10, USDT from $10, Payeer from $10, Ptop from $10 and an international bank wire from $100. The minimum first deposit on a Standard account is $100. Withdrawals are paid only to a method in your own name, never to a third party.
Support is in Arabic, Kurdish and English, and the platform clock is UTC+3, which is Iraqi time with no daylight saving - so a candle stamped 15:00 opened at 15:00 where you are. MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 run on our London servers at Equinix LD4. Orders are passed through to liquidity providers.
Across forex, metals, indices, energy and crypto CFDs there are more than a thousand instruments, all on USD-denominated accounts.
Our leverage is a ladder, not a headline
The number you will see advertised is 1:3000, and it is real, but it is the top step of a scale tied to your equity on the Turbo account and it applies only while that equity is under $1,000. As the account grows the leverage steps down automatically. Gold never reaches 1:3000; it tops out at 1:1000 and only on the bottom step.
| Equity on the account | Forex | Gold |
|---|---|---|
| $10 - $999 | 1:3000 | 1:1000 |
| $1,000 - $2,999 | 1:2000 | 1:500 |
| $3,000 - $4,999 | 1:1000 | 1:500 |
| $5,000 - $49,999 | 1:500 | 1:300 |
| $50,000 - $99,999 | 1:300 | 1:200 |
| $100,000 and above | 1:100 | 1:100 |
Swap-free, and the account types we actually have
Swap-free at TNFX is granted on request, per individual account, by moving that account into a swap-free group. It is not a property of an account tier and it is not switched on by default. It is available on any of the five client account types, and on an account that has it no overnight financing is charged and none is earned. No time-based administration fee replaces the swap. The useful thing to do is confirm it is live on your account number before you hold a position over the daily close.
There are five client account types: Standard ($100 minimum first deposit, up to 1:500), Cent ($100, up to 1:500, micro lots), Turbo ($100, the ladder above), Zero ($500, raw spreads plus a per-lot commission, up to 1:500) and VIP ($100,000, up to 1:100). There is no Fix, Pro or ECN account here - ECN is a legacy platform group, not a product, and accounts in it cannot be made swap-free.
The deposit bonus is 50% on the first $1,000 and 20% above that, capped at $10,000 over the life of the account, on Standard accounts only. There is no no-deposit bonus.
Common questions
Is TNFX regulated like Exness?
By the same regulator, on the entity we could verify. TNFX Ltd holds Securities Dealer licence SD133 from the Financial Services Authority of Seychelles. Exness's own partner site lists Exness (SC) Ltd on SD025 from the same authority. That same footer also lists entities in the BVI, Mauritius, Curacao, South Africa, Kenya and Belize; we list one. There may be further Exness entities we never saw, because exness.com itself refuses our requests - so read their own site for the full list and confirm which entity your account would sit under. On our side there is nothing further to find: SD133 is the only licence TNFX holds.
What is Exness's maximum leverage?
We are not going to tell you, because we could not read it on their site - exness.com returned HTTP 403 to every request we made on 3 October 2026. Any figure matters only alongside the entity it belongs to, and that pairing is exactly what gets lost when a third party repeats it. Read it on exness.com.
Does Exness accept ZainCash or Qi Card?
We do not know and we are not going to assert it either way. We could not reach their funding pages. What we can tell you is our own list: ZainCash, Qi Card and local bank transfer, plus an Ovadot wallet from $5, card from $10, USDT from $10, Payeer from $10, Ptop from $10 and an international wire from $100.
Which is better for a trader in Baghdad or Erbil?
If local funding, Arabic or Kurdish support and a UTC+3 platform clock are what decides it, we are the closer fit. If you want the option of being onboarded under a regulator other than the Seychelles FSA, Exness publishes several and we publish none. Those are different questions and they have different answers.
Is 1:3000 leverage available on gold?
No. Gold tops out at 1:1000 on the Turbo account, and only while equity is under $1,000. Any source telling you 1:3000 on gold is wrong. Forex reaches 1:3000 on that same bottom step and steps down as equity grows.
Is my TNFX account swap-free automatically?
No. It is granted on request, per account, by moving that account into a swap-free group, and it is available on any of the five account types. On an account that has it, nothing is charged overnight and nothing is earned. On an ordinary account swap is charged normally. Confirm it is live on your account number before holding overnight.
Should I just pick the bigger broker?
Often, yes, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Size buys you more entities, more instruments and more offices. What it does not buy you, on the entity whose licence we verified, is a stronger regulator than ours - and it does not buy you a ZainCash deposit.