What is Deriv? A Deriv review: legal entities, products, accounts and payments

Deriv is the brand of the Deriv group which, according to its own about page, has operated since 1999 and now has more than 3 million users. The biggest difference from the brokers IBFX has reviewed so far is that Deriv does not only sell CFDs: half of what it offers is a set of Derived Indices that trade through the weekend, and Options contracts that pay out a predetermined amount.

This review was written from the deriv.com website as read on Sep 24, 2026. The questions are the same ones every IBFX broker review asks: which company signs the agreement with you, who licenses that company, what the products actually are, and what rights the agreement gives the broker.

How to choose a safe Forex broker

Quick summary (Sep 24, 2026):

• The Deriv group has 7 operating entities. Five hold a license: in the BVI, Vanuatu, Labuan, Mauritius and the Cayman Islands. Two — Deriv (SVG) LLC in St Vincent and Deriv Capital International Ltd in Samoa — show only a company registration number, and the regulatory page lists no brokerage license for either.
• Deriv MT5 has 5 account types: Standard (spread from 0.1 pips), Financial (0.2), Swap-Free (0.3), Zero Spread (0 pips but with commission) and Gold (precious metals). None of them has a minimum deposit.
• Maximum effective leverage is 1:1000 on the major pairs, but it changes symbol by symbol: the specifications table gives AUDSGD only 1:200.
• Deriv states it has zero-balance protection: per its CFDs page, you cannot lose more than you deposit.
• Payments run through 8 groups of methods, including Deriv P2P for local-currency transfers. Which methods you see depends on where you live, so the public table may differ from the one inside your account.
• Vietnam appears in the country list on the signup form. Trading Forex through an offshore broker is not protected by law in Vietnam.

Deriv’s entities and licenses

This is the part to read first, because it decides how far you are protected. From the Regulatory information page as read on Sep 24, 2026:

Three things follow from that table.

One, two entities hold no brokerage license. St Vincent and the Grenadines does not license Forex brokerage at all, so Deriv (SVG) LLC is simply a registered company. It is the same situation as HF Markets (SV) Ltd in the HFM review. If your account sits with either of those two companies, there is no regulator to complain to beyond the broker itself.

Two, one company’s license does not protect an account held at another. This is the most common misreading of any brokerage group’s marketing: the home page lists a row of licenses, but your account belongs to exactly one entity.

Three, IBFX has not verified which entity signs with clients in Vietnam. Finding out means registering an account to read the agreement, and this review was written without opening one. So: when you sign up, read the company name in the client agreement and check it against the table above. It takes two minutes and tells you exactly where you stand.

Deriv also states that it is a member of the Financial Commission, an independent body that handles disputes in the financial services industry. That is not a state regulator; it is one extra route to mediation.

What Deriv sells

Deriv splits its products in two, and the difference between them is bigger than the names suggest.

CFDs

The same as at other Forex brokers: you trade the price difference on currencies, shares, stock indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies and ETFs. The CFDs page says trading is commission-free on every asset (the Zero Spread account aside), and that there is zero-balance protection, which Deriv describes as making sure you never lose more than you deposit — in other words, negative balance protection.

Options

This is the product group most Forex brokers do not have. Rather than trading a price difference, you place a contract on a prediction, with the profit and the loss both known before you place it. The Options page as read on Sep 24, 2026 lists more than 70 assets and five contract types:

• Digital Options: a correct prediction pays a fixed return.
• Accumulators: profit compounds by up to 5% per tick while the price stays inside a range.
• Vanillas: contracts with a fixed expiry.
• Turbos: you earn a return as long as the price does not cross the barrier you set.
• Multipliers: profit and loss multiplied by up to 4,000 times.

The entry cost is very small: from 1 USD per contract, with only 5 USD needed in the account.

One thing has to be said plainly about this group. A contract that pays a fixed return on a right-or-wrong prediction, placed over seconds or minutes, for 1 USD, is exactly the kind of product that invites trading on impulse and trading far too often. A maximum loss equal to your stake does not make the risk small: place 100 trades of 1 USD in an afternoon and the maximum loss is 100 USD, not 1 USD. If you are new to the market, a trading journal and a cap on trades per day matter more than any strategy.

Derived Indices

Deriv calls these its “exclusive markets”, and the Derived indices page splits them three ways:

• Synthetic Indices: fully simulated markets, running 24/7 including weekends, with prices that move independently of real news.
• Basket Indices: trade one currency, or gold, against a basket of five major currencies in a single position.
• Tactical Indices: indices that follow a pre-built strategy and adjust themselves to market signals.

Synthetic Indices are the most misunderstood product on this site. These are not real markets. The prices are generated by Deriv’s own software, not by supply and demand between real buyers and sellers. That has two consequences: fundamental analysis is useless here, because no news affects anything, and you are trading a price series created by your own counterparty. Being open 24/7 sounds convenient, but it also means no closing bell ever forces you to stop.

Trading platforms

See how to use MT4 if MetaTrader is new to you, and how to use TradingView for the charting platform.

Accounts, fees and leverage

The five Deriv MT5 account types, from the Deriv MT5 page as read on Sep 24, 2026:

Deriv account types goes further into choosing between them.

No minimum deposit is a real difference from Tickmill (100 USD) or any broker with a floor. But a small deposit does not make the risk small: with 50 USD and 1:1000 leverage, one slightly oversized trade leaves nothing. See leverage and how much to use.

Leverage varies by symbol; it is not a single number. The Trading specifications table as read on Sep 24, 2026 lists 82 Forex symbols, and the “max effective leverage” column shows 1:1000 for majors such as AUDUSD, AUDCAD and AUDJPY — but AUDSGD gets only 1:200, at a 0.50% margin rate instead of 0.10%. So do not treat the advertised 1:1000 as applying to everything; look up the symbol you actually intend to trade.

A few other figures from that table:

• Forex has micro symbols too: AUDCAD has a contract size of 100,000 units, while AUDCADmicro is 1,000 units. That is how you genuinely trade small, rather than running high leverage on a small account.
• The minimum spread on AUDUSD is 0.00011, about 1.1 pips in ideal conditions. Deriv states plainly that this is the level “achieved in optimal market conditions”, not what you get all the time.
• Forex trading hours: Sunday 21:10 to Friday 20:55 GMT, with a short daily break.

At the foot of the specifications table Deriv adds a line worth noting: the figures are based on recent trading data and may not reflect current conditions; conditions can vary by location, by entity and by individual trading circumstances. In other words, that table is a reference, not a commitment.

Deposits and withdrawals

The Payment methods page as read on Sep 24, 2026 splits methods into 8 groups: Deriv P2P, credit and debit cards, mobile payments, vouchers, e-wallets, cryptocurrencies, crypto on-ramp and off-ramp gateways, and online banking.

The important point: which methods you see depends on where you live. The public table is a global one and includes gateways that only work in parts of Africa or South America. So this review gives no country-specific table — the right figures are the ones inside your own account. Details in Deriv deposits and withdrawals.

Strengths

• No minimum deposit on any of the five MT5 account types, and Options from 1 USD a contract.
• Micro symbols with a 1,000-unit contract size, so you can trade small without raising leverage.
• Zero-balance protection: per the CFDs page, losses do not exceed what you deposited.
• Five licensed entities across five jurisdictions — more than most brokers in its bracket.
• A wide platform range, including order entry inside TradingView and a drag-and-drop bot builder.
• Deriv P2P allows local-currency funding without an international card.
• The group has operated since 1999, longer than most brokers on the market.

What to know before you deposit

• Two entities hold no brokerage license, and this review has not verified which entity takes clients from Vietnam. Read the agreement when you sign up.
• Synthetic Indices are simulated markets with prices generated by Deriv. Fundamental analysis does not apply, and being open 24/7 makes overtrading very easy for a beginner.
• The Options group pays a fixed return on a right-or-wrong prediction. The stake per trade is small; the total loss over an afternoon is not.
• 1:1000 leverage applies to some symbols only. Look up the symbol before sizing a position.
• Available payment methods and their fees depend on your country, so check inside your account.
• Deriv’s website states that the English version is the definitive one and that translations may be automated. For the terms and the agreement, read the English.
• In Vietnam, offshore Forex brokers are unlicensed. See is Forex trading legal in Vietnam.

Is Deriv right for you

If you want a broker to trade Forex in the ordinary way, the CFD half of Deriv does that, with micro symbols and no minimum deposit — which suits someone who wants to practise with real money but very little of it.

If what draws you is Synthetic Indices running 24/7 or 1 USD Options contracts, pause a little longer. Both let you trade continuously, with no closing bell and no analysis required to press the button. That is the environment in which someone without trading discipline loses money fastest — not because of the broker, but because of the number of clicks.

The safest way in is the same order as always: open a demo account first, run a full month on one written-down system, and only then move to real money at the smallest size the broker allows. If you have weighed all of that up and want to try, you can sign up with Deriv here and open a demo account before depositing anything.