The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) said many brokerage firms in the city’s financial center are not keeping pace with the rules on staff trading. The conclusion follows a review of how those firms police their employees’ personal dealing.
In its first Conduct Supervisory Pulse, published today (Monday), the regulator said some firms lacked basic policies, registers and monitoring for personal account dealing, even as the sector’s headcount and profits climbed.
The Pulse covers the opening phase of a wider 2026 review into how brokers oversee their trading environment. Personal account dealing came first, with best execution and communications record-keeping due in later phases.
A Sector Outgrowing Its Controls
The review landed against a fast-growing backdrop. The number of authorized brokerage firms in the Dubai International Financial Centre rose to 72 in March 2026 from 49 in 2022, an increase of 68%, while staff numbers nearly doubled over the same period.
The boom has stretched the regulator, which sped up its licensing process last year after applications jumped 18% in the first nine months of 2025.
Profits moved in the same direction. Combined net profit at DIFC brokerage firms climbed to $301 million in 2025 from $80 million in 2023, according to the regulator, a rise of 276%.
Gaps in Policies and Records
The harder numbers came from an industry-wide survey the Dubai Financial Services Authority ran as part of an earlier conflicts-of-interest review.
It found that 18% of firms had no documented personal-account-dealing policies, while 32% kept no register of staff trades in any form, manual or electronic.
A further 59% said approval or notification rules applied only to certain types of transaction, pointing to wide variation in how firms handle the issue.
The regulator also said its own checks had turned up differences between what some firms reported about employee trades and what independent enquiries found. In one case, a firm logged no policy breaches when breaches had in fact occurred.
Poorly designed or ineffective controls, the DFSA said, “are a sign of weak culture, governance, and oversight.”
Dubai’s Pull on Global Brokers
The conduct push comes as Dubai cements its place as a licensing hub for retail trading firms. Pepperstone secured a DFSA license for its DIFC subsidiary after a multi-year application process, joining a steady stream of brokers setting up in the emirate.
Others have come through the DFSA or the separate Securities and Commodities Authority, including XM, Plus500, XTB and RoboMarkets, drawn by the region’s high-value traders and its position between European and Asian trading hours.
ThinkMarkets won DFSA approval to onboard UAE clients, part of a wave the regulator has tried to manage by automating parts of its authorization workflow. The Pulse signals that supervision is now catching up with that intake.
Personal account dealing is well-trodden ground for the kind of conduct regulator Dubai is starting to resemble.
The approach echoes the FCA in London, where staff-dealing and surveillance rules have long underpinned market-abuse enforcement, and the DFSA is now led by Mark Steward, the former FCA enforcement chief who took over as chief executive in May.
What Comes Next
The DFSA framed personal account dealing as one piece of broader market-conduct risk, and warned that firms failing to manage it could face regulatory action.
It pointed to over-reliance on employee declarations, thin post-trade monitoring and weak record-keeping as the most common shortfalls.
Best execution, the focus of a later phase, has driven enforcement at peer regulators before, including a FINRA fine against Deutsche Bank Securities over order-routing practices. Communications and record-keeping will round out the review.
As the sector grows, the DFSA said, firms should keep their controls aligned to the size and complexity of their business, and may later be asked to show how they have responded.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.AnalysisRead More
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