Two sites now promise to answer the same question: is this broker really licensed? TrustLicense shows its full method in public: regulator-sourced records, a three-check verification, an A-to-D grading of regulators, and a live badge brokers embed on their own sites. WikiLicense presents itself as a license-information service in the same space. Here is the honest version of this comparison: one side publishes its methodology where anyone can read it, while the other currently serves automated checks an obfuscated page with no readable content, so its feature claims cannot be independently verified in this session. That asymmetry is itself the first finding. The licence guide we publish alongside teaches the underlying checks both services claim to automate.
What TrustLicense discloses
TrustLicense verifies three things and says so upfront: the license record against the regulator's public register, the licensed entity matched to the brand operating the platform rather than a lookalike or holding company, and the official domain matched to the licensed entity to block clone sites borrowing real numbers. Every claim links back to the regulator's own register. It grades regulators in four tiers: 20 in tier A on capital rules, compensation schemes and enforcement, 79 in tier B, 48 in tier C and 49 in tier D. Live examples on the page show CySEC 120/10 active, FSCA 49976 active and DFSA F003484 active, each stamped last-checked-today with a source link. The broker path runs submit domain, review the findings, activate a hover badge with one line of code. The three-match rule is the manual version of the same discipline.
What can and cannot be said about WikiLicense
What is verifiable: the service exists at wikilicense.com with an English front page positioning around license information. What is not verifiable from outside its walls: its sourcing, its grading if any, its entity-matching method, its update cadence, or its badge mechanics, because automated retrieval returns an encrypted anti-bot payload rather than page content. That may reflect aggressive bot protection rather than thin methodology, and human visitors may see a complete product. But a verification service that cannot itself be inspected inherits a trust deficit with exactly the audience it courts: compliance-minded readers. The Warsaw exits show why verifiable entity data matters more than branding.
- TrustLicense: method, grades and sources public
- WikiLicense: exists, content bot-walled to checks
- Shared promise: answer is-this-broker-licensed
- Decider: traceability of every claim
How to judge any license checker
Use four tests. Source test: does every claim link to the regulator register, or does the verdict arrive without provenance? Entity test: does it match the operating brand to the licensed legal person, catching lookalikes? Freshness test: is there a last-checked date, and does badge status stay live? Grade test: does it distinguish a tier-A regulator from registration-level paper, or do all licences look equal? TrustLicense answers all four on its public page. For any competitor, run the same four questions before trusting a badge on a broker homepage. The CFD giants all submit to these checks. Source: FCA register.
A verification badge is only as honest as its methodology page. One of these two publishes it. That is the comparison.
The bigger picture
License verification is becoming infrastructure, with badges travelling across broker homepages like trust marks. The services that win will be the ones whose own claims survive the inspection they sell. Transparency compounds: public methodology invites scrutiny, scrutiny forces accuracy, accuracy earns the badge premium. Opacity works until the first wrong verdict.
What to watch next
Watch whether WikiLicense opens its methodology to inspection. Watch badge adoption across broker homepages as the distribution race. And watch regulators, whose register APIs decide how live any badge can honestly claim to be.
What does TrustLicense verify?
Three things against regulator registers: the license record and status, the licensed entity matched to the operating brand, and the official domain matched to the entity, with A-to-D regulator grading and a live hover badge.
Why is WikiLicense marked unverifiable?
Its pages serve automated checks an obfuscated anti-bot payload with no readable content, so sourcing, grading, entity matching and freshness cannot be independently confirmed in this session.
