Press Releases

July 1, 2026 – Financial literacy is falling behind financial access. In 2026, that gap became measurable for the first time. The TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index is the longest-running measure of its kind. This year, American adults answered only 47 percent of their questions correctly. That is the lowest score in a decade. The OECD tested adults across 39 economies. Only 29 percent met the basic standard for digital financial literacy. India's securities regulator looked at derivatives traders. It found that 91 percent of them lost money in fiscal year 2024-25.

Regulus Liquidity sits inside that shift. It is a multi-asset trading platform and institutional liquidity provider. The Financial Services Commission of Mauritius regulates the firm. The gap shapes how every trader approaches risk.

A Widening Gap Between Market Access and Market Understanding

Retail participation has never been higher. This holds true across forex, CFDs, and equities. Retail investors added an estimated 308 billion dollars in net U.S. equity inflows in 2025. India's National Stock Exchange counted close to 119 million registered investors by August 2025. That is roughly four times the number before the pandemic. This growth happens mostly on phones. Traders open and fund new accounts within minutes. That speed leaves little room for the education that once came first. Regulus Liquidity's account structure spans entry-level to institutional tiers. The platform sits inside this shift. Here, sign-up speed and trader knowledge keep growing further apart.

AI-Driven Markets Demand Smarter Decisions

Artificial intelligence moved from an institutional tool to a retail feature in about two years. At the same time, markets grew harder to read.

• A March 2026 survey polled 938 U.S. adult investors. It found that 62 percent now use AI tools in some form. Nearly two in five worry about wrong or misleading AI recommendations.
• Use of AI tools is closely linked to past financial literacy. The traders best able to question an AI trade idea are often the same traders most ready to use one.
• A tariff shock in April 2025 wiped 6.6 trillion dollars off global market value in two days. The VIX later spiked to 52.33. More surges followed through 2026.

Leveraged products punish exactly these knowledge gaps during volatile moves. Regulus Liquidity responds by publishing its raw-account pricing. Spreads start from 0.0 pips. The firm lists its commission separately. Traders need to see costs clearly during sharp price moves, not only when markets stay calm.

The Cost of Unregulated Advice

Social media has become a top source for new investors. Many form their first impressions of markets there. The data on what that advice delivers is sobering.

A 2026 FINRA study tested investors who get their information from social media. They scored 42 percent correct on a fact-based investing test. Yet 63 percent rated their own knowledge as very good. Fraudsters also target these investors more often. Among people targeted for fraud, social media users and influencer followers were more than twice as likely to lose money as non-users targeted the same way.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded 20.9 billion dollars in total fraud losses in 2025. Investment fraud was the costliest category for the fourth year running. The FTC found that investment scams on social media cost Americans 1.1 billion dollars in 2025.

The CFA Institute studied finance influencers who give investment tips. Only 20 percent of that content discloses any conflict of interest. In India, the Institute found that just 2 percent of these influencers were registered with the securities regulator. Still, a third of them gave clear stock recommendations.

That contrast matters. On one side sit licensed, disclosed platforms such as Regulus Liquidity. On the other side sits an unregulated channel with little accountability. Regulators now want that difference visible to retail traders.

Regulators worldwide are responding to this same evidence:

• In January 2026, Australia's ASIC reported that 68 percent of CFD retail investors lost money in FY2024. More than half of the issuers it examined had used hidden structures to dodge leverage rules.
• India's SEBI now requires a risk-disclosure banner in every broker's login window. It states that nine in ten individual derivatives traders lose money. SEBI also requires education modules for new traders.
• The crackdown on unlicensed financial influencers is spreading fast. Nine regulators acted against them in mid-2025. By April 2026, that grew to seventeen regulators across thirteen jurisdictions, including the FCA, ASIC, and SEBI. The FCA's April 2026 enforcement effort alone flagged more than 1,200 unauthorized financial ads.

Regulation Alone Will Not Close the Gap

Research from the OECD and IOSCO challenges one common idea. It says disclosure alone can fix this problem. But more complex information does not always help retail investors decide well. It can even make their choices worse when they lack the knowledge to read what they're shown.

That finding matters for trading platforms and liquidity providers. Transparency and education need to work side by side. Neither one can replace the other.

Regulus Liquidity's approach reflects that pairing. Their platform combines its published account terms with an education tab for newer traders. It does not rely on disclosure alone.

Technology, Liquidity, and Education – Together

The pattern across this research stays consistent. Limits on leverage and marketing have not moved loss rates. India's derivatives loss rate has stayed near 90 percent across two straight years of tighter rules. Australia's CFD loss rate stays just as high, despite a mature set of product rules.

That pattern, seen across two different regulatory approaches, tells liquidity providers and multi-asset platforms something important. Pricing transparency, execution quality, and investor education work as one system. They are not three separate checkboxes.

Regulus Liquidity works as both a multi-asset trading platform and an institutional liquidity provider. That gives it a role in many parts of this system. It touches the raw pricing a trader sees. It also touches the liquidity relationships behind order execution in volatile markets.

A Market That Rewards Clarity Over Access

The direction is the same in every market this research covers. Regulators now treat financial-literacy gaps as a risk to the whole market. They no longer treat it as a problem to fix after the fact, one trader at a time.

For trading platforms, brokers, and liquidity providers, this changes what education means. It is no longer just a marketing necessity. It is now a basic part of how markets work, right alongside pricing transparency and execution quality.

Regulus Liquidity continues to operate under Financial Services Commission of Mauritius oversight. Its published account terms and its Regulus Academy platform are one answer to this shift. Across the industry, closing the gap between market access and market understanding now sits at the heart of how trading platforms earn client trust.

About Regulus Liquidity

Regulus Liquidity is a multi-asset broker and institutional liquidity provider. The Financial Services Commission of Mauritius registers the firm under license number GB23202202. Regulus Liquidity provides trading with more than 1,200 trading instruments, including Forex, Indices, Commodities, among others. The maximum leverage is up to 1:1000. Spreads begin at 0.0 pips for the raw price accounts.

For more information,

Mail: media@regulus.org 
Website: https://regulus.org/

Sources:

• TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index - 2026 financial literacy score
• OECD - 39-economy digital financial literacy study
• India's securities market regulator (SEBI) - derivatives trader loss data, FY2024-25
• India's National Stock Exchange (NSE) - registered investor count, August 2025
• 2025 U.S. retail equity flow data
• March 2026 investor survey on AI tool adoption (938 U.S. adults)
• Market data on the April 2025 tariff shock and VIX levels
• FINRA - 2026 study on social-media-informed investors
• FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) - 2025 fraud loss report
• FTC - 2025 social media investment scam data
• CFA Institute - influencer disclosure research (global and India-specific)
• Australia's ASIC - CFD retail investor loss data, FY2024
• India's SEBI - risk-disclosure banner mandate
• FCA, ASIC, SEBI, and other regulators - 2025–2026 enforcement data on unlicensed financial influencers