CySEC is not at all like ASIC or FCA.
From the broker perspective, CySEC is a low-regulation, low-customer-protection back door into being able to claim that you’re “EU regulated”.
In Europe, the best regulated countries are the UK and Switzerland. In the European Union, the “safe”/“good” countries are everywhere but Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta.
Brokers choose where to be regulated. The reason so many choose Cyprus is to protect themselves, not their customers.
You should do so.
It’s a good plan to open an account with any FCA-regulated one and make sure that your account is FCA-regulated.
You don’t need to be British or to live in the UK, to be protected by that.
And you don’t need to be British or to live in the UK, to use the UK’s financial ombudsman service, if you ever need to.
There are many people in forums, including unfortunately in this one, who will tell you the exact opposite. These are not malicious people: they’re just ill-informed. All of them.
You can very quickly and easily verify what I’m telling you for yourself, by checking out the appropriate websites for yourself.
Spot forex brokers choose where to be regulated. Most regulators are fake ones, paid for by the subscription-fees of the brokers they pretend to regulate; they never rule against their paymasters in the event of arguments. Real regulators (FCA, ASIC, CFTC) are independent and funded by governments, were set up in response to public demand for customer protection, and can often help you if you need it.
The overall situation is bad, for customers. And made worse by people offering really harmful advice in forums on how to “trade overseas to avoid regulators”. This issue is one of the most widely misunderstood subject in forex-trading, and especially in this forum. It’s a shame, but the anti-regulation brigade will never learn the lessons of history, probably mostly because (although they don’t look at it in these terms and would never admit this) they’d actually prefer to “be right and be victims” than to make any concessions that would actually improve their lot and the position for future generations of customers.