SEC Thailand — Check Licensed Advisers and Investment-Scam Warnings
Thailand’s capital-market regulator — where you can confirm that whoever is pitching an investment holds a licence, and read the public warnings about those who do not.
www.sec.or.th
What you can do
-
Check the licence before you transfer
The SEC publishes a register of licensed firms and licensed individuals, so anyone can check for themselves whether the person pitching an investment is actually in the system.
-
Public investor alerts
When an operator offers investments without a licence, the regulator names it publicly — a warning meant to arrive before the money does.
-
Supervision of market intermediaries
Securities companies, asset managers, investment advisers and digital-asset operators must hold a licence and follow the conduct rules that come with it.
-
Disclosure from companies that raise public money
Companies that sell securities to the public must file financial statements and material information on a fixed schedule, so a retail investor reads the same record a professional does.
-
Digital assets are in scope
Digital-asset exchanges, brokers and dealers serving Thai customers must be licensed, which makes an unlicensed crypto platform a warning sign in itself.
-
Material written for ordinary investors
The regulator publishes plain-language explanations of investment products, the risks attached to them, and how to recognise a scam.
What the SEC of Thailand is
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand — ก.ล.ต. in everyday Thai — is the state body that regulates the country’s capital market. Its central job is to license and supervise everyone who stands between the public and the public’s invested money: securities companies, mutual-fund managers, investment advisers and digital-asset businesses.
Beyond licensing, the SEC requires companies that raise money from the public to disclose information completely and on time, so that a retail investor decides on the same record an institution sees. Where conduct appears to break the law, the regulator can act against those responsible — and can publish what it finds, so the public is warned.
The two things ordinary people actually need from it
The first is the licence check. The SEC keeps the register of approved firms and approved individuals open to the public, which reduces the question you must answer before any transfer to one line: is the person or company pitching this actually on that list, and does what they hold cover what they are selling?
The second is the investor alert. When the regulator identifies someone offering investments or services without a licence, it publishes the name for anyone to check. That list is at its most valuable in the short window before a person decides to transfer — the only moment at which a warning can still change the outcome.
Who regulates what
| Body | Responsible for | What that touches in daily life |
|---|---|---|
| SEC Thailand | The capital market and investment businesses | Shares, mutual funds, bonds, investment advisers, digital assets |
| Stock Exchange of Thailand | Running the trading venue and listed-company information | The trading system, prices and listed-company news |
| Bank of Thailand | Commercial banks and the payment system | Deposit accounts, lending, PromptPay, e-wallets |
| Office of Insurance Commission | Insurance business and insurance intermediaries | Life and non-life policies, agents and brokers |
| The police and the DSI | Criminal fraud and mass-victim deception cases | Filing reports, freezing accounts, prosecuting offenders |
The shapes investment fraud takes in Thailand
Most investment fraud here does not begin with an advertisement. It begins with a message on social media or a chat app, and some approaches spend weeks building a personal relationship before money is ever mentioned — by which point the victim no longer feels they are dealing with a stranger, and the standard advice about not trusting strangers has quietly stopped applying.
- An approach through social media or a chat app: ordinary conversation, or romance, followed by a story about how well their own investments are doing.
- A guaranteed high return in a short time, with an assurance that there is no risk — a claim no lawful investment product is permitted to make.
- An app or website to install where the balance rises every day, though the numbers on the screen are simply written by the fraudster.
- Payment directed to a personal bank account or a digital wallet whose name does not match the company being invoked.
- A small, genuine withdrawal early on, allowed purely to build the confidence needed for a much larger deposit.
- When a large withdrawal is requested, a tax, a fee or an unlocking charge always has to be paid first.
- The name of a real securities firm, a real executive or a real government body, borrowed for the occasion — often alongside a group chat full of people confirming their profits.
If you think you have been defrauded
Move first on the bank you sent the money from and ask for the transaction to be held or frozen — the odds of recovery fall sharply with every hour. Then file a police report so there is a case number to work from, and tell the SEC about anyone offering investments without a licence through the contact channel on its official site. Meanwhile keep everything: screenshots of the conversation, the destination account name and number, every transfer slip, the website or app link, and whatever name the other party used. That one set of evidence is what the bank, the police and the regulator will each ask you for.
Why a findable page pointing here has to exist
A warning nobody can find warns nobody. In our check on 27 August 2026 the site answered every request from our audit host with a 403 — as Googlebot and as an ordinary browser alike — so we cannot read its robots.txt to confirm what it permits. What is observable is that someone hesitating in front of their phone and typing in the name of the company courting them tends to reach the promoter’s own landing page well before the regulator’s warning about it. This page exists to be the findable signpost: it sets out what the official site holds, how to run the check so the answer means something, and then sends the reader straight to the source. ThaiGov.co is an independent directory, unaffiliated with the SEC; we take no complaints, no personal data and no money on anyone’s behalf.
How to use it
-
Write down every name before you search
Note the full name of the person contacting you, the full legal name of the company they claim to represent, the app or website name, and the link they sent. Scammers routinely pick names that differ from a real firm’s by a letter or two, so compare character by character rather than from memory.
-
Reach the official site by typing the address yourself
Do not tap the link they sent, and do not pick a paid result at the top of a search page. Type the SEC’s address yourself, then bookmark it for next time.
-
Search the licence register using legal names
Try the Thai and English spellings, and both the individual’s name and the company’s. Trading names used in advertising often differ from what is registered, so exhaust the variants before drawing a conclusion.
-
Confirm the licence covers what is being sold
Licences come in categories that cover different products; someone licensed for one may have no right to offer another. And a company holding a licence does not mean everyone invoking its name was authorised to contact you.
-
Read the investor alerts before deciding
Search the alert notices for the person, the company and the platform name. If any of them matches, stop the conversation there — and never send more money to “unlock” what you already sent.
-
If you find nothing, treat that as a fail
Finding nothing does not mean safe; it means there is no evidence of a licence. Ask the regulator directly through the contact channel on its official site, and send no money while you wait. Pressure to decide quickly is precisely what a fraudster is working for.
Go to the official site
You are leaving ThaiGov.co for the agency’s official website — www.sec.or.th
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the SEC and the Stock Exchange of Thailand?
The SEC is the regulator: it licenses, writes the rules and enforces the law across the capital market. The Stock Exchange of Thailand operates the trading venue itself, and is in turn supervised by the SEC. In short, one is the referee and the other is the pitch.
How do I know the person pitching an investment is really licensed?
Ask for their real full name and the registered name of the firm they work for, then look those up in the SEC’s register yourself — not through a link or screenshot they provide. Images of certificates and licence numbers are trivial to fake, so checking at the source is the only reliable method.
Does the SEC also regulate crypto and digital assets?
Yes. Digital-asset businesses serving customers in Thailand — exchanges, brokers and dealers — must be licensed and supervised. But a platform’s licence regulates the operator, not the coins on it; it is never an endorsement of any token, and digital-asset prices remain volatile enough to wipe out the capital you put in.
If a firm is licensed, does that mean my money is safe?
No. A licence means the operator must follow the rules, disclose information and submit to inspection — it does not guarantee returns or protect you from losses. Every investment carries risk, and the regulator does not recommend individual securities. Anyone claiming the SEC “guarantees” a return is telling you, in effect, that this is a scam.
I searched the site and found nothing. What now?
Search the registered name rather than the brand name, try both Thai and English, drop prefixes such as “Company” or “Limited”, and try a partial string — most registers match on the legal name. If it still returns nothing, or the page will not load, ask the regulator through the contact channel on its official site, and in the meantime treat the check as unpassed.
Someone claiming to be from the SEC offered to recover my money. Is that real?
Assume it is fraud. Second-round scams target people who have already lost money, borrowing a government agency’s name and offering recovery in exchange for a processing fee. A regulator does not charge the public to trace assets, does not ask for OTPs or passwords, and never asks for a transfer to a personal account. Hang up and call back through an official channel you found yourself.
I have already been defrauded — can the SEC get my money back?
The SEC regulates and enforces against operators; it is not a compensation fund and does not chase individual losses. Recovering money runs through the banks and the criminal process, so contact the receiving bank to freeze the transaction as fast as possible and file a police report. Reporting to the SEC still matters — it feeds the public alerts and any action taken against the operator.