Background
Priya Natarajan covers risk and compliance for Broker Tested Reviews. She holds the Financial Risk Manager designation (GARP, Parts I & II, 2019), the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation (Levels I-II, 2021), and an MSc in Quantitative Finance from Imperial College London (2018). Before joining BTR in early 2026, Priya spent five years on Morgan Stanley London's market-risk team building VaR models for FX prime brokerage, then three years as VP of Risk at a Singapore-regulated crypto derivatives exchange where she sat on the protocol's liquidation-engine working group.
Priya's reviews are focused on what could go wrong - the side of every broker and bot that marketing copy never volunteers. Where a vendor publishes a drawdown number, she models the same strategy through the 2018 Vol-mageddon, the March 2020 liquidity gap, the May 2022 LUNA collapse, and the November 2022 FTX week, and reports the realized max drawdown against the vendor's advertised number. Where a vendor claims regulatory cover, Priya pulls the primary register and verifies status line by line.
Credentials
- Financial Risk Manager (FRM) — GARP, Parts I & II, 2019. Specialization: market risk and operational risk.
- Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) — CAIA Association, Levels I-II, 2021.
- MSc Quantitative Finance — Imperial College London, 2018.
- Five years Morgan Stanley London — Market-risk team building VaR models for FX prime brokerage (2018-2023).
- Three years VP of Risk — Singapore-regulated crypto derivatives exchange; liquidation-engine working group member (2023-2026).
Risk review approach
Priya's review process has four stages. First, the regulatory line-by-line: every claim about FCA, ASIC, CySEC, NFA, ESMA, or MAS status is mapped to an entry on the official register, with the license number, status (active / suspended / revoked), and last-verified date in the review.
Second, the drawdown stress test: the strategy under review is modeled across the four reference tail-risk events (2018 Vol-mageddon, March 2020, May 2022 LUNA, November 2022 FTX week). Realized max drawdown is reported against the vendor's advertised drawdown and any divergence is flagged in the review's "Tail-risk realism" section.
Third, the leverage-and-margin audit: Priya reads the contractual margin terms and demonstrates the actual liquidation cascade with example positions sized to the user's likely capital. Fourth, the withdrawal-flow test: three escalating-size test withdrawals ($1,000 / $5,000 / $25,000) end-to-end, with delay, friction, and any KYC re-asks logged. The Testing Methodology page documents the protocol.
Editorial role
As risk + compliance lead, Priya is the named reviewer on every risk-warning section, every regulatory-claim section, every leverage analysis, and every offshore-broker review on this site. She signs off on every regulatory citation, verifies every license number against a primary register, and flags any review whose drawdown claim isn't backed by a stress-test reproduction in our "Tail-risk realism" framework.
Areas of focus
Priya's strongest topical coverage areas are:
- Regulatory due diligence — FCA, ASIC, CySEC, NFA, CFTC, ESMA, MAS register verification.
- Drawdown modeling — Strategy stress-testing across 2018, March 2020, LUNA, FTX week.
- Leverage and margin terms — Contractual liquidation cascades, example positions sized to retail capital.
- Withdrawal flow — End-to-end test withdrawals with delay and friction logging.
- Offshore-broker due diligence — Beyond-EU jurisdictions, regulatory cover claims, fund-safety reality.
Priya does not personally cover strategy-code review (Marcus Chen owns algorithmic-strategy review), market narrative commentary (Daniel O'Brien owns the markets beat), or broker UX (Alex Rivera leads broker reviews). Where her risk review touches one of those areas, the named specialist signs off on that section.
Conflicts of interest
Priya does not hold equity or compensation arrangements with any broker or exchange reviewed on this site, beyond the firm-level affiliate partnerships disclosed in our Editorial Policy. She trades only her personal UK ISA in broad-market index funds.
How to contact Priya
For factual corrections, story tips, or methodology questions, email contact@brokertestedreviews.com. We do not publish Priya's personal contact channels — this is intentional and consistent with how most independent finance publications operate.