transition metal. 3d electrons in transition metals have a much weaker spin-orbit interaction compared to the Rare Earths, and they interact more strongly with the crystal field which makes their orbital moments smaller so that their magnetism is dominated by the exchange interaction. In Transition MetalMetalloid (TM-M) alloys, the Metalloid (Si, B, P..) is introduced to amorphisize the TM structure. The exchange interaction is believed to still dominate in these compounds [2]. Their ferromagnetic correlation length is longer than in the RE-TM alloys, which also implies that their spatial spinspin correlation function decays more slowly. These materials have a quasi long range magnetic order and, also due to the dominant exchange interaction, they behave as very soft ferromagnets, i.e., their coercivity and anisotropy energy are very small. The TM-M alloys prepared in the form of thin films usually have a well defined easy axis that can not come about from the pure exchange interaction which is isotropic. The anisotropy of the films should come from either the spinorbit interaction, responsible of the magneto-crystalline anisotropy at each site, or from magnetic dipolar interactions [2]. The last one can be originated at an atomic level due to structural anisotropies, or on a microscopic scale, due to defects and inhomogeneities. Identifying the factors that cause the anisotropy in these films is important from a practical point of view because it allows the control of their magnetic characteristics.Abstract-The origin of the magnetic anisotropy in a very disordered Fe-Si alloy has been investigated. The alloy containing 40% at. Si was prepared in the form of a thin film in a DC magnetron sputtering chamber. Structural disorder was obtained from Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure spectroscopy. The uniformity and lack of inhomogeneities at a microscopic level was checked by measuring their transverse magnetic susceptibility and hysteresis loops. The orbital component of the magnetic moment was measured by X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism spectroscopy. The orbital moment was extraordinary high, 0.4µ B . Such a high value contrasted with the relatively small uniaxial anisotropy energy of the thin film (2kJ/m 3 ). This suggests that the cause of the magnetic anisotropy in this alloy was a small degree of correlation in the orientation of the local orbital moments along a preferential direction.