In this article, WikiFX will share some tips on protecting your monies starting with choosing the right broker. These are crucial and useful points to bear in mind because most of the time, we need to have our trading accounts with an overseas forex broker. In such situation, all you could do is to pay extra care in choosing the right broker with the available information on the internet.
There are a few regulatory bodies that impose strict regulations on the safety of traders funds on forex brokers, namely:
· United States: National Futures Association (NFA) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CETC)
· United Kingdom: The United Kingdom Financial Services Authority (FSA)
· Australia: Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
· Switzerland: Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC)
· Germany: German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFIN)
· France: French Financial Markets Authority (AMF)
Therefore, WikiFX highly encourages traders to engage with a broker that is under the regulation of one of these authority bodies.
1. The forex broker is being regulated by one of the authorities above. This increases the level of security and assurance of your trading accounts.
2. Customer funds should be kept separated from a forex broker‘s company account(s). In this way, the broker company has no access to the traders’ funds whilst the traders will not be impacted should the broker company face financial issues. Therefore, if you come across a forex broker that tells you to transfer funds to an account outside of its website or trading platform, be aware of this red flag.
3. A forex broker should have insurance to protect itself and its clients. Therefore, in the worst case scenario, if the broker goes bankrupt, the insurance company will be responsible for compensating its trading clients.
4. Trading clients‘ complaints should be recorded systematically. This includes the conversation between the client and the broker’s customer service team.
5. The forex broker has a solid clauses on its contract that your trading funds can only be your personal bank remittance (as verified by the bank statements provided) and cannot be entrusted to a third party – for both deposits and withdrawals. Usually a regulated forex broker will not allow this because there are strict laws in place to prevent money laundering.
6. A forex broker should remit the funds directly to the traders account. For example, if a broker that is located in Dubai says that the funds will first be remitted to a bank in China before appearing onto your trading account, it is highly possible that this forex broker is dodgy in its business operations.
WikiFX is a global forex broker regulatory query platform, therefore anything related to forex broker – we are the experts!
Download the free WikiFX mobile application from Google Play/App Store, then click on “Regulators” as directed by the red arrow.
WikiFX holds verified information of over 35,000 forex brokers which is obtained through collaborating with 30 national regulators.
On this page, select the regulator of your choice, preferably a regulator that is within your own country of residence.
Example 1: Select the United Kingdom's FCA.
The next page presents a list of forex brokers under the regulation of the UK's FCA. If you are not sure which to choose, it is better to opt for a broker that has a high WikiFX Score – that means the broker is relatively reliable compared to its peers within the industry.
Example 2: Select Australia's ASIC.
This method is not only simple but it also ensures the increased security of your trading funds.
Another way to do this is by utilizing the search bar in the WikiFX mobile app, typically when you have a specific forex broker in mind.
We will be using the forex broker named “XM” in this example.
WikiFX clearly states the regulatory statutes and licenses for all forex brokers on our platform.
With just a few clicks and swipes, all of the information needed to review and evaluate the credibility of a forex broker can be easily obtained at the tip of your fingers, literally.
Download our free mobile app now by searching “WikiFX” in Google Play/App Store now – all functions are free to use too!
