Going offshore to escape the CFTC

Just found out some pretty sad information regarding Tradersway.

Aside from their swap rates being pretty bad, which I’ve known for a while and accepted, their withdrawal fee for wire transfers is $95 usd! That is absurd.

My understanding, having spoken with them is that the $95 fee has been the case for
several years and is due to “banking tariffs”. Their recommendation is to use a credit
or debit card transfer for individual amounts < $10k. Again, if you’re doing a lot of
business with any broker, you may be able to get special terms.

Again, this appears to be the “overreach” of U.S. regulation imposing these conditions.
Consider that you may operate with 1000:1 leverage, as opposed to the 50:1 limitation
in the U.S. which may be a counter weight consideration…

hyperscalper

Tallinex and FxChoice both offer wire withdrawals at $25 USD, somehow they figured out how to work around “banking tariffs”.

[B][U]Tallinex[/U][/B]

The criterion for inclusion in Group 1 of our List is clear —

Sadly, Tallinex no longer qualifies to be included.

So, barring any dramatic, new developments regarding this issue in the next day or two, I will remove Tallinex from our List, no later than the end of this week.


[B][U]Trusted Brokers[/U][/B]

I would like feedback from as many of you as possible on the following question —

Should we consider adding additional offshore brokers to the group we call “Trusted Brokers”?

If so, should we use a polling/voting method, like the one we used back in March 2015, to designate one (or more) Trusted Brokers?

I won’t rush to judgement on this question. Give it a few days. Think about it. Then, weigh in on whether we should re-open the Trusted Broker debate.

.

Sorry, but that is misleading. Certain other brokerages have wider spreads, and/or
higher commissions and that’s how they offer transfers at a “price point” which
is attractive to traders like you. (I’m not specifically naming the brokerages.)

The idea is simply to make much more money on your trading, and then make you
think you’re getting a great deal on a wire transfer fee… Think about it.

A brokerage relationship is more than a superficial factoid…

hyperscalper

Hi everyone,

Long time since I posted here but I wanted to add another thing as Clint is going to be doing some housekeeping with the list. [B]Forexbrokerinc[/B] seems to not be accepting ANY new clients, let alone US. If you go to their website and click on the open an account link, it redirects you to [B]FXChoice[/B]. It seems that they have struck an IB arrangement of some sort and [B]Forexbrokerinc[/B] is not opening any accounts under its own business entity anymore.

Opinions? Maybe this disqualifies them from the list too now…

https://www.forexbrokerinc.com/

To add to what I just said above, the [B]Forexbrokerinc[/B] main webpage banner says “New trading environments are on the way”.

Could be that this is a temporary business arrangement, or perhaps [B]Forexbrokerinc[/B] is restructuring/selling its brand to [B]FXChoice[/B] ultimately. Who knows. They had stopped accepting all clients for 1 month during August/September, began briefly to accept again and then this.

Thanks for the heads-up on Forex Broker Inc, Tom.

In the Forex Broker Inc listing (on page 1), I have added links to your posts.

The situation with this broker bears careful watching.

Please keep us updated on any additional information you are able to dig up.

.

Hi Clint,

Its been long I have posted but I always remain in touch with the developments over here. I strongly believe that we should certainly go for the new developments. Regarding your questions-

Yes we should consider adding additional offshore brokers to the group of Trusted Brokers.

And in my view polling would be a great method to designate any existing offshore brokers as trusted one.

Thanks

I understand that, which is why its even more frustrating with the absurd swap rates of tradersway.

Talk about money a broker is making off the traders.

And the spreads are only 0.1 pip better at TW than fxchoice.

Regardless I’ll try finding Joe’s email from tradersway and speaking with him about anything they can do.

I’m still wondering when the Tallinex rep is going to chime in here.

Such a huge event to occur, some reassurance from the rep for the existing US customers would be appreciated if possible. Possibly some background info as to why it happened, if that information is able to be shared of course.

Hey, quick question. How is the Bitcoin process there? I know that the broker’s site indicates that one can only withdraw Bitcoin when one deposited Bitcoin originally, which means one cannot deposit in USD and withdraw in Bitcoin correct (stupid FATCA)? Also, is the Bitcoin process through BitPay or something alike, or is it a direct payment? Does MT4 denominate in USD or in BTC? Thanks.

So for 2 months they kept silent about a complete broker transfer and played it down as if it was a server or software update over 2 weeks of suspended trading? Therefore personal information, identification scans and documentation will be handed out [I]outside[/I] of [I]ForexBrokerInc[/I] [B]without our consent[/B] and permission? They better provide account cancellations and complete information privacy. IBFX done the exact same thing in 2014 towards FXCM, yet they continue to fail to meet CFTC regulations inside the U.S. If Tallinex, which was supposedly a rock solid foreigner broker for U.S. citizens flopped, it’s a matter of time for FX Choice or Trader’s Way. For Trader’s Way, if accounts are denominated in Bitcoin, then shouldn’t it be treated differently?

I do not know that particular case with the broker, but what you wrote down is actually widely used by all/most brokers. If you could deposit from one account and pay out to another one then that is called money laundering.

However you have a good chance if you deposit for example $1000 with card transfer, your account goes up to $1500 then you have to withdraw $1000 with the original deposit method (in this case card transfer), but you can choose how you withdraw the remaining $500.

A fresh chat with [I]ForexBrokerInc[/I] representatives, according to them, confirms that [I]ForexBrokerInc[/I] will continue its operations. The redirection towards [I]FX Choice[/I], according to them, was only a redirection for new and upcoming users who were not able to open an account with [I]ForexBrokerInc[/I] for the last 2 months of suspension due to server updates. The last two weeks of trade suspension in MT4, according to them, was part of a server upgrade that will continue to reside in Marshall Islands. No broker transfer or agreements, apparently, have been made.

About the [I]FX Choice[/I] redirection, according to [I]FX Choice[/I] representatives, [I]ForexBrokerInc[/I] is an Introductory Broker, “introduce clients to FXChoice” was their response. How long was this known, I do not know but this clears up a lot of the [I]ForexBrokerInc[/I] speculation. But now that [I]Tallinex[/I] has withdrawn U.S. services, wonder what would happen to the remaining 11 (as of this post) brokers.

On a positive note, I have not had any negative experiences with [I]ForexBrokerInc[/I] for the past year, great customer service as well, though signing sheets for submission to confirm withdrawals is annoying and unnecessary.

So while their website is down, do they allow people to withdraw the balance that they last had as normal? Sounds more like a getaway plot to me.

The writing was on the wall for over 6 years already. I’ve always respected the spirit of this thread. But the [U][I]reality[/I][/U] is that the US has become increasingly ‘protective’ of its residents and currency, not to mention its futures markets. If the Prime of Primes and tier 3 brokers who have bonafide PoP relationships are not accepting USA clients, what made you think the offshore guys would last?

98% of non-USA brokers folded when it came to accepting US residents. I remember in 2010 when many of them insisted that US laws didn’t apply to them. When the hammer finally dropped, the majority ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. Tallinex was just a matter of time. And look back at previous threads to see all of the smack about how they were not affected by US regulations. Tallinex didn’t even come back to the thread and elaborate on the decision, not sure if this was done purposely. But this thread I’m sure provided them with a lot of referrals. Are they active on other parts of the babypips forum or on other forums?

More robust solutions include: using a non-us spouse/family member, using non-us corporation, establishing residency in a non-us territory, etc. This takes a little more effort on your part, but it will be more sturdy in trading in the years to come. I talked about this much earlier in this thread.

But with the overwhelming majority of legitimate brokers either leaving the retail forex US market altogether or just located overseas in other developed countries, not a lot of choices remain for US residents. Especially if you desire anything close to direct market access (a real prime of Prime or provable PofP relationship).

In the past I’ve used a few offshore brokers, some good, some not so good. I’ve now been using lqdfx.com for the last month and have yet to make a withdrawal. Does anyone have any experience with them? If so how quick were the withdrawals?

Maybe we should start new thread where to go to open an offshore company. I know there is lots of places on the web but we need to find the best and cheapest option.

Get the second cheapest option. I was looking into this as I am growing worried of the environment now and don’t feel like being kicked out like I had been in the past. It seems like the cheaper options are hit and miss when trying to actually open a bank account. They say they will open a company, which I have no doubts about, but the problem is opening the bank for US customers; they seem to not guarantee that those can actually be opened. It will be pointless to use an offshore without a bank account.

We will also be required to report our bank accounts to the United States Treasury every year if our cumulative total offshore holdings exceed $10k at any time during the year. I had to do this for my Forex accounts as they were over $10k combined for the past 2 years. I think we will still be off limits to many brokerage firms anyway even with the offshore setup, but maybe the door will be cracked open in some places. That is all we need.

If they sell the company, I sincerely doubt they will tell anyone :33: … maybe they finally had to fold and give in because it just was not feasible to serve US anymore. [B]Tallinex[/B] has an excellent Alexa rank globally, so they can survive without US/Canadian customers for sure. [B]Forexbrokerinc[/B] on the other hand does not. They had an OK rank in the US but globally they are pretty low IMO.

Tallinex.com Traffic, Demographics and Competitors - Alexa

Forexbrokerinc.com Traffic, Demographics and Competitors - Alexa

Maybe someone else with better SEO knowledge can comment on this as I only recently have been looking at this stuff. So again, I think it just became not feasible for [B]Tallinex[/B] and they simply stopped it so they could open up other opportunities for themselves with their non-US/Canadian customer base.

I’ve been working hard for the past 2 years trading Forex and finally feel good about my system and money management. My ultimate goal is to trade full-time as a professional and this news lately is so discouraging. Being a trader in the U.S. is becoming more and more difficult. Really hard to trust offshore brokers with my hard earned money and legitimate brokers are leaving US citizens to the curb. 50:1 leverage…ridiculous.