Here’s a link regarding trading restrictions on US residents. The guy did an admirable job even though I’m pretty sure English is his second language. It would be a good article to read for any new subscribers to this thread. The author probably answers 80% of the questions I’ve seen posted here over the years. He copied Clint’s list and linked back to it.
He mentioned OFAC as the dept of the treasury that’s enforcing sanctions on brokers. I’ve never heard of that one. Anyone else? He ties OFAC to the CFTC and NFA as enforcers of US policy.
Scroll down to the second heading. The opening paragraph was a little misleading and I almost didn’t read the whole article because of it. You’ll see what I mean.
I just spoke with [B]SFX-Markets[/B] on chat. They can accept US clients but only through an offshore business entity, even if that business is owned and directed by a US person.
Chat transcript below
Welcome, Tom. Our representative will contact you shortly. You can ask a question right now.
You
17:45
Hello, I am wondering if you accept regular retail clients from the United States, and if so are there any special conditions for them?
Janis Reznik has joined the chat
17:46
Janis Reznik
17:46
Hello, Sir
Maksims Gailis has joined the chat
17:46
Janis Reznik has left the chat
17:46
Maksims Gailis
17:47
Hello, Tom
Maksims Gailis
17:47
Let me check it. One minute.
Maksims Gailis
17:49
well… we can accept only companies which has US resident as one of the beneficiaries
Maksims Gailis
17:50
we also can help with registering of such companies
Maksims Gailis
17:50
if your clients are interested
You
17:51
Okay that is great to know
You
17:52
So I assume that the company must be an IBC then, correct? Not just a US-based company
Maksims Gailis
17:52
yes, it shouldn’t be US-based
You
17:53
Thanks! I will inform our fellow forum members.
Have a great day!
Maksims Gailis
17:53
registration in Delaware isn’t ok as well
So it seems like they kind of accept US clients, but kind of don’t as well. As far as the average person goes, they do not accept US-based customers because most people will not go through the (short) amount of time to open up an entity because of the costs of maintaining it along with the offshore bank accounts. For larger clients, this may be worth it. However, the rest of us would likely use a broker that can accept directly.
I’m wondering whether [B]SFX Markets[/B] might have a “public policy”, and an “actual policy” — the public policy being the one they conveyed to you, and the actual policy being the one offered to [I]adamco[/I] when he just went ahead and opened a live account.
I’m recalling the “official” statement on the [B]Trader’s Way[/B] website, for example, where they say “All information on this website is not directed toward soliciting citizens or residents of the United States and the United Kingdom.” Their diction and syntax may be a little off, but we get the point — they’re not fishing (by way of their website) for U.S. or U.K. clients. But, that doesn’t mean they refuse U.S. or U.K. clients.
As [I]adamco[/I] suggested regarding SFX Markets, the proof will lie in successfully opening [B]and funding[/B] a live account. And I would suggest that further proof will lie in successfully transacting some trades, and making a few withdrawals.
But, before I go through the exercise of testing that myself, I would need to perform a little more due diligence on SFX Markets. For starters, I’d like to know where this broker is physically located —
New Zealand? central Europe? eastern Europe?
Good thinking Clint. I have opened up an account and submitted my verification documents. Let’s see what happens. I went to who.is for SFX Markets and got the following: https://who.is/whois/sfx-markets.com
Looks like the website was registered using a .ru domain registry, so that leads me to presume they may be Russian, otherwise why use this registry? Maybe someone else is more knowledgeable with this.
It’s not on the news page because it’s not “news”. New banking facilities were expected to be available this week but have been delayed thanks to 3 days of public holidays, so we’re looking to next week now.
Just a heads up I’m setting up a PAMM at Tradersway. Now I’m sure
this will generate comments from some of the other brokerages, but
I’m happy at the moment with the Tradersway relationship.
Just FYI, on the technical side, I have a ton of Java code into Dukascopy,
and I will be able to modify about 15% of it to direct orders from the
Java environment -> via NJ4X.com framework -> into MetaTrader 4.
Therefore, I can preserve a lot of my logic and get “fancy” executions
plus dedicated Server multiposition monitoring in place with minimal
disruption of my existing codebase.
Technically, I have to run an NJ4X framework Java -> MetaTrader
environment on my Centos Linux dedicated server, which involves
using WINE subsystem interfacing to MetaTrader 4 terminal. Developers
can check out the NJ4X.com framework, if you’re into that kind of thing
SO I PLAN TO CONTRIBUTE info concerning how this PAMM arrangement
moves forward. This is not an advertisement !!! Primarily I have my
own proprietary trading operation, so NOT ANY form of solicitation here.
THANKING this Forum (especially Clint) and Thread on CFTC for all the work; and I’ll provide
any further details. Frankly, on the technical side I don’t see issues, but
I am concerned about CFTC pressure on funds transfers !
I decided to bite the bullet and implement execution on MetaTrader 4 since
it is “everywhere” and I hate to recode all the time against brokerage moves…
If I could regain Dukascopy access, I would, but my Euro partner died …
We’ve noticed that some card issuers are not very helpful if they know that clients are trying to deposit into a brokerage account, but we’ve encountered no issues yet with banks refusing to send wires. As for the PAMM itself, as long as it’s fully-proportional i.e. the trade risk for each client is identical - regardless of account size, then there should be no issues.
Problems tend to crop up when the risk to a PAMM client with a $100 account is greater than for a client with a $100,000 account, which would be the case if the minimum trade size allocated to slave accounts was 0.10 or 0.01 lots.
That’s why fully-proportional PAMM systems usually allocate slave account trades down to 0.000001 lots. Without that finer granularity, percentage gains/losses will vary between clients based on their equity, and that rattles the regulator’s cage if a client decides to complain.
with no means do I want to go off topic, but I saw something that might be ok to share. I do it because you have talked many times about the disadvantages of the US Nanny State and this taxation might add up to it. I am not a tax expert so I am not sure how they can measure it or if there is any difference between trading in the US or offshore. But it might be something good to keep in mind for all US traders:
We have discussed taxes frequently in this thread. Your link deals with a proposal for direct taxation of — not just trading [I]profits,[/I] but — [I]all trading activity.[/I] And that topic is certainly appropriate here.
But, I’m in a foul mood this morning.
If I start to comment on this misguided proposal, on that dufus Bernie Sanders, or on Democrats or socialists in general — I’ll probably get myself in trouble with the Babypips moderators. (Already this morning, they have purged some stuff I posted last night.)
So, I’ll leave my comments regarding Sanders’ dumb-ass proposal for another time.
Thanks again for the link.
Next time, try to find us some [I][B]good[/B][/I] news.
Tallinex has a policy about withdrawals to credit card/bank card that limits the size of the withdrawal to the amount of the original deposit with same card (its something like that I might have messed it up a little bit in how its worded). I am wondering if this can be explained a little more.
For instance in my case I have made several deposits by bank card – so does it mean I could withdraw by bank card several times in the increments of my deposits that I have made? My first deposit was a little larger than the subsequent deposits. So I am guessing I could make one withdrawal at that amount and one subsequent withdrawal for the amount of each deposit after that. Is that how it works?
There are two types of card transactions (deposits) … 3D-Secure, and not.
3D-Secure is not widely adopted in the US, though it’s the norm in the UK and much of Europe…
…kinda makes you wonder how the US supposedly got a man on the moon when they’re still 30 years behind the rest of the world in terms of card processing
Anyway, withdrawals to non-3D cards are restricted by the banks to no more than the original transaction amount, so there’s nothing we can do about that, but our back-office tracks all card deposits and will split a single withdrawal across multiple deposits from multiple cards where necessary.
At some point, we will be able to allow any-amount withdrawals to 3D-Secure cards, but that’s not available yet.
So my account has now been verified at SFX Markets. I tried reaching chat but no one was accepting my inquiry at the time so I just exited the window and will try again soon. Here is a screen shot of the client back office area:
The payment systems available to me are China Union Pay, Neteller and bank wire. I am going to ask them if US clients can transact via Neteller. Further, I don’t see any credit/debit card option available. If I cannot use Neteller then unfortunately the only option would be bank wire.
The bank is located in Estonia which can be seen when you expand the menu (couldn’t fit that in the same screen shot so I didn’t bother).
When I first inquiries with them on chat, they said they did not accept US clients directly and only accept US customers who hold some offshore IBC. However, I submitted my personal ID and a bank statement - my account was verified afterward without any questions from them. It looks like Clint’s inclination as to the IBC answer being what they say publicly may be correct.
can you tell why is it bad if you have to use bank wire to deposit? I have read more times people do not like that option much although I do not know exactly what is the disadvantage of it.
It’s really just economics… if you can fund an account with a credit/debit card (or other online payment system) then the costs will be much lower for small amounts. For example, even if your broker charges 5% for card funding then you only pay $5 in fees to deposit $100 in your account, compared to $50-$65 via wire transfer. However, once you start trying to fund larger amounts, bank wires work out much more economical.
