Their statement goes to show that they either act as a mere IB for a US broker in regard to their US customers or do not fully understand the scope of the US CFTC regulations which do not only limit the maximal marginal leverage to 1:50 but also require all brokers servicing the US customers to be registered with the CFTC (which Investors Europe appears not to be). Whichever the case, their policy makes them in no way different from the US brokers, if only for their offshore jurisdiction and additional risks associated therewith.

Before I make major revisions to the List, I want to post this draft of current updates.

These are the changes indicated by various members, and posted on this thread, since the last List update.

[B]If anyone has additions or corrections to offer, please do it over the next 2 or 3 days.[/B]

Around mid-week, I will post all the changes to the List, and move the 3-page List to the end of this thread.

[B]The following additions to Group 1[/B] (brokers who will do business with U.S. residents) have been suggested:

Traders Trust (Cyprus) https://www.traders-trust.com/

Renesource Capital (Latvia) Renesource Capital

Universal FX (Switzerland) Universal FX | Swiss Forex Broker — white-label partner of ACM/SwissQuote

PaxForex (British Virgin Islands) PaxForex - Forex Bonus and Contest | Gold | Silver | Currency Trading | CFD - PaxForex

Loyal Forex (British Virgin Islands) Loyal Forex

PipFixed (Panama) Pipfixed

The Collective FX Global (Belize) https://www.thecollectivefxglobal.com/

XoomForex (Cyprus) :: - Welcome to XoomForex - ::

Real Forex ( ? ) Real-Forex.com | Exclusive ECN broker — unregulated broker incorporated in France, owned by Finocorp (Belize)

UpFX (Seychelles) UPFX - Forex Offshore Broker… This is UpFX

SHKdirect (Hong Kong) — Sun Hung Kai Securities Ltd. — Sun Hung Kai Financial

LucrorFX (New Zealand) — Lucror Capital Markets LP — Forex Trading, Brokerage Accounts, and Asset Management | Lucror FX - New Zealand

[B]Leverage restrictions[/B] (to match CFTC limits) have been announced by:

Investors Europe (Gibraltar)

Clint, kindly also add SHKdirect (Hong Kong, shkdirect.com) and LucrorFX (lucrorfx.com, New Zealand) - they have also confirmed to me they continue accepting the US clients.

Clint, FinFX replied to a US resident friend of mine, who asked the question re: margin: “Sure, you can use a higher margin. There are no restrictions on US citizens.”

Thanks, Jacob

Thanks, Sunland,

I have noted your info in the draft, and will include it in Wednesday’s update.

The Collective FX Global currently looks like a real star to me for the following two reasons: their domicile Belize is notable for not having any inter-governmental agreements with the US regulators under the IOSCO Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (IOSCO Library Section) and they maintain a very good public feedback record (The Collective FX Global | TheCollectiveFXGlobal.com reviews and ratings by Forex Peace Army).

I don’t share your enthusiasm.

[B]This is the only broker I have ever researched which charges a monthly fee.[/B] The particular fee amount, selected by the trader, determines how many “free” trades he/she may make in that month. A “free” trade carries no broker mark-up to the bank spread, and the broker charges no per-lot commission. In other words, if the best bank rate currently offered to this broker is, say 0.5 pip on the EU, then 0.5 pip represents the total cost of the trade to the trader.

This broker presents a detailed explanation of this scheme, and they give an example to show that their scheme actually offers traders lower trading costs than the conventional spread mark-up imposed by most other brokers.

Here’s a link to their explanation of “membership fees” — https://www.thecollectivefxglobal.com/why-a-membership-fee

My concern is as follows: [B]This scheme amounts to pre-paying your trading costs.[/B] Which may work to your advantage IF you actually place the number of trades you have paid for in advance. But, this certainly does not suit the trading needs, or the trading style, of some (maybe many) traders. In fact, it could put some unconscious pressure on the average trader to make x-number of trades every day, week or month, so as not to be “paying for nothing”.

When I update our List later tonight, I am planning to list this broker this way:

The Collective FX Global (Belize) — note: this broker charges a [B]monthly fee[/B] in lieu of commissions or mark-ups on bank spreads — exercise extreme due diligence
Platforms: __________. – Min. initial deposit: _______. – Max. leverage: _______. – Spreads: EUR/USD _______, GBP/JPY _______.
https://www.thecollectivefxglobal.com/
Email: (available only through their website)

If you disagree with this listing, please write back with your views.

Your point does make sense to me, Clint. Makes me even wonder why they didn’t choose to offer two options: one with the pre-paid membership fee and the other one with the per trade commission.

I am using EAs for my trades and often have no foggest clue how many trades they are going to make in any given month if any at all. Hence, the second option would be more practical for me. Also, to justify the fee, one would need to be trading with a substantial amount of at least several thousand dollars.

What I really like about them is their reputation and their domicile, unreachable for the US CFTC. A picture of Gary Gensler chaotically searching for Belize on the world map would sure make my day.

I looked at The Collective FX Global. I like the way they say they do things. however the low spreads they say they pass on don’t seem to be low enough to me to justify the membership costs. To be upfront its Asian session when I was looking at the spreads. The spread on The Collective FX Global does seem to be generaly lower by a few points on EU and it is even lower on some other pairs. Oanda (not an offshore broker) looks to me to have the lowest spreads on the most pairs.

I can’t find Belize on that damned map!
Get me a map of Belize!

The lowest spreads I came across so far are actually with MBTrading - they’re even lower than with Oanda.

The lowest spreads I came across so far are actually with MBTrading - they’re even lower than with Oanda.

I know MB has low spreads often the lowest. I wanted to see half a pip or so on EU with Collective FX to make that fee worth the cost. That doesn’t seem to be the case. I do keep an eye on this page for spread info.
FX Intelligence Analyzer: Compare live spreads and quotes from multiple brokers

Yes, the Collective FX spreads aren’t worth the membership fee, if only for the leverage. I have seen much lower spreads with MBTrading, ATCBrokers, and Oanda.

So as to avoid any ambiguity, I have double-checked with FinFX and they confirmed to me they’re continuing to accept the US customers and offer them high-leverage accounts of up to 1:200. I maintain several live accounts with FinFX at the moment for a long time and they show good results, with their spreads remaining among the industry’s tightest - only slightly higher than those of MBTrading, Oanda, and ATCBrokers, yet the high leverage I have with FinFX compensates me really well for it.

I have further discovered that FinFX is now offering micro lots starting at 0.01 and deposits in three base currencies - EUR, USD, and CHF: https://www.finfx.fi/index.php?page=trading-accounts&lang=eng . The Swiss Franc as the account base currency looks particularly attractive to me in light of the recent USD and EUR inflation fears. The availability of micro lots will be appreciated by the EA users, since they will now need less capital for their trades.

Harry Markopolos, the guy who first called attention to Madoff, was just on CNBC. His new target is a banking scheme that allegedly rips institutions off and has a Forex component. He used the term Forex a number of times in the interview and claimed Forex has no government oversight. Even though he wasn’t talking at all about retail forex, my paranoid view suspects that any negative sentiment linked to Forex is naturally going to be bad for us. Just wanted to mention this.

Very nice forum upgrade, btw. This is the most advanced version of vBulletin I have yet to see. And I like the auto save a lot.

Thank you for your generosity with your knowledge and time Mr. Clint. I, along with few(possibly more than a few) others appreciate your generosity. Keep up the good work.

I hope I’m not out of line but I have some information about one of the listed broker. IntelFX.com to be more precise. It’s very interesting reading. It’s educational reading about tricks of crooked brokers. I recommend visiting Forex Peace Army web site before opening an account with IntelFX.com. Sorry I can’t post the urls because some dumb anti-spam forum rule. But search for “GUILTY Case# 2011-051 Sylvie” and “Case# 2011-064 Celina Salim” without the quote marks. If you’ve read this then consider this your warning.

Peace and much prosperity in life to the good people out there.

I should say that I personally have some serious reservations about another of the brokers on the list smarttradefx.com which are strong enough to cause me to cross them off my personal list.

I don’t have time to outline it right now but it comes from a friend who has been trading with them in the past and how unprofessioinally they have addressed his concerns.

If anybody wants the details they can email me.

BTW finfx.fi is at the top of the list at the moment.

Cyprus Brokers could be exposed since Cyprus Banks have 40% of their assets in Greece, which in my opinion is quite likely to default on its obligations and pass laws converting all foreign currency deposits to “new drachmas” as a 50% discount. This could include your broker’s deposits in the worst case.

I suspect that a lot of the reason for the existence of the large number of Cyprus brokers is that they can earn high interest rates by investing customer funds in Greek banks. They are likely really out for the investment income on the deposits, not for the income from forex trades.

From the FT:

The Greek crisis has spilled over into Cyprus, raising the risk that a fourth country will soon need an EU bail-out. The island’s finance minister Kikis Kazamias said he is mulling a request for help from the ECB after 10-year Cypriot bonds rose above 13pc. “We do not have the luxury of being choosy about who is going to lend to us,” he said.
While Cyprus is too small to be systemically important, its banking system is roughly nine times GDP with liabilities of €156bn, according to Fitch Ratings. This is equivalent to Iceland before it blew up. Cypriot banks have 40pc of their assets in Greece, and hold a significant chunks of Greek debt.

Hi Guys, just FYI Traders trust no longer allows USA traders to trade.