I currently have an account. I recently read the US business is being sold to GAIN Capital due to NFA violations and they may have been permanently banned from US:(
Welcome to the forum, Shownna 
While I can’t comment on the NFA/CFTC complaint specifically due to the nature of our settlement, I can say that we have settled with the NFA and CFTC without admitting or denying any of their allegations or claims. If you live in the US, then please note FXCM US is no longer accepting new accounts. Part of our settlement with the NFA and CFTC was to close our US subsidiary, but there will be no changes for clients outside of the US.
(If you live outside the US, please note FXCM would not have suffered more than $200 million dollars in losses during the SNB flash crash had it been taking the other side of client trades – unlike so many of the DD firms in the industry. We have made our execution study public in the UK which can be viewed here and is a transparent comparison of FXCM’s actual execution vs top tier futures brokers and the interbank market.)
To clarify what you have heard about our US business, for US traders wanting to continue trading uninterrupted, FXCM and GAIN have entered into a definitive agreement for GAIN to acquire the client base of FXCM’s US operations. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval. FXCM and GAIN are working to determine the timing for the account transfer and expect to provide further information in that regard in the coming days.
We will for the interim period continue to service our US customers and to provide top quality trade execution pending the customer-account sale and business withdrawal. FXCM will also be working diligently to be sure that an account transition to GAIN’s retail brand, FOREX.com, will be orderly, expeditious and seamless.
On behalf of all my colleagues at FXCM, I want to express our most sincere thanks to all our US customers who have been with us over the years and wish you all the best following this transition.
what an absolute ****show- makes me wonder if there are any honest U.S. FX brokers.
NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – FXCM Inc. (NASDAQ:FXCM) (“FXCM” or the “Company”) today provided additional information regarding the costs associated with its U.S. retail foreign exchange activities, which it has agreed to sell to GAIN Capital Holdings, Inc. (“GAIN”). None of FXCM’s costs will be transferring to GAIN and FXCM expects significant cost savings from the wind down of its U.S. retail foreign exchange operations.
The table below provides information on net revenues, net income, and Adjusted EBITDA* for FXCM’s U.S. subsidiary, Forex Capital Markets LLC, and the rest of its continuing operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 (unaudited):
Even without its U.S. customers, FXCM remains one of the largest global retail foreign exchange brokers, and FXCM anticipates that the increased focus on serving its international global customer base will drive growth and continued profitability improvement.
* Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure that is not prepared under any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles and does not reflect all of the amounts associated with the Company’s results of operations as determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The Company believes this non-GAAP measure, when presented in conjunction with the comparable U.S. GAAP measure, is useful to investors in better understanding its financial performance as seen through the eyes of management and facilitates comparisons of historical operating trends across several periods. The Company believes that investors use Adjusted EBITDA as a supplemental measure to evaluate the overall operating performance of companies in its industry that present similar measures, although the methods used by other companies in calculating Adjusted EBITDA may differ from the Company’s method, even if similar terms are used to identify such measure. Adjusted EBITDA provides the Company with an understanding of the results from the primary operations of its business by excluding the effects of certain gains, losses or other charges that do not reflect the normal earnings of its core operations or that may not be indicative of its future outlook and prospects. Adjusted EBITDA does not represent and should not be considered as a substitute for net income or net income attributable to FXCM Inc., each as determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Please refer to the following table for a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net income.
(1) Represents a $0.1 million charge for tax receivable agreement payments.
(2) Represents the provision for debt forgiveness of $8.2 million against the notes receivable from the non-controlling members of Lucid, $5.4 million of professional fees, including fees related to the Leucadia restructuring transaction, stockholder rights plan and investigations into historical trade execution practices, partially offset by $1.0 million of insurance recoveries to reimburse for costs incurred related to the January 15, 2015 SNB event and the cybersecurity incident.
(3) Represents the net bad debt recovery related to client debit balances associated with the January 15, 2015 SNB event.
(4) Represents $2.4 million of professional fees relating to investigations into historical trade execution practices partially offset by $0.4 million of insurance recoveries to reimburse for costs incurred related to the January 15, 2015 SNB event and the cybersecurity incident.
Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
In addition to historical information, this release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and/or the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which reflect FXCM’s current views with respect to, among other things, its operations and financial performance in the future. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts and are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about FXCM’s industry, business plans, management’s beliefs and certain assumptions made by management, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and beyond our control. Accordingly, readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict including, without limitation, risks associated with FXCM’s plans to shut down its US subsidiary and a potential sale of its US customer accounts, risks associated with FXCM’s strategy to focus on its operations outside the United States, risks associated with the events that took place in the currency markets on January 15, 2015 and their impact on FXCM’s capital structure, risks associated with FXCM’s ability to recover all or a portion of any capital losses, risks relating to the ability of FXCM to satisfy the terms and conditions of or make payments pursuant to the terms of the finance agreements with Leucadia, as well as risks associated with FXCM’s obligations under its other financing agreements, risks related to FXCM’s dependence on FX market makers, market conditions, risks associated with FXCM’s litigation with the National Futures Association and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or any other potential litigation or regulatory inquiries to which FXCM may become subject, risks associated with potential reputational damage to FXCM resulting from FXCM’s plans to shut down its US subsidiary, and those other risks described under “Risk Factors” in FXCM Inc.'s Annual Report on Form 10-K, FXCM Inc.'s latest Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, and other reports or documents FXCM files with, or furnishes to, the SEC from time to time, which are accessible on the SEC website at sec.gov. This information should also be read in conjunction with FXCM’s Consolidated Financial Statements and the Notes thereto contained in FXCM’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, FXCM Inc.'s latest Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, and in other reports or documents FXCM files with, or furnishes to, the SEC from time to time, which are accessible on the SEC website at sec.gov.
These factors should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements that are included in this release and in our SEC filings. FXCM Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as required by law.
About FXCM Inc.
FXCM Inc. (NASDAQ:FXCM) is a publicly traded company which owns 50.1% of FXCM Group, LLC (FXCM Group).
FXCM Group is a holding company of Forex Capital Markets LLC, (FXCM US), Forex Capital Markets Limited, inclusive of all EU branches (FXCM UK), FXCM Australia Pty. Limited, (FXCM AU), and all affiliates of aforementioned firms, or other firms under the FXCM group of companies [collectively “FXCM”]. FXCM Group is owned and operated by FXCM Inc. (NASDAQ:FXCM) and Leucadia National Corporation (NYSE:LUK). Leucadia National Corporation is a multi-billion dollar diversified holding company engaged through its consolidated subsidiaries in a variety of businesses.
FXCM is a leading provider of online foreign exchange (FX) trading, CFD trading, spread betting and related services. The company’s mission is to provide global traders with access to the world’s largest and most liquid market by offering innovative trading tools, hiring excellent trading educators, meeting strict financial standards and striving for the best online trading experience in the market. Clients have the advantage of mobile trading, one-click order execution and trading from real-time charts. In addition, FXCM offers educational courses on FX trading and provides trading tools proprietary data and premium resources. FXCM Pro provides retail brokers, small hedge funds and emerging market banks access to wholesale execution and liquidity, while providing high and medium frequency funds access to prime brokerage services via FXCM Prime.
Trading foreign exchange and CFDs on margin carries a high level of risk, which may result in losses that could exceed your deposits, therefore may not be suitable for all investors. Read full disclaimer.
Jaclyn Sales, 646-432-2463
Vice-President, Corporate Communications
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Here are some links with commentary about the NFA decision, both pro- and con.
A very detailed look inside FXCM’s operations from the inside
ALERT: Largest US Forex Broker FXCM Shut Down and Permanently Banned from NFA | Zero Hedge
FXCM to pay $650,000 CFTC fine over capital shortfall | Reuters
I hadn’t realised, until my own broker told me this morning, that FXCM had also been fined $7m as well as being banned
Hi Johnny,
While I can’t comment on the CFTC complaint due to the nature of our settlement with them, I can say FXCM continues to stand by the quality of our NDD forex execution.
Consider the SNB event. The majority of retail forex traders were long EUR/CHF when the Swiss National Bank made their surprise announcement to abandon the 1.2000 exchange rate floor they had established for the pair. Had FXCM been on the other side of client trades, we would have made money when EUR/CHF dropped and retail traders took massive losses on their long positions.
The moved wiped out those clients’ account equity as well as generated negative equity balances owed to FXCM of over $225 million. The caveat of our NDD model is that traders are offset one for one with a liquidity provider. When a client entered a EUR/CHF trade with FXCM, FXCM Inc. had an identical trade with our liquidity providers. During the historic move, liquidity became extremely scarce and shallow, which affected execution prices. This liquidity issue resulted in some clients having a negative balance.
While clients using NDD forex execution did not cover their margin call with us we still had to cover the same margin call with our liquidity providers. As a result, FXCM ended with a regulatory capital shortfall. Accordingly, FXCM needed to get a loan to cover this balance, which we did. For anyone that still thinks FXCM is running an FX dealing desk on our NDD model, the SNB event demonstrated that is not the case.
FXCM’s NDD price feed currently has 16 liquidity providers which we disclose on our website. Here is the complete list: Bank of America N.A. – Barclays Bank, PLC – BNP Paribas – Nomura International, PLC - Citadel Securities LLC – Citibank N.A. - Morgan Stanley & Co., LLC - UBS AG - Deutsche Bank AG – Goldman Sachs International – KCG Europe Limited – and Commerzbank AG.
LPs selected to price retail clients are forced to adhere to an extremely high standard of execution beyond just price – including consistently low rejection rates, low latency, minimum quote sizes and high fill ratios even during market events.
We discuss in our UK execution study the criteria we use to rank our liquidity providers which you can see listed in question 13 of the FAQ. FXCM’s liquidity providers are ranked based on compliance to these standards which we identify as providing the best customer experience possible. Being a top ranked liquidity provider is important. Liquidity providers with the best pricing according to these rules may gain an advantage over other liquidity providers which could result in a large increase in orders captured. Poorly performing liquidity providers are ranked lower for order flow and ultimately could be removed from our platform until they return to compliance.
Also, the results of this study show FXCM UK retail client order prices to be better for FX than futures prices (74.97% of the time) and interbank prices(91.56% of the time).*
[i]* The study does not in away way attempt to represent that FXCM maintains a particular capacity or performance level. The figures in this study are provided for information purposes only, and are not intended for trading purposes or advice. FXCM is not liable for any information errors, incompleteness, or delays, or for any actions taken in reliance on information contained herein. Past results are not indicative of future performance.
Material Assumptions
FXCM’s Retail Clients are defined as individual, joint, and corporate accounts trading on our retail price stream.
The comparison to each of the Futures and Interbank data is made at the time that the FXCM client order is executed. Normal market slippage and slippage due to rejections by liquidity providers are already included by the time the FXCM client order is executed. However, there is an assumption that there is no slippage on the Futures or Interbank market data.
In order to maintain consistency, Futures Market data and Interbank data used the same acceptable ranges in market trades. The summary of findings is based on the assumption that the maximum acceptable difference between the FXCM price and the Interbank/Futures market price is 5 pips in either direction.
Fees that a participant would pay on the Futures or Interbank market, such as CME Exchange Fees, NFA Fees, FCM Fees, Clearing Fees, and other commissions, were excluded from the study. Similarly, FXCM Commissions are excluded from the study.[/i]
Hello Jason,
For what it’s worth I always found you and the whole crew at FXCM to be helpful and a valuable resource. I’m saddened to see the US portion of FXCM come to this end, but I’m also excited about the opportunities that lie in our not too distant futures. Best of luck to you, your coworkers, and your families in all your endeavors.
Respectfully,
Brassman
One happy customer.
^^^ Nice post - and seconded here by someone who’s admittedly been outspokenly critical of the company … but Jason has always been helpful and a valuable resource, certainly.
Thanks Brassman! Always good to see you around the forums.
Jason
Hi Jason,
I have an account with FXCM UK but I stopped for a few months/years (can’t remember). I can still login with my old account and planning to restart trading again. Although, I’ve read so many rumors and the news about FXCM US, I’m still planning to trade again with FXCM UK. My question for now is, for Bank Wire transfers, Is the account for USD BankWire deposits with Bank of America at myfxcm page still active???
Thanks and regards,
Edric
Hi Edric,
Most of them are probably just that, rumors 
Yes, the page is still active. Here’s the webpage which MyFXCM links to for bank wire deposit information Deposit Funds - FXCM UK. If you click on the bullet point titled ‘Show Bank Wire Details’ it will display the wire details for each currency denomination including for USD denominated accounts where funds are sent to Bank of America.
Let me know if you have any other questions. Or if you need help with account information, our support team can help directly via a verified support method including live chat, phone, or email.
Jason
Hi Jason,
I have another quesiton, after depositing through bank wire and stating the reference of my details, should I send an email to FXCM of the receipt?
Thanks Jason for the help !
Best Regards,
Edric
Hi Edric,
Yes, you can email our support team of the wire transfer, and we will note on your account of the incoming funds.
I see you already mentioned doing this, but to as a general piece of advice for everyone…it’s very important when sending any bank wire to include your name and account # in any reference section provided by your bank. This helps us identify your incoming bank wire to apply it to your account.
Thanks for trading with FXCM and we look forward to servicing your account again!
Jason
I’m sorry for posting here but I have the same problem with the account, can you help me out?
You might want to contact FXCM directly through another channel. @Jason_Rogers hasn’t posted in almost a year.
Contact the support team of FXCM. This is not the official place to do that.
@jenlewr I haven’t been active on this forum for a long time but am back. If you are still having issues please send me a direct message and we can help you.
If you ever need an immediate answer FXCM has 24/5 Chat and Phone support: Contact Us - Client Support - FXCM UK
No, I don’t think it is. It could be some other issue that you couldn’t create your account.
Choosing the right broker for you is the biggest challenge that you face when starting your forex trading career. It is not easy to find a broker that fits your trading needs completely. That’s the reason why I trade with multiple brokers to make the most of the market situations.