Forex newbie here - been doing demo trades for a few months now, and finally decided to jump in with real money.
Heard good things about FinFX from others based in the US, so I put in an application. All documents were approved except my bank information. Apparently, they don’t like something about the account, but won’t state specifically what the problem is.
At first, they said they don’t approve of investment accounts (this is an account with Fidelity). No problem, I sent them to a link that describes the characteristics of the account - check writing, VISA check card, [B][U]FDIC Insurance[/U][/B], Online Bill Pay. Then they came back and said they still don’t approve because the sales material contained the words “without the bank”. As you know, banks are pretty unpopular with customers right now, so my take is that any time a company can distinguish themselves by making a statement like that, they will. It still doesn’t change reality - I have an account that’s government insured, where I make deposits and have proper liquidity to distribute those funds at will, through checks, check card, online bill pay, wire transfer, etc. If that’s not a checking account, then I don’t know what is.
So, I’ve asked them to state, specifically, what is the purpose of this exercise (I thought it was “know your customer, know the source of the funds”), and specifically, what is the requirement around a bank account? Best I can tell at the moment, it appears to be “an account with characteristics stated above, but with a company that doesn’t have the word ‘invest’ in the name somewhere,” as completely random as that sounds. As I stated to them - Chase Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo - they all offer both investment and checking accounts. So, does that make them invalid also? As long as I provide a “checking” account, what is the problem? So far, no answer.
Anyone else had this experience? Or possibly, can anyone shed light on this? I’m kind of confused and irritated at the moment. Unfortunately for US traders, we don’t have a ton of options overseas, and I’m not willing to open a Forex account here in the US under the current restrictions.