RECOMMENDED FOREX BROKERS
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.
DIF Broker is a European forex and CFD broker, offering a great variety of trading instruments, including 182 currency pairs and over 9000 CFDs on stocks, commodities, spot metals and 29 indices.
Through its partnership with Saxo Bank the broker also offers direct access to 36 exchanges, where you can trade 19 000 stocks, some 3000 ETFs and ETCs, as well as over 200 futures and 7000 bonds.
Other instruments at DIF Broker include contact options, as well as forex vanilla options, which give the holder the right, but not the obligation to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price within a given time frame (it is basically a call or put option, without additional features) and outright forward contracts – a forward currency contract that locks in an exchange rate for a specific delivery date and a specific amount.
As tested with a demo account the benchmark EURUSD spread was fixed at 3 pips, which is higher than what traders usually expect to see with a standard account. DIF Broker takes a commission too, but only when you trade less than 1 standard lot. So the commission on the forex trade, when you trade less than 100 000 base currency units (1 lot), is 10 USD per lot, which basically adds another pip to the spread.
Leverage is capped at 1:30, which is in line with the new ESMA regulations that came into force on August 1st. With DIF Broker you can choose to open an account to trade the markets yourself or to deposit your money with an investment found. The minimum investment requirement to open a trading account is 2000 USD, while to join an investment fund you will have deposit at least 10 000 USD. DIF Broker offers its customers the Dif Freedom trading platform, where the exchange data is provided by Saxo Bank.
DIF Broker regulation & safety of funds
DIF Broker is owned and operated by DIF Broker – Sociedade Financeira de Corretagem, SA, which is licensed by the Portuguese Financial Supervision Authority (CMVM) for main investment and brokerage activities in the European Union, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
The company also holds licenses by the Bulgarian FSC, BaFin in Germany, Consob in Italy, AFM in the Netherlands, KNF in Poland, Bank France CIB, CNMV in Spain and the FCA in the UK.
In addition, DIF Broker Sociedade Financeira de Corretagem SA is also a member of the CySEC backed Investor Compensation Fund, which objective is to secure any claims of covered clients against members of the Fund.
Being licensed by a trusted financial authority is the single most important factor for the safety of any investment. Besides the strict financial and ethical rules imposed by the regulators in Europe, Australia and the US, brokers, regulated by FCA in the UK and CySEC in Cyprus are obliged to participate in client compensation schemes.
Thus traders with FCA regulated brokers are entitled to a compensation of up to 50 000 GBP, in case their broker goes insolvent, while those trading with brokers participating in the CySEC backed Investor Compensation Fund, can receive back up to 20 000 EUR of their trading capital.
DIF Broker deposit/withdrawal methods and fees
While with most brokers you can deposit or withdraw funds in various ways, including major credit or debit cards and e-wallets, with DIF Broker you can deposit funds only with a bank wire, which is understandable as the minimum deposit you need to star trading with them is 2000 USD.
