Beware! MTC Finance is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.
RECOMMENDED FOREX BROKERS
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.
On the surface, everything on MTC Finance looks as it should and is expected from any forex broker. Whether what we see is genuine or not, we are about to find out.
MTC Finance Regulation and safety of funds
The address of this broker is not mentioned anywhere on its website. The only trace we could find about this broker’s origins was in the Terms and Conditions document where it said that all legalities are governed by the law of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). You should know that there is no regulatory body for forex brokers in this offshore zone which means that trading with forex companies from St. Vincent and the Grenadines may not be safe for your funds.
On the other hand, you have a good choice of licensed and reliable brokers from the well-established jurisdictions of the US, Australia, the EU and the UK. In our opinion, the last two offer the best conditions. First of all, to be licensed there, forex broker must provide an initial capital that is no less than 730,000 EUR which among other things serves as a wall to keep scammers away. In addition to that, these brokers must contribute to a compensation scheme or fund. The purpose of these compensation schemes or funds is to refund traders’ funds in case the broker becomes insolvent. For example, if the broker is regulated by CySec and contributes to the local Investor Compensation Fund, then its traders can be repaid up to 20,000 EUR per person. On the other hand, in the UK, if the broker is regulated by FCA and contributes to the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme, its traders will be compensated by up to 85,000 GBP. And, to provide additional safety of funds, clients’ accounts are kept separately from the company’s with reputed banks. Also, brokers must report their transactions on a daily basis for transparency and to avoid shady deals.
If you are looking for a reliable and licensed forex broker to trade with, we sincerely encourage you to select one from these jurisdictions!
MTC Finance Trading software
The trading platform that MTC Finance offers to its traders is Sirix. The screenshot below will give you an idea what the interface of the platform looks like. On the left, you have the trading products, in this case, forex currencies, together with their bid/ask price. In the middle of the screen, you see displayed the chart of the EUR/USD currency pair with the fluctuation in price in a given time frame. From the bid/ask price for the same pair, we find out the spread to be 0.1 pips which is quite below the industry average. That is good for traders because the cost of trading won’t be high. Also, we calculated that the leverage is 1:100. Please be aware that high leverage can put your funds at risks because it gives off the impression that the traders can make a big profit. However, chances are that instead of making a big profit, traders may experience big financial loss when trading with high leverage. Due to the high risks, some traders are willing to undertake, there is a cap on leverage which in Europe is 1:30 and in the US is 1:50. As you can see, the leverage offered by this broker exceeded the leverage cap in these jurisdictions.
One of the features that Sirix has is the social trading option. Traders without enough experience can copy what more experienced traders do. On the far right of the image below, you can see top-ranked traders and social stream that provide social trading. It may look like a good idea to newbies, however, you should be aware that mirroring someone else’s transactions is not risk-free and you can still lose funds instead of making a profit.
Although it may look like this trading platform offers a lot of options for the traders, it cannot beat the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 that are the leading platforms in forex trade and preferred by around 80% of the brokers for the many trading tools and instruments that they offer. First of all, they have a demo account that helps newbies practice and gain experience, then, they also have an auto trading option, an app market, VPS, a financial calendar, trading signals and a code base with customs scripts. The charting packages that they offer are well appreciated by the brokers as they contain a lot of technical analysis indicators, such as Fibonacci retracement, moving averages, Bollinger Bands, etc., that help traders predict the direction of exchange rates and make a profit.
Our recommendation is to always use the best, so look for a licensed broker that offers either platform!
MTC Finance Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
After you register an account, you find out that the minimum initial deposit is $250 and the payment methods that can be used are debit/credit card, bank transfer or E-wallet.
A trading account that stays inactive for 120 days incurs 10% or $100 handling fee (whichever amount is greater) per month.
In the withdrawal policy, it is not mentioned what the minimum withdrawal amount is or if there are any fees.
What we found interesting is that the company offers a credit token (a form of bonus). If accepted, then the client is obliged to execute a trading volume where the number of traded lots equals the amount of the credit token multiplied by 0.5. You can do the math keeping in mind that 1 lot equals $100,000. Trading such a volume is not as easy as it may sound. In addition to that, there is another requirements if the credit token accepted by the client is equal to 50% of the client’s deposit. If the client does not achieve a trading volume equal to a quarter of the required number of lots, then any withdrawals will incur a withdrawal fee that is 20% of the withdrawal amount.
You can hardly call these conditions beneficial! Also, you should know that licensed brokers never offer any bonuses, credits or other sorts of incentives.
How does scam work?
Actually, it’s quite simple and people often fall into the trap of experienced scammers. We bet you have seen those attractive ads on the Internet promising big and quick profits over a short period of time. Just provide your personal information, and voila! The scam brokers are waiting for you and you will be inundated with phone calls promising easy profit. Tempting, right? You think ‘ok, I can spend $200-300 and see what profit it brings me’. Congratulations, you just provided a fat commission for your scammers that will be distributed down the food chain. Now you have ‘graduated’ to be handed over to a senior ‘broker’, a smooth talker who will try to convince you that there is no more perfect time like now to invest more money. After all, you want to make more profit, right? However, something starts to feel off and now you start asking yourself questions and all you want is to withdraw your money and get out fast.
Unfortunately, it is too late! Someone has pulled the cheese and you are trapped because scammers don’t give up easily. Scammers will do anything in order to delay you so that you miss the deadline for a chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
Our advice is to immediately file for a chargeback if you have been lucky enough to make your deposit via credit card. VISA and MasterCard allow for 540 days chargeback period, so you still have a chance to get your money back.
Things don’t look so good if your currency of choice has been Bitcoin or bank wire. In that case, you may have to wave your money goodbye.
There are some other things that you can do in case of being scammed – cancel your credit card if you have given your CVV code to the scammers. Also, erase any software from your computer that gives scammers access to your private data.
Be warned, as well, that some so-called ‘recovery agents’ may approach you promising to recover your funds for a fee. It could be another form of scam where scammers prey on your misfortune. Should you choose to use one, you must make sure that you are dealing with a genuine and legitimate agency by checking their credential and company’s information and transparency.
