Beware! 1 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.
We are impressed with how sleek and professional the website of Exclusive Markets looks. At first glance, all the necessary information that you need in order to check the credibility of this broker seems to be very transparent. We are going to look at some key features and advise you if it’s safe to trade with it or not.
Exclusive Markets Regulation and safety of funds
In the Client Agreement document, we find out that this company is registered and regulated in Seychelles. However, you must know that Seychelles is considered an offshore zone for forex trade and although forex companies registered there must provide capital of at least $50,000 which is a substantial amount of money and can ward off scammers, there is no real guarantee for the safety of clients’ funds. Although the company states that they keep clients’ money separately with a third party bank establishment, still you should exercise caution when it comes to trading with forex brokers from offshore zones.
For your peace of mind, we want to suggest that you look elsewhere for a reliable broker. In the well-established jurisdictions of the US, Australia, the EU and the US, clients’ funds are better protected in the unfortunate event of bankruptcy or if the broker decides to shut down the website. How is this protection of funds executed in these jurisdictions? First of all, licensed brokers must be well-capitalised. And we are talking big money! For example, in the US, the initial capital that licensed brokers must provide is the mind-blowing amount of $20 million, followed by Australia with 1 million AUD. Being well-capitalised means that in case of unfavourable events, clients’ funds will have some sort of protection.
In the EU and the UK, the initial capital, although not a joke, is much less – only 730,000 EUR. However, in these two jurisdictions, there are additional benefits for traders. They consist of the fact that the forex brokers must deduct funds towards a compensation fund or scheme from which, in case of bankruptcy, clients will be refunded. If the broker is regulated by CySec and contributes to the local Investor Compensation Fund, then its clients will be reimbursed by up to 20,000 EUR per person. In the UK, if the broker is regulated by FCA and contributes to the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme, then its clients will receive up to 85,000 GBP in case of bankruptcy.
Other benefits for the protection of clients’ funds are the daily reporting of transactions and keeping the clients’ accounts separately with tier-1 bank establishments, keeping a cap on leverage and luring clients with any bonuses.
We advise you to do thorough research before you select a reliable and licensed broker to trade with.
Exclusive Markets Trading software
Exclusive Markets is a forex broker trading in forex, indices, EFTs, commodities, stocks and cryptocurrencies. The trading software is the MetaTrader 5 platform. We’ve got nothing but praises for this platform as it is one of the most preferred platforms in forex trade, together with its ‘older’ brother MetaTrader 4. It has a great charting package and support for technical analysis indicators and an automated trading system, VPS, an app market, a financial calendar, code base with customs scripts, trading signals, etc. One of the big advantages of the platform is that it enables traders to execute trades on different markets through a single account. The hedging option that was added to it in 2016 made it even more popular.
In the image below, you can see what the platform looks like. We opened a demo account which is for new traders to practice and gain experience, so it is for illustrative purposes only.
In the top horizontal bar, you can see the menu for the charting and auto trading options. From there, the client can choose the display of the charts and their number. On the left-hand side, you see the trading instruments which in this instance are forex currency pairs. Beneath, you see the navigator with the accounts, indicators, expert advisors, scripts and services. In the middle of the screen, you can see the display of the charts with the currency pairs.
Now, let’s take a closer look at how the parameters of the platform are set. If we look at the account information (last image), we’ll see that the spread for the Standard account is 1.7 pips which is just a bit above the industry average. The spread for Pro and Exclusive account types starts from 0 pips, however Exclusive Markets charges $3.5-$5 per side (0.7 – 1.0 pips roundturn) and requires significantly higher initial deposit – $1000 and $500 respectively. Low spread signifies that the cost of transactions won’t be too high and traders will be able to make a sustainable profit in the long run.
Looking at the leverage, though, we are very alarmed to see how high it is – 1:500! Such high spread will undoubtedly increase the risk exposure of clients’ funds. High leverage may look tempting as it adds more trading power but in case of unsuccessful transactions, the financial loss could also be very high. We do not advise potential forex traders to engage in trading activities with brokers offering such high leverage. We already mentioned that one of the measures to protect clients’ funds is the cap on leverage that licensed brokers must observe. In the EU, the cannot offer leverage higher than 1:30 and in the US, no higher than 1:50. Australia, that was so far paradise for traders enjoying the thrills of high leverage, will soon (March 2021) follow suit and impose a cap on leverage for the major currencies equal to the one in the EU.
Exclusive Markets Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
Exclusive Markets offers 3 trading accounts – Standard, Pro and Exclusive. The minimum initial amount for the Standard account is $0 and for the other accounts is $1,000 and $5,000 respectively. In addition to that, there is a variety of payment methods to feed those accounts, including payment via credit card, bank wire, Skrill, Neteller and Bitcoin with 0 fees and instant processing.
The withdrawal methods are the same with 1.8% fee and up to 24 hours processing time.
As per the company’s policy, an account that stays inactive for a period of 2 years will be considered dormant and the company reserves the right to close it. However, the remaining funds will be returned to the client upon request.
We are very impressed with the deposit/withdrawal methods and fees as they seem fair and beneficial to the clients. Furthermore, in contrast to some other brokers from offshore zones, this one does not offer any bonuses or free gifts. However, although the terms and conditions offered by Exclusive Markets has set for its clients are good, our concern is that this broker is not able to provide safeguards for the clients’ funds and the leverage is too high and bears high risks for the traders.
How does scam work?
If scammers make a movie, it will probably be called “Dream on”. They make everything sound credible and build their scam on your dreams of getting an easy and quick profit. People get duped if they decide to deposit money into one of the scammers’ schemes. What you probably do not know is that your hard-earned money goes as commission to the scammers. Next, you get inundated by daily calls. First, the scammers congratulate you for joining their business, next they try to persuade you to invest even more money. After all, the more money you send, the bigger money fall you can expect. This of course is not how things work. By the time you realise that no money is coming your way, it might be too late. All you want now is to get your money back and get out of there but the scammers have other plans for you and they won’t late get away so easily. Now they try to delay you so that you miss the deadline for a chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
If you get scammed, our advice is to act immediately and if you have paid your deposit via credit/debit card you may still have a chance. Visa and MasterCard allow you 540 days time limit to file for chargeback which gives you a fighting chance to recover your money.
However, if you have used bitcoin or bank wire for your payment, the chances of you recovering your money are really slim.
Cancelling your credit/debit card in case you have given the scammers your CVV code may be another good idea. Also, make sure to remove from your PC any software that my give scammers access to your private data stored on your computer.
Whatever you do to recover your funds, beware of the so-called recovery agents. Please make sure that you are dealing with a genuine one by checking their credentials and company’s information transparency. Otherwise, you may fall victim to another form of scam.
