FairMarkets Review – 5 things you should know about fair.markets

Beware! FairMarkets is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.

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Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.

FairMarkets is a regulated broker, but it’s one of those we cannot recommend. Long story short, FairMarkets has licenses issued by the Australian regulator ASIC and FSC in Mauritius, which is generally a positive sign. Sounds good; they are authorised in two jurisdictions – undoubtedly a better choice than 99% of the unregulated shady brokers. However, you should keep in mind that the Australian license applies to Australia, so customers outside the country won’t be protected, and in the following review, we’ll explain why.

FairMarkets Regulation and safety of funds

As mentioned, FairMarkets is licensed in two jurisdictions – Mauritius and Australia. What you need to know about it, though, is that customers outside of Australia will sign contracts with Fairmarkets International Ltd, the company registered and regulated in Mauritius. This practically means that you’ll trade with an offshore broker that is not obligated to provide segregated accounts or negative balance protection. Yes, FairMarkets is licensed, but offshore regulated brokers are not strictly monitored, so you can still consider yourself at risk.

So, that being the case, we cannot recommend FairMarkets even to Australian customers. You can easily find more trustworthy brokers with equally good platforms, better trading conditions, more educational materials and so on. What we recommend, though, is to stick to brokers regulated in your own country – generally, these companies are much safer because you’ll be protected by your own authorities. Trading with brokers in your own country will make chargebacks less complicated (if you need to claim your money back), the customer service is generally better, and if things go wrong for whatever reason, you’ll have better chances to recover potential losses. Now, consider trading with FairMarkets – it’s registered somewhere offshore, so if something terrible happens, you’ll have nothing to do about it.

So, if you are British, you’d better go for a broker licensed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). For EU citizens, you’ll find the majority of brokers to be regulated by CySEC in Cyprus; for Australians, you’d better look for ASIC brokers; in the US, it’s best to stick to CFTC/NFA brokers. And if you live somewhere else, where, for example, the local Forex regulations are not mandatory, it’s still recommended to trade with brokers regulated by respectable authorities, as these are the safest options available.

Back to FairMarkets, here you can see proof that the broker is licensed in Mauritius:

FairMarkets Trading software

FairMarkets’ trading software is excellent. It offers the industry leaders MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, with all distributions available – Mobile, Desktop, and Web. Still, you’d better remember that the broker is not strictly regulated, so the leading software should not entice you to go straightforward with this broker. Do your research, and you will see that many other brokers provide the same platforms with even better trading conditions and safety.

Speaking of MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, both are considered the best platforms for retail Forex traders. MT5 is the newest, and is considered the better, but even if you trade with MT4, you’ll still have access to automated trading, custom indicators and plenty of analytical tools.

And here you can see FairMarkets’ MT5 platform that we accessed:

FairMarkets Trading instruments

FairMarkets offers a standard selection of asset classes, including currencies, crypto, gold, oil and more, but the total number of instruments is not so high. For example, other regulated brokers will have much more options in each asset class (some offer more than 10 000 instruments altogether; diversity is always a plus).

FairMarkets Spreads and cost of trading

FairMarkets’ spreads are not bad. The Demo account we accessed offered 0.4 pips for EUR/USD and even lower difference for USD/JPY – 0.2 pips. However, the Standard real account comes with much worse conditions – spreads start from 1.8 pips, making the service more expensive. On the other hand, many regulated brokers will offer a much lower spread even with their starter accounts.

FairMarkets Maximum leverage

FairMarkets’ leverage is way too high. The Australian entity of the broker limits clients to 30:1, but the offshore one allows up to 400:1. It is enticing to trade on high leverage because you can make more money, but this also carries enormous risks, and you can lose more at the same time. 400:1 is illegal in many jurisdictions, so FairMarkets will certainly breach the law if they accept British or European clients and let them trade on leverage higher than 30:1 for FX Majors. Just bear this in mind because it’s certainly not recommended to deal with companies not abiding by the law.

FairMarkets Deposit and withdrawal methods

FairMarkets offers a standard selection of payment methods, but due to the offshore nature of the broker, you may expect that each withdrawal transaction will be costly. Sending money in and out of offshore countries incurs hefty fees, and it takes much longer to receive money.

FairMarkets Minimum deposit

FairMarkets imposes no minimum deposit requirements, meaning you can deposit as little as $1. That’s somewhat a positive sign, but it still doesn’t change anything – FairMarkets remains an offshore broker, notwithstanding its license.

FairMarkets Withdrawal requirements

FairMarkets does not charge fees or commissions for withdrawals, but banks or payment service providers do. As we already mentioned, transactions to offshore countries like Mauritius are expensive, and you may find yourself paying way too much to get your money back.