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FXopen.com Review 2019 – Pros and Cons of Trading on FXopen

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FXOpen was founded in 2003 in Egypt by a group of traders. It started operating its brokerage service in 2005, currently it offers services to people worldwide with the only exception being residents of the US.

The company is regulated locally in Australia and the United Kingdom (company number 07273392) by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) with AFSL 412871 – ABN 61 143 678 719 and the Financial Conduct Authority under FCA firm reference number 579202, respectively.

The platform does not provide any information about daily trading volume, but their clients are assured to receive “real-time quotes from the industry’s largest liquidity providers”. The company is one of the few traditional brokers that actually offers trading with cryptocurrencies and not just CFDs or binary options.

Using The Site: Signing Up

Registering to the site is not complex. The only data requested by the site are an email and a mobile number, the registration process is executed in three steps and the password must be set at the second. The site offers the option to create a random, secure password for you, but you can choose your own freely.

Social login is available (via Facebook, Vkontakte and Google Plus) and might be used to speed up the process.

I tried to use my own lowercase-letter-only password, it seems it is not a valid pattern, but who knows, my Thai is not good enough

After completing the registration process, an address and a PIN are generated for your eWallet. You are advised to write down your PIN as it won’t be displayed again. Before moving into real trading you must click the confirmation link sent to the email you provided previously.

In order to trade with cryptocurrencies, you are required to verify your identity. You also have to pass the process to be able to submit any withdrawal requests.

The last step is to actually open the account (add a role to your wallet). You are given a list of available account types, once you select one you are asked to accept their terms and conditions and configure the base currency and leverage for it.

Opening a crypto account: I can choose either Litecoin or milliBitcoin as my base currency

While anonymous accounts are not allowed, demo accounts do exist and let you test the platform in a risk-free environment. Opening a demo account follows the same process as a regular account, or you can alternatively add a demo role to your wallet later.

Using The Site: Funding Your Account

Unless you are using a demo account which comes with whatever funds you want from the time it is created, you need to deposit some funds prior to placing any orders or trading anything.

FXOpen accepts some of the major currencies, including USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, JPY, AUD, CAD and RUB. Local currencies are also accepted through local bank transfers from the institutions that have partnered with the site.

There is a wide range of options to deposit, including bank wires, credit and debit cards (Union Pay, MasterCard, Visa and ePayments), diverse electronic payment systems (ePay, Payza, Neteller, WebMoney, Skrill, Perfect Money, SorexPay, YandexMoney, IntellectMoney, FasaPay and ePayments), prepaid cards (FXOpen prepaid cards and codes and paysafe card) and cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Tether).

Deposit fees are as low as 0% for some online processors, prepaid cards and cryptocurrencies in general. Withdrawal fees are higher on average; but cryptocurrencies incur only in the network fee. Additional fees include a 0.25% half-turn for trades in cryptocurrencies and a 10-USD monthly fee for inactivity (defined as 90 days without trades or deposits) and 50 USD for reactivation. A more detailed description of their fee model can be found here.

The minimum deposit depends on the account type, micro accounts are allowed to deposit from 1 USD on, but the remaining types require at least 10 USD. There are no upper limits to deposits for all accounts but the micro, limited to just 3,000 USD.

Using The Site: Trading

The platform offers trading via MetaTrader 4. You can either download the software (available only for Windows), use the webtrading app or install their mobile app on your Android or iOS phone.

You are given credentials for each account type you open within your wallet. Unlike other brokers where you have to manually configure MetaTrader, FXOpen tunes everything to match your needs from the very beginning.

If you are using the web version, currency pairs are listed to the left of the window and a chart showing the historic behavior of the selected market is displayed and updated in real time. FXOpen also gives access to additional tools such as market analysis, Forex market news and economic calendars that are not present in their competitor’s platform.

Metatrader 4: web interface on FXOpen

Opening an order follows the usual process: clicking a pair, customizing the parameters and placing it. Active orders are listed at the bottom of the page, just over the general account information (balance, equity, margin, etc.).

Placing an order to exchange USD into Bitcoin

FXOpen offers more than 200 markets including 24 pairs with the 7 supported cryptocurrencies (BTC, LTC, NMC, PPC, ETH, DASH and EMC). Margin trading is available with leverage going up-to 500x, but typically 3x for cryptocurrencies (along with 30/15% margin call/stop out). Only the 3 basic types of orders are available, i.e. market order, limit order and stop loss order.

Managing active orders is almost as simple as opening them, a single right click on the desired order opens a menu from where you can close, modify or delete your order or customize how it is displayed in the MetaTrader interface.

Managing orders on FXOpen using MetaTrader 4 web

Security On FXOpen

As many other websites online, FXOpen has had to deal with DDoS attacks, being the on in 2011 the strongest to the date. Besides some minor downtimes, the platform has been successful fighting hackers.

FXOpen also had a security problem back on its early days when one of its partners apparently misused the data it had access to to send out spam emails and abuse the trading platform.

Phishing attempts were reported by the same company which warned their users about sites claiming affiliation with the brand, using similar URLs and copying the site layout and legal information on it.

Regarding account security, the broker offers 2-step authentication either via SMS or Google Authenticator. IP access lists are also available in the security settings tab, showing activity history and allowing to configure black and white lists.

Emails are not encrypted, but passwords or any other confidential information is not disclosed on them. SMS notifications are available free of charge, enabling tracking account movements and changes on the go.

SMS notifications configuration: everything is free!

User Experience On FXOpen

Complains about the response times of the platform have been raised, especially in the early days of the website. One of the most relevant cases that were brought to the public was an investor (Xiuchun Yang) who was owed more than 70,000 USD, lost due to a failure in the FXOpen software. The case was finally solved with the broker agreeing to pay 70,000 USD to the customer, but it required the intervention of a high profile member of the FXOpen team.

The platform is currently available in 14 languages, missing only Italian among the usual ones. The site is not responsive at all, so using the mobile app is almost mandatory for users accessing the site from their phones.

Customer support may be reached through live chat (available in English, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Indonesian and Malay only during weekdays), email for those that are not customers yet, ticket system (with agents replying only from Monday to Friday from 6 to 16 GMT), phone call (3 lines in Russia including one toll free within the Russian Federation plus 3 virtual lines in New Zealand, Germany and France) and their brick-and-mortar offices in Nevis, Russia and New Zealand. A forum is also available to ask any questions.

Pros

• Deposits with cryptocurrencies.
• A great variety of deposit and withdrawal methods.
• Finely tuned trading interface.
• Real cryptocurrency trading.
• Different account types (including micro accounts for small investors).

Cons

• Customer support is not 24/7.
• High fees.
• Only the basic order types are available.
• Unstable platform at times.

Conclusion

This platform is great for crypto fans that want to invest in the Forex market using cryptocurrencies or people who want to actually trade cryptocurrencies using fiat. The offered tools and the customized interface make it also good overall, small investors are welcome with the micro accounts but scared away with the high fees.