FXCM Broker Review
4.5

FXCM Broker Review

✔️ World-class customer support
✔️ Free Practice Account
✔️ Live Forex Trading Tools
✔️ FX Trading Guides

Home » FXCM Broker Review

FXCM is one of the most well-established brokers around, featuring lucrative trading terms and conditions for all types of traders. It also offers a variety of the best forex trading platforms, which are perfect for benefiting from low spreads and lightning-fast execution speeds.

FXCM features numerous regulatory materials on its platform, including from the UK’s FCA, FSCA, and ASIC. It also securely stores your funds on segregated accounts and even offers insurance mechanisms in some jurisdictions.

Besides security and rewarding trading conditions, you’ll also have access to sophisticated educational and research tools. With their help, you can take your trading knowledge to the next level and conduct accurate technical analysis. The FXCM customer support team is also very helpful and knowledgeable, giving you peace of mind should anything ever go wrong.

Overall, FXCM is a high-quality broker that’s well respected within the industry. Read on to learn more about why it might be the perfect place for you to trade.

Getting to know to FXCM

The FXCM online forex broker came into existence in 1999 in London, UK. In its 20+ years of operations, the broker has received many prestigious awards, including the Best Forex Broker of the Year – 2013 and Best Customer Support.

FXCM is also a member of Leucadia, now known as Jefferies Financial Group, which is a well-established American financial company that is listed on the Fortune 500. This adds to its reputation significantly. Your FXCM experience also comes complete with 70+ tradable instruments, ultra-fast executions, and strict regulation.

Trade with a regulated forex broker

When it comes to regulatory compliance, FXCM is bound by the financial guidelines put out by five separate institutions:

  • Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – The UK
  • Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) – Australia
  • Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) – South Africa

These regulatory materials, which are beyond a doubt some of the most powerful licenses in the industry, ensure the highest financial standards at the FXCM online broker. Client funds are stored separately from the broker’s accounts too, meaning they cannot be spent on operational costs. If you are in the UK or Europe, your funds are also protected against insolvency up to 85,000 GBP.

Sign up to a retail account at FXCM

When it comes to trading accounts, there is one live account that accounts for all trader types with sophisticated signals and indicators. The Standard account offers spreads as low as 0 pip (with an average EUR/USD spread of 1.3 pips), and leverage of up to 400:1 (30:1 in the UK and other European countries). Please note that whilst leverage can dramatically amplify your profits, it can also just as dramatically amplify your losses. Trading foreign exchange/CFDs with any level of leverage may not be suitable for all investors.

If you’re an active trader who trades high volumes, you may also benefit from the Active Trader account. This offers more elite pricing, institutional trading ideas, market depth, and other useful features.

In our FXCM broker review, we also found a demo account that can be opened free of charge. By signing up for a demo account at FXCM, you get 20,000 USD of virtual money (50,000 GBP in the UK), and you can trade forex, commodities, indices, and other instruments 24/5.

Pros and Cons of FXCM

Pros
  • 70+ instruments
  • 3 licenses
  • Enhanced execution (0.026 seconds to place a trade)
  • A huge database of research and educational materials
Cons
  • No fund insurance for international clients

Bonuses at FXCM

During our review of the broker, our team wasn’t able to find bonuses for international clients of FXCM. This is not something to be disheartened by, however, as it shows that FXCM has clearly chosen to push its lucrative trading conditions over short-lived incentives.

Discover the fees and commissions

Trading commissions and fees at FXCM are all competitive and fair. In fact, our FXCM review team considers it to be one of the best forex brokers for low-cost trading.

Trading fees

The main trading fee at FXCM is the spread, which is charged for forex pairs and other CFD instruments. By choosing the standard account at FXCM, you’ll get spreads of as low as 0 pip, whereas the average rate revolves around 1.3-2.5 pips. If you go for the Active Trader account, you’ll be charged even lower spreads. Other than spreads, there are no commissions for accounts or individual instruments.

It’s worth remembering that time-weighted average spreads are derived from tradable prices at FXCM from 2020 Q1. Spreads are variable and are subject to delay and so, these spread figures are for information purposes only. For the latest spreads, please refer to the FXCM website or trading station.

Financing/Overnight rates

FXCM charges overnight fees, i.e. swaps, for trades that are left open for more than a day. If you choose to leave your trade open from Wednesday to Thursday, the swap rates will triple in size to account for the upcoming weekends.

Non-trading fees

When it comes to deposit and withdrawal commissions, FXCM deliberately chooses not to charge you a penny for transactions. If your account is inactive for 12 months, however, you’ll be charged 50 USD per year.

Deposit and withdraw with ease

As discovered during our review of FXCM forex broker, the deposit and withdrawal methods are very convenient and there are no transaction commissions whatsoever.

For deposits, FXCM supports Visa, MasterCard, and Discover cards, bank wire, and some e-wallets (Neteller, Skrill, Union Pay). Credit card and e-wallet deposits are usually credited to your account instantly, while wire transfers take from one to five business days to complete.

For withdrawals, you can use the same platforms apart from e-wallets. These take approximately three days to complete. Depending on which bank you use, there may also be external withdrawal fees charged to your account.

Trade on top-quality platforms at FXCM

Trading at FXCM is facilitated by a wide range of trading platforms, the majority of which are well-known titles: MetaTrader 4, ZuluTrade, and FXCM’s own Trading Station. Let’s start with the proprietary software.

The FXCM online forex broker has developed its Trading Station to operate on desktop devices, as well as web browsers and even smartphones. It is an HTML5-based platform that supports many research and analytical tools, automated trading, and even backtesting.

When it comes to MetaTrader 4, you get pretty much the same features that you have with Trading Station. On top of that, you can also use the Virtual Private Server (VPS) and can use scalping strategies too. You can also enjoy stop-loss/take-profit orders and the ability to partially close positions.

Finally, ZuluTrade allows you to perform peer to peer social trading at FXCM. By choosing ZuluTrade as your trading platform, you can copy professional traders’ moves and benefit from various risk management tools to protect your funds.

Besides these trading platforms, FXCM also provides you with a free 1-year subscription to TradingView’s professional features. Under this subscription, you can use various indicators (volume, volatility, etc.), exclusive charts, and many more.

Is FXCM mobile compatible?

FXCM’s proprietary forex trading platform is available for mobile platforms as well. Its interface is as responsive as it can get: the pages adjust to the vertical layout of your screen and the tabs are shrunk in the menu button at the top-right corner of the screen. On top of that, you can also download Trading Station or MetaTrader 4 on your iOS or Android device and trade directly from there.

Improve your knowledge at FXCM

The educational section at FXCM has proved to be among the top-tier offerings you can find on the market right now. There are lots of different materials, including educational articles, videos, and even online courses.

Trading Guides is a section where you’ll find in-depth blogs about what forex trading is, as well as explanations of main concepts. You can also improve your trading psychology by getting to know the traits of other successful traders.

During this FXCM broker review, we also discovered that the broker offers trading courses and webinars almost every day of the week. These are hosted by professional economists and traders. With these courses, you’ll get a better grasp of current economic developments, as well as how to make the most of them in your trades.

These are just a few materials a beginner can find at FXCM to enhance their trading knowledge and skills. There are also other mediums, such as interactive videos, glossaries, and FAQs that are designed to answer your questions about trading forex, stocks, and other instruments.

How good is the customer service at FXCM?

When it comes to communicating with the broker and getting the information you need, FXCM offers email, phone, and live chat support.

These platforms are all very helpful in their own way, as our review of FXCM’s trading site shows. If you want the benefit of immediacy, you should definitely use the live chat or the phone support, and if your goal is a more official interaction, then you can use the email or in-person support. Either way, the customer team at FXCM is exceptionally friendly and they are available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Such a professional attitude further establishes the fact that FXCM is a trustworthy broker that’s worth trading with.

Our final verdict on FXCM

During our review of the broker, we were happy to learn that FXCM is an international brokerage that was established in 1999 and has been operating ever since. In its 20+ years of existence, FXCM has received many awards and has been listed in the Fortune 500.

We were also pleased by the wide range of instruments, which includes forex pairs, indices, and cryptocurrencies*. These instruments come with competitive spreads, lucrative leverage ratios, and ultra-fast execution speeds. When it comes to the regulation, our FXCM team found the broker to be unrivaled, as it boasts top-tier licenses from around the world.

With all this considered, it’s pretty obvious that trading with this broker could be beneficial to you. Sign up with FXCM in a few simple steps and get the best trading conditions on the market.

*Availability is subject to regulations

FAQs

Is FXCM a regulated broker?

Yes, our review of FXCM found that this is a properly regulated broker that has licenses from five separate institutions: the FCA UK, ASIC, AMF, and FSCA. Under these licenses, FXCM provides various measures that protect your funds, including the segregation of financial accounts and money insurance policy for certain jurisdictions.

What account types does FXCM offer?

At FXCM, there is one regular live trading account that offers 400:1 leverage (30:1 for EU clients), competitive spreads, and enhanced execution speeds. If you are a high-volume trader, you can also register for an Active Trader account to gain more benefits. In addition, FXCM also offers a free demo account to let you trade virtually and improve your knowledge/skills.

Does FXCM offer a bonus?

Currently, the FXCM forex broker doesn’t offer bonuses or other promotions to its clients. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however, as it shows that FXCM is committed to meeting regulations and offering a responsible product. Plus, at FXCM you’ll benefit from long-lasting features like lower spreads and higher leverage ratios.

What is FXCM minimum deposit?

If you want to start trading at FXCM, you can open the retail account for free, without any minimum deposit requirement. This is a very beneficial feature for all trader types, both experienced and veteran.

Is FXCM secure?

Yes, at FXCM you are protected by a number of security measures. The broker features five separate licenses, client insurance, negative balance protection, and SSL encryption. All of these add up to a secure brokerage that you can trust.

Welcome Bonus
NONE
Min Deposit: $100

5.0
Trust & Fairness
5.0
Games & Software
4.0
Bonuses & Promotions
4.0
Customer Support
4.5 Overall Rating

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