The financial service provider is supposed to be the link between the market participants and the market. There are some legit brokers, and then there are brokers like OctaFX who make claims but do not support them with facts. We recommend our traders first understand how a broker should work and then get their finances involved. This review will tell you all the reasons you should know before you start trading with OctaFX.
About OctaFX
The broker came into existence in 2011 and since then, has not updated the number of available tradable assets. The provided list is either incomplete or limited. Such things lead to a disruption in the consistency of the trader’s portfolio. The official website is also full of irrelevant information and misses any important or relevant thing that a trader should know.
The broker pushes the MT4 and Ctrader platform instead of the popular MT5 to users. The prior versions to the MT5 miss out on important indicators and tools which result in wrong trades. The presence of inconsistent platforms indicates the broker’s mindset, which clearly does not favour the trader in any sense. The education and research material that the broker supposedly provides is outdated. Hence, there is nothing special about the features it provides.
OctaFX: Scam or Legit?
The broker is divided into two branches, out of which local authorities completely regulate one. Local authorities do not pose much risk to the broker, but the trader is at 100% risk exposure in such cases.
Also, since there are two branches involved already, both should be regulated by central authorities. Non-involvement of central authorities in the regulation process is fishy and dishonest. The regulation of multi-branched brokers has to be done by central authorities also because such brokers are responsible for heinous crimes and are often witness to money laundering cases.
The broker gives out clear indications that it is a scam broker.
Summary
The basic details, trading features and charges of the broker are as follows:
Minimum deposit:
In today’s world, where many brokers offer to trade with minimal amounts like a dollar or two, OctaFX asks its brokers to pay $50 upfront. This is a scheme plunder money out of a trader’s pocket. Scam brokers also make sure that there is always a viable explanation for acts like these.
Trading features:
The broker’s funding methods are minimal and do not include Cryptocurrencies as a payment asset; the education material is restricted and limited. This stops a potential trader from getting involved because he expects the broker to be robust enough to provide information about the market and how things work.
Apart from this, the broker supposedly claims to provide a customer care support team that is available five days a week. When contacted, the customer is kept in a waiting queue. By the time he gets connected with a representative, the trade he is worried about has either already happened, or the trader has already cleared the query independently.
The broker’s trading assets are restricted, which results in a less diversified portfolio for an experienced broker. OctaFX thinks of its investors as not family, but just customers, hence not providing a negative balance protection scheme on any of its provided accounts.
OctaFX Trading Accounts:
Limited assets are offered on limited trading accounts. The traders can access a few on one account and maybe a few others on another one.
Account: MetaTrader4 micro
This account has minimal trading instruments. Only three cryptocurrencies are treated as tradable assets, apart from more than 1500 of those already available in the market. 4 Stock indices, along with less than 30 forex pairs and just two metals, OctaFX tries to build up a decent portfolio, failing at the same instance.
Many brokers offer more than 50 forex pairs for trading.
Apart from this, the only base currency pairs are EUR and USD. The broker asks for an initial deposit for 100 USD, which is relatively higher than many active and legitimate brokers.
Account: MetaTrader 5 pro
This account is no different from the previous accounts. In fact, the tradable forex pairs in this are reduced to a deeper extent, to less than 30 tradable forex pairs. The three cryptocurrencies offered by the broker undoubtedly are most volatile. Energy instruments are added as tradable assets, again because these are volatile in nature.
This account asks the trader to deposit $500 upfront as a minimum balance, and that is straight exploitation of the innocent nature a novice investor holds. Even after asking for such a hefty amount, the broker goes with USD and EUR as base pairs.
The whole point of creating two separate accounts which are almost 80% similar, is still unclear to us as a team of researchers.
Account: trader ECN
This account is slightly different from the previous ones, only because it charges a weekend fee. The traders have to pay extra if they are trading on weekends. Weekends are the days when most of the active traders’ trade, and the broker ask for a fee for holding such trades.
The tradable instruments are still limited, and the deposit is again kept at $100.
The broker barrs the users of this account from trading in CFD and cryptocurrencies. The account has no diversity in terms of currency base pairs and tradable metals.
Trading Markets:
The broker offers reading on different categories like cryptos, indices and metals but the related assets are restricted and sparse. The profit giving assets are kept away from the reach of an ambitious trader hence, keeping the broker at the profit-side of the game.
Major drawback: Compared to other competitive brokers, OctaFX offers a minuscule scale of tradable assets, the broker is insecure beyond our understanding. So much, that it does not offer trading on the most common tradable asset, stocks. Yes, you read that right.
OctaFX Trading Platforms
The broker offers three different platforms MT4, MT5, Ctrader.
Each platform comes with a personalised glitch.
Meta Trader 4:
The platform is unavailable for windows and mac OS, the most widely used operating systems worldwide. Plus, the mobile application excludes the option for browsing in the UI.
MetaTrader 5:
The broker does not allow the broker to exit all open trading positions at one click, plus the mobile version is not available. The broker stops the trader to scale out of position through this platform.
CTrader:
The broker does not allow financial derivatives trading like cryptocurrencies through this platform; neither does it offer an economic calendar.
Account opening process with OctaFX:
The whole process is time-consuming, and the authentication process takes more time than the firm might have taken to get itself registered if it is registered.
Market Research And Trading Tools:
The financial service provider does not offer many trustable tools that a trader can use to research the market. The daily forecasts of the market are out-dated and need to be updated immediately.
Education:
The educational material provided is confusing and baffling at the same time. A novice trader will face huge difficulties. The firm cannot be advised for traders looking for brokers who are known to provide education rich material, keeping it simple at the same time.
Customer support service:
The broker claims to provide support for five days a week and 24 hours a day. But the asked queries take so much time for processing that the trader gets irritated and puts down the whole process.
The Bottom Line:
The broker does not offer any features that other market brokers do not offer. It does not have a banking license, provides quite limited trading instruments, and the withdrawal options are lesser than already sparse deposit options. Why not go with another regulated broker like TradeATF, ETFinance, ROinvesting, which offer better services at lower rates. These brokers are highly reputed and regulated.
