Brokers for forex 6

Forex tips: How to determine which brokers have the best security measures.

Safety is always an important consideration when dealing with money. Transferring money internationally can present a security risk, so you want to be sure your funds are safe from cybercriminals and fraud. This is why it’s essential to choose the right forex broker. Here’s what to look out for to know your money is secure.

This blog was first published in January 2022 and has been updated with new information for accuracy.

Online security breaches of a large scale have become more common. For financial services firms, protecting clients’ data and funds should be of paramount importance. To have peace of mind, you should check that the firm you are working with has the following security measures in place.

Forex regulation compliance.

When it comes to a reliable forex provider, one of the most important things is regulation. Money transfer companies need to ensure that they stay up to date with all the relevant regulations, requirements and laws. They must also be licensed and registered with the correct regulatory institutions.

All forex businesses in the UK should be registered with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) as a money services business and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an authorised payment institution.

When choosing a forex broker, do thorough research and ensure they have the relevant accreditations. A professional looking website doesn’t mean that the broker is regulated by the relevant authorities – it’s always best to get the registration number and check for yourself. You don’t want to take any chances when it comes to your personal or business's finances.

Why is regulation important?

Regulatory bodies such as the FCA make sure that financial institutions behave fairly and ethically. They provide strict rules that must be followed to stay accredited. Stringent requirements and regular audits and checks ensure that if a forex broker is authorised by the FCA, they’re accountable and you are protected.

What is KYC (Know Your Customer)?

KYC is the process of verifying the identity of clients to prevent fraud. Any financial institution must conduct research into a potential client’s identity and intentions before providing them with services.

Fund segregation.

FCA-authorised payment institutions have a responsibility to segregate funds. This separates your money from your broker’s, meaning that should a forex broker go bankrupt, your money is completely safe in a segregated account (known as a "safeguarding account").

Segregated funds give you complete peace of mind that your money will be returned to you in full.

Online security.

Detailed information should be available on their website, but if not, call them to enquire about how they secure their online money transfers. Reputable forex providers should use advanced security protocols to encrypt your personal and sensitive data. Advanced algorithms are a means of fraud detection and prevention. In case of any fraud, your broker should take prompt action.

Two-factor authentication.

Security features, such as two-step verification are used to prevent hackers from accessing your accounts. An additional layer of security is added to the authentication process with this kind of authentication because, even if a victim's password is hacked, a password alone cannot pass an authentication check, making it harder for attackers to get into a person's devices or online accounts.

Use a strong password.

No matter how good a website’s security measures are, passwords are a vulnerability in the security chain. They are only as good as you make them, so choose something unique and complex, especially when it comes to managing your money.

A strong password consists of a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special symbols, such as punctuation. It should be at least 12 characters long. Longer is recommended as far as possible.

Never use the same password for every site. If someone gains access to one site, they will have your password for all of them.

Online reviews.

Before choosing your broker, research them online and read what others have to say about their services. Other clients’ experiences can inform your decision and set you at ease.

Reviews can back up your research into security measures and accreditations to give you complete satisfaction that your money is safe and secure.

Our forex department at Sable International is known for exceptional customer service, and we currently hold an average score of 4.9 out of five (based on more than 1,400 reviews).

We’d love to help you along your forex journey. Email forex@sableinternational.com or call +44 (0) 20 7759 7554 or +27 (0) 657 2153.

Sable International is a fully regulated and registered financial services provider in South Africa, the UK and Australia.

We are a professional services company that specialises in cross-border financial and immigration advice and solutions.

Our teams in the UK, South Africa and Australia can ensure that when you decide to move overseas, invest offshore or expand your business internationally, you'll do so with the backing of experienced local experts.

Brokers for forex 5

Seven tips to make your forex broker marketing strategy work to the fullest.

Emerging Forex brokers have to solve a whole range of challenges that every young business comes up against. These issues relate not only to the technical support and equipment of the trading platform but also to its promotion in the oversaturated market. We discussed how a promising marketing strategy for modern brokerage companies can look with Yvonne Hambridge, Senior Marketing Manager at FXOpen. FXOpen is a global Forex and CFD broker, which has been operating in the market for more than 15 years and utilizes Soft-FX software solutions.

Consider your positioning in the market.

The volume of the Forex market is currently estimated at 6.6 trillion dollars. Around 9.5 million people around the world trade online. This means that roughly one in every seven hundred of all the people who live on our planet can become your client. This is a tempting customer base, but the problem is that the total number of Forex brokers, both large and small, totals in the hundreds. You need to be prepared to cut through the information noise that other Forex marketing campaigns create, and it's important to understand exactly what makes your company stand out from the rest, and exactly how you will tell potential clients about yourself.

The Forex industry at the moment is fairly heavily saturated with various brokers, and for the most part they offer the same thing; most brokers offer tight spreads, a lot provide ECN execution. In terms of the chosen FX business model and its features, this will make it harder to differentiate your offering. So brand awareness is key. It will be necessary to make your target audience understand what trading with your particular FX broker can offer, in addition to the basic brand hygiene factors of tight spreads, round-the-clock support, and a variety of trading instruments (although these features are important to mention). The strategy of building brand awareness depends on the specifics of each particular Forex business and its target audience. Some classic industry examples are sports sponsorships and partnerships, or building a wide affiliate network.

FXOpen Senior Marketing Manager.

The best basic strategy to implement in a Forex broker marketing plan is to decide how you want to talk about your FX business, what makes you different, and to whom you want to convey your message to in the first place.

Optimize your digital advertising model.

In the case of online trading, a successful marketing strategy almost always includes some form of paid advertising. However, one should remember to manage advertising budgets wisely and regularly measure the effectiveness of paid promo campaigns, matching them with the business plan.

Paid search is a great tool to drive highly targeted traffic to your website. But in order to make this channel effective, you shouldn't forget about traffic and user segmentation to ensure you're really targeting the right section of your intended audience. Be sure to test paid search campaigns, every step of the way, and make refinements as needed. A good approach to take in Forex advertising is to not look at paid search in isolation. Ensure a multi-channel approach that will consider any related social media accounts, email marketing, web content and everything else that helps to reinforce your brand message.

FXOpen Senior Marketing Manager.

Use a blended approach to Forex advertising to position yourself at your customers’ touchpoints.

Remember that content is a cost-effective instrument.

In a marketer's toolkit, content is probably the most versatile and one of the most effective resources, as long as it is properly communicated to the target audience. Your marketing team can create a single piece that can be efficiently used for a website main page, for a blog post, for an email campaign, and for various other uses. And if there's one thing we can be sure of in an ever-changing and digitalizing environment, it's that the role of content is only going to strengthen, so you have to make every piece of content that is created work as hard as possible across multiple channels. Also, quality content is a good way to build a network of influencers, as engaging posts and articles always create points of discussion. Unlike forced, bonus-driven user behavior, refined and personalized content makes everything work naturally.

At this point, it is useful to mention ensuring consistent messaging in the content that’s produced. This helps sustain your differentiation from other brokers and to ensure that each piece published is aligned with the overall marketing strategy. A brand book/brand guidelines may become an ultimate help in achieving consistent messaging, as content assets are often created by several people or even departments, and a brand book ensures everybody is on the same page with what’s being created, from digital assets to blog posts.

FXOpen Senior Marketing Manager.

Content is the king, but only when consistent messaging is ensured.

Invest in your traders' education.

Regardless of the category of traders your company is targeted at, any Forex advertising model involves some form of client education. The field of foreign exchange is not the easiest to master, and every trading platform is based on solutions that require onboarding. Even if you're confident that 90% of your clients have extensive experience, activities such as educational webinars and helpful media content will provide you with the rewarding image of a customer-conscious company.

Every FXOpen client has access to a vast knowledge base and media content that covers all levels of Forex trading, from introductory explanations to advanced concepts like algorithmic trading. This way we make sure that every trader has not only access to the wide range of instruments and analytical tools provided by FXOpen, but also the ability to use them correctly. We represent the kind of Forex business that is committed to our client’s success and their comfort while using our platform, which is why educational content is an important marketing tool. We implement it everywhere from blog articles to email newsletters.

FXOpen Senior Marketing Manager.

The better your client understands what they are doing, the more likely they are to remain your client.

Balance out your email marketing.

It’s predominantly cheaper for a company to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one if we are talking about marketing costs. So it is important to utilize regular mailings to ensure that you are at the forefront of your customers’ minds. Email marketing will help build trust and long-term relationships with existing customers and, if handled carefully, can help attract new ones as well. If a company’s CRM service allows it, you can automate and customize emails and newsletters for different categories of customers.

You have to make sure that what you’re sending is not perceived as spammy. The content of your emails should be relevant to your customer base, but even useful and educational pieces of content can seem intrusive if you send them out too often. Determine the content and layout for different categories of emails, determine what frequency is appropriate for different customer segmentation, and gradually implement your email marketing strategy, tracking performance at each stage and making incremental changes along the way.

FXOpen Senior Marketing Manager.

Make sure your email marketing promo tools work in a way that you retain clients, not vice versa.

Explore social media platforms to find the right fit.

In this day and age, you don’t want to be excluding social media in its entirety, even if you are not looking to actively acquire clients through this Internet channel. The mere fact of having a social media profile instills trust in users, and it is a great way to communicate with your clients.

Even if a company doesn’t rely much on the social media account in terms of promotion, it’s generally a good idea to analyze the user activity to see what they say about you that they would not take the time to email to your customer support team. Also, identifying the social platform where most of your users are located can provide you with quite a few useful insights into new ways to interact with your target audience.

FXOpen Senior Marketing Manager.

You don't have to run an entire SMM department, but social media can be a great intelligence channel for your Forex broker marketing plan.

Find the right activity to engage your users.

Contests, as well as bonus and reward systems, not only help to attract new clients but, above all, allow existing users of the trading platform to look at the functionality or philosophy of the broker from a new perspective. PAMM accounts are also a great way to attract a new category of investors, who are passionate about the foreign exchange market but do not have time or opportunity to engage in trading directly. It is possible to find a suitable activity to match the resources or technological capabilities of almost any FX business.

The positives of having as many extra activities on your platform as possible are that your users get to experience products and offerings from a new perspective, so your relationship with the customer base does not get stale. You can also bring in your content resources to create some PR on the back of that and obtain publicity by providing newsworthy content for the media.

FXOpen Senior Marketing Manager.

Promo activities of any suitable kind will help bring both customer and press relations to the next level.

Final thoughts: personalizing your marketing strategy.

From all of the above, it tends to conclude that the more targeted you can become in your Forex marketing campaigns, the better. Once you've decided on your audience and the specific message you want to deliver, get to work and target exactly the right group for your Forex marketing strategy — MT5 users, algo traders, 2 investors, etc. It’s always best to make decisions based on data, so the more ideas, theories, and marketing products you can put in your A/B promo testing, the better.

Brokers for forex 4

Forex Brokers by Country.

For a novice Forex trader looking for a broker, it may seem that there is an infinite amount of Forex brokers to choose from, and the choice may seem impossible. There really are quite a lot of different Forex brokers and even experienced traders sometimes have a hard time deciding which one to trade with. Different brokers offer different features and provide different services, some are more reliable than others and picking a broker that you can trust is very important. The key to picking the right Forex broker is to know what to look for. What are the most important differences between the different Forex brokers and how do we know to look for them?

I would like to cover three different aspects which differ Forex brokers from one another. I believe that these three factors should be first to consider when picking a Forex broker to work with. These factors are very important and should not be compromised under any circumstances.

Trading Platform Reliability.

Every Forex broker has his own trading platform which is your interface with the broker. These trading platform come in different forms (browser-based, desktop platform, mobile platform) and as your direct interface with your broker is one of the most important aspects of choosing your broker.

Many factors should be considered when inspecting the different forex trading platforms but overall the most important one is its stability. Having all the features that you need is important, but it doesn’t matter how many different features the platform provides if it crashes when you need it most.

The most crucial times for Forex trading are when big economic events affect the market, but these are also the times that the trading platforms will be busiest. If you want to use these crucial windows of opportunity to make a profit you must make sure that your platform can withstand the load and will not crash exactly when you want to open or close a trade.

If you are an aggressive trader looking to make a profit from large, frequent trades put the stability of your platform as a top priority. More subtle traders, who do not monitor the market day in and day out can compromise on the stability of the platform if it comes in the place of different advantages.

Once you have assessed a platform’s stability you can also look into different aspects of a trading platform. Is it user-friendly or will navigating it waste you a lot of time? Does it provide all the features that you are looking for?

Regulation.

The second aspect that I would like to point out is regulation. Is your Forex broker regulated and if so, by what countries or bodies?

Every country has its own rules when it comes to regulation and understanding the trustworthiness of different regulatory bodies is crucial when picking a Forex broker to trade with. The USA, Japan, UK, Australia, Switzerland, and the Eurozone offer strict regulation that can be trusted. If you choose a forex broker that is based outside of these zones, make sure that the broker is regulated by proper regulation bodies.

Be aware of your broker’s regulation as brokers that are not regulated can do whatever they want with your money and traders have been known to lose a lot of investments because their brokers didn’t play by the rules.

Capitalization.

The third and final factor that I will bring up concerning forex brokers is their capitalization. Forex brokers that don’t have proper capitalization can’t stay competitive in today’s market. The reliability of a broker over time is based upon the number of funds that it has set aside.

Most brokers publish their capitalization status, those who don’t probably have something to hide and you should steer clear of those if you want to keep your investments.

Regulatory authorities require brokers to have a minimum amount of capital, but the amount differs from body to body. In the USA the minimum capital for a forex broker is 10 million dollars and is expected to be increased to 20 million in the near future.

Watch out for brokers who say that they are trustworthy because they trade in the interbank network. The interbank network is not properly regulated and is mostly used by large corporations and central banks and not by private traders.

These are, in my opinion, the three most important factors to consider when choosing a Forex broker to trade with. Check out the different possibilities for yourself and decide which factors are most important for you.