FxPro Financial Services Ltd - Forex Broker Review

General Info:

Broker Profile: FxPro Financial Services
Company name: FxPro
Founded: 2006
HQ Address: 13/14 Basinghall Street, London, EC2V 5BQS
Branches in: Cyprus, Russia, Spain, France, Austria.
Tel: +44 0207 776 9720
Fax: +44 0207 600 7063
Email: [email protected]

Broker Breakdown :

FxPro has come a hell of a long way since being established back in 2006. The first few years of this broker’s development were spent gaining regulation, building a client base and developing brand awareness in the form of high visibility sponsorships. Today most people recognise the iconic red square the company uses as its logo.

Since the end of 2010 FxPro changed direction and began focusing on building the tools it offers its traders. 2011 saw the broker launching its cTrader ECN platform and Institutional Services branch. 2012 was an even bigger year for the broker, FxPro also received a full license from the UK’S FSA (now FCA), as well as following up its cTrader release with cAlgo, an algorithmic strategy builder compatible with cTrader, and a web-based version of cTrader. The biggest change in the company’s history also took place in 2012 with the company fully changing its business model to becoming an Agency Model broker (read more about this here). What this has meant for FxPro clients is that FxPro completely closed its dealing desk, allowing all trades to be put straight through to the market without any intervention in-house. FxPro does not take opposing positions to those of its clients and does not benefit from lost trades. All revenue stems from commissions and spread mark-ups, meaning that it is in the company’s interests to develop tools that help their trader be more profitable. Profitable traders tend to trade more often and since FxPro only earns commissions, more trading means more money in its coffers.

The adoption of the Agency Model in 2012 led to the third main thrust in the company’s growth, the development of a roster of tools geared towards helping their traders gain a competitive edge on the world’s FX markets. 2013 has seen the release of: FxPro Vault, FxPro VPS, FxPro Quant, FxPro EA Library, and FxPro SuperTrader. All of these tools would not have seen release were it not for the company’s switch to the Agency Model, and each one, in its own way is geared towards providing a different type of FxPro client an edge in a certain area of trading, be it risk management, algo development, execution speed, or plain old training prowess.

In Q2 of 2013 the broker was ranked 10th globally in terms of trade volume by the Forex Magnates Industry report, and as the new tools it has brought to the market gain some momentum we expect to see it rising further up this list. The broker has somewhat slipped from the public eye, choosing instead to focus on these offerings, but the way it is choosing to focus on providing a higher level of service shows a degree of foresight in an industry rapidly reaching saturation point. The main things prospective traders look for are low commissions/spreads, and a safe transparent way to trade. At the moment market making brokers have the first base covered, they can afford to offer cheaper trading due to their very model which allows them to profit from client losses. Agency Model brokers like FxPro certainly have the second (and we regard more important base) covered, and as the tide continues to turn on the issue of market makers we anticipate Agency Model brokers becoming increasingly competitive on spreads and commissions as well.
Having tested this broker’s trading services we observed none of the issues that plague many market making platforms. These issues include: crashes, re-quotes, slippage, inconsistent pricing, FxPro’s platforms are robust, accurate, quick to respond, and the company conducts honestly and treats traders with equal fairness, regardless of the specifics of their positions and how they are performing.

Services:

FxPro is a retail Forex broker that specialises in offering clients Contracts for Difference on foreign exchange, futures, shares and select precious metals.

Regulatory Bodies:

Regulated By: CySEC and FCA.

Language Support:

FxPro offers its website and customer support in the following languages:
Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Hungarian, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Pakistani, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese.

Trading Platforms:

FxPro offers two main trading platforms, each with a number of spin-offs. The broker offers straight through processing on both of its platforms, meaning that each trade is passed straight through to the market with no intervention from a dealing desk. The main difference between them is that MT4 offers straight through processing with the company applying a small mark-up on the spread, whereas cTrader is an ECN platform with no spread mark-up but set commission fees for opening and closing positions.
MetaQuotes Metatrader 4 (MT4):
FxPro Client Terminal, FxPro Multi Terminal (for multiple account managers), FxPro WebTrader (accessible through a web browser with no need to download), FxPro iPhone, FxPro iPad, FxPro Android.
Spotware cTrader:
FxPro cTrader, FxPro Algo (a platform for developing auto-trading strategies that are compatible with cTrader), FxPro cTrader Web (accessible through a web browser with no need to download).

Currency Pairs Offered: 72

MT4 Pip Spreads on Major Pairs: EUR/USD 1.2
GBP/USD 1.5
USD/JPY 1.0
USD/CHF 1.5
AUD/USD 1.0
EUR/CHF 2.0
EUR/GBP 1.2
USD/CAD 1.5

Commissions:
ECN: $65 per $1million traded upon opening the position and the same amount upon closing the position.
MetaTrader 4: Equities: 0.10% only upon opening the position
Futures $15/lot only upon opening the position
Forex: No Commission
Other Instruments: Shares, futures, precious metals
Leverage Offered: 1.1 to 500:1
Lot Sizes Offered: Mini and Standard (10,000 and 100,000)
Non-USD Accounts: EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD, CHF, PLN
Minimum Account Size: MT4: 500 USD
cTrader: 1,000 USD
Fractional Pip Pricing (5 decimal places): Yes
Segregated Accounts: Yes
Demo Trading: Yes (Unlimited)
24 Hour Trading: Yes
Mobile Trading: Yes
FIFO Rules (first in, first out): No
Scalping Permitted: Yes
Algorithmic Trading Permitted: Yes
Swap Free Accounts (Sharia Law): Yes
PAMM Accounts: Yes
Deposit/Withdrawal Methods: Bank Wire, Credit/Debit Card, PayPal, Neteller, Skrill (Moneybookers), NetBanx, mPay, WebMoney, MonetaRU.