With everything going on in the world you could be forgiven for missing the latest announcement from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) last week regarding their recent margin changes but it is still big news in the online trading world.
You may recall that Tradeview were one of the first to highlight the likelihood that ESMA’s proposed margin changes would be passed and gave detail on what it meant for clients around the world. Hundreds of thousands of traders did not qualify for professional status so therefore had their trade sizes slashed due to the new leverage limits and immediately went looking for a broker that sat outside of ESMA’s jurisdiction to gain those leverage benefits back. Australia was one of the more popular destinations and they benefitted short term but now they themselves have been hit with the same leverage restrictions (from 200:1 to 30:1 max) and this takes place on March 29th next year. So the search for higher leverage starts again and even though this regulatory sweep is likely to continue, these changes do take time so while there is still a viable honeypot out there you will likely see the bees swarm toward it.
The issue this time is where to go? It seems a toss-up between finding a broker that offers higher leverage against the risks of reduced regulation and client money protection that these lesser known regulators may offer, considering also that most of these brokers will not offer clients negative balance protection either.
So, traders will be looking to find a broker that covers as many of these 7 key points as possible:
- Long standing and reputable broker
- Offers the same margin levels that traders have become accustomed to
- Has a strong client money protection policy
- Competitively priced
- Negative balance protection
- Offers the technology and spreads of a Tier 1 Broker
- Highly recognised client service
Quite a list by today’s standards but they are out there and one option that covers all 7 is mentioned below.
Firstly it is worth searching on broker review sites, which can be a great help for prospective traders in understanding what their current clients think and you don’t want to just look for who has the highest score but one who takes the time to respond to their clients reviews, and the tone with which they respond also says a lot about them. So be sure to bear this in mind while carrying out your next search. It is also worth pointing out that there are many review sites that benefit from payments to garner great sounding reviews so they should ideally be an independent reviewer and one with international recognition, such as TrustPilot perhaps.
To finalise, this search is already underway but if you are impatient and want to be given the answers before doing your homework then one Broker that meets all of the 7 key points mentioned above is Tradeview. They have been trading for over 14 years, have a great client base where independent reviews can be found here.
They offer the leverage, low to zero comms depending on account type and zero spreads for much of the day on some of the Major FX pairs such as EUR/USD. They offer negative balance protection, cutting edge technology with MT4, MT5 and cTrader and you can find out more by clicking here to apply.
Do please take into consideration the key points mentioned above but also make sure to do your own research to feel as comfortable as possible when changing your broker.
