Forex4you Review – How Does This Forex Broker Compare?

History of Forex4you

The story of Forex4you (E-Global Trade & Finance Group, Inc) brand begins in the year 2007, back when majority of Forex Brokers were based in Europe with UK having the most dominant amount of brokers. When Forex4you started operating their trading volumes were roughly around $50 million, which even in 2007 was a very low number. However, due to very favourable trading conditions and outstanding service at the time the company was able to expand at a very lucrative pace, taking over a huge part of Forex Market, and resulting in a staggering 200 billion in yearly trading volumes. Today, Forex4you has around 40 offices throughout the globe with 5 main offices located in Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Forex4you (E-Global Trade & Finance Group, Inc) is registered in the British Virgin Islands (“BVI”), and is licensed by the Financial Services Commission (“FSC”) under the Securities and Investment Business Act, 2010 (“SIBA”). BVI has always been one of the most popular jurisdictions for offshore Forex Brokers, due to uncomplicated setup, confidentiality of owners and shareholders, and most importantly relatively low required paid-up capital, usually it is in the range of 100,000.00 – 250,000.00 USD.

Good-standing and Regulation 

In 2013 BVI FSC and regulatory authorities of 31 European countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MoU”) regarding the mutual assistance in the supervision and oversight of managers of investment funds. However, in the event of a trading dispute, attempting to resolve a dispute in court is practically impossible. Resolution of conflict for traders usually depends purely on the decency of a broker.

As of December 31 2018, Forex4you has 96,985 active client accounts reported. Interestingly enough according to an independent limited assurance report for 2017, the company had 122,037 active client accounts. We have asked the company to comment on the reasons for such a stupendous decline in active client accounts, but Forex4you has not yet responded to our request for comment.

In the end of June 2013 Finance Magnates interviewed CEO of Forex4You (Max Lebedev at the time) and asked whether Forex4You will be acquiring any additional licensing. Mr. Lebedev stated that Forex4You is operating under regulation of BVI FSC license, and for any new markets that they will enter, they will comply with local legislation requirements and regulation standards. Up to this point Forex4you has not acquired any additional licenses.

Safety Of Client Funds

Like all regulated brokers, Forex4you guarantees client fund segregation by separating client funds from the company’s operational funds. According to Forex4You, client funds are kept in a variety of banks simultaneously, in order to decrease the risks. Fund segregation assures investors in safety of funds, in the unlikely event that the company becomes insolvent client and investor funds should remain safe.

Forex4you does not disclose their Liquidity Providers, but they claim to deal only with the regulated financial institutions and to have established multiple FIX API connections with several European regulated liquidity providers. Unlike some other offshore regulators, BVI FSC does not require Forex Brokers to have only regulated Liquidity Providers, hence this information cannot be verified, but anyone is able to have a look at the available liquidity of the company’s major instruments on their site: https://www.forex4you.com/en/liquidity/.

Forex4You Key Offerings

Forex4you is primarily an MT4 Broker and offers a variety of trading account types for every type of trader. Currently they allow traders access to over 150+ instruments, which include Forex, Commodities, Stocks, Indices, and Cryptocurrencies. What sets the company apart from a number of competitors is that Forex4you has their own Social Trading network – Share4you. 

Share4You is a social trading network service that allows anyone to copy trades of successful traders, and gives an opportunity to profitable traders to become so-called ‘Leaders’, and share their trading with others, for a generous remuneration.

Share4you is a truly remarkable service which has all the necessary functionality for copy-trading, and at the same time is very simple and intuitive. 

One of the features of Share4you which deserves to be mentioned, is the client’s ability to adjust the size of copied positions and set own stops, to suit any risk appetite. Most of Social Trading platforms limit clients to a percentile allocation of copied trades, whereas Share4you allows clients to setup concrete figures limiting the size of orders. Furthermore, Share4you provides a very comprehensive report and overview about every ‘Leader’, who allows their trades to be copied:

Apart from all the reporting functionality, Share4you provides one feature which is frequently overlooked by investors, but is a major role player – ability to see all previous accounts of the ‘Leader’.

More information about Share4you Social Trading Network is available via the link: https://www.forex4you.com/en/leader-account/ 

Partnership Programs

Forex4you offers 2 partnership programs: “Affiliate” partner program with 3 referral levels and “ProSTP Markup” partner program.

“Affiliate” Partner program is very straightforward and offers nothing unusual. The main idea is that affiliate earns 50% commission of Tier 1 clients spread, 16.7% of Tier 2 spread, and 5.6% of Tier 3 spreads.

As long as you have an account available, all it takes to create a new account is to click ‘Create Account’ – Affiliate account will be ready within couple of seconds, and you can instantly access all the Marketing Materials within your Affiliate Area.

“ProSTP Markup” partner program is a relatively common partnership program, but not too widely used, because affiliates are able to choose own mark-up, which creates less-favourable conditions for the trader:

Clients can sign in into the Back-office with any created login and switch between partnership accounts without signing out from your accounts.

Account opening process

The account opening process with Forex4you is simple and surprisingly fast. In order to receive login credentials and be able to log into the Client Area, trader has to fill out a short registration form and provide your phone number. Although, the process is fast and simple only as long as you live in a country which is accepted by Forex4you and is actually listed in the registration form. 

Forex4you has a statement on the site listing countries residents of which are not accepted, however the list is clearly incomplete, registration form is missing more countries, than officially  stated:

The company claims to verify all your documents in under 5 hours on average, which does appear to be the case during the work week, but this applies to personal documents only, corporate documents usually take longer.

Full functionality as well as ability to deposit funds becomes available immediately after successful verification of the documents:

Account Types

Traders are get to choose either a Cent, Classic, Cent NDD or Pro STP accounts for trading with instant and market execution. Accounts with Instant Execution have fixed spreads, NDD and SPT accounts have floating spreads, but what is more unusual is that Forex4you does not have minimum deposit requirements for any account type. Trading accounts can be denominated only in US dollars or Euros, there are no other options of base currency for any of the accounts. 

All trading accounts provide similar trading conditions, except few differences which originate from the execution type.

• Cent & Cent NDD accounts are great for new traders, who decided to switch from Demo trading to Real trading, but are not yet comfortable making a substantial deposit. Cent accounts are usually used by traders to test new strategies and Expert Advisors in the real-market conditions. In addition to spreads NDD Accounts have commission of 10$ cents per lot.

 

• Classic & PRO STP accounts are suitable for traders with real-life experience and confidence in their trading style, or have Expert Advisors which are ready to be deployed in the live environment. STP account is subject to trading commission of 8$ per lot.

 

Forex4you offers each account with two different order execution methods: Instant Execution and Market Execution.

Instant Execution Accounts: All orders are executed exactly at the indicated price. No order can ever be opened or closed without the trader accepting a certain price. This is the most suitable option for traders who value execution at a specific price. Traders who are not used to instant execution have to bear in mind, that not every Expert Advisor is capable of trading with Instant Execution. Furthermore trading during news and high market volatility might be very difficult or even impossible, because there is no guarantee that chosen price-level will have enough liquidity for an order to be filled.

Market Execution Accounts: Guarantees order execution ‘at any cost’, at the first available price – in other words, whenever broker has enough liquidity on a specific level to fill the order. It is worth mentioning, that during high market volatility the orders are likely to be affected by slippage, although, as long as the broker is decent, there is always a possibility of order being filled at a better price. Traders who prioritise getting an ordered filled at any relatively close price should always choose Market Execution.

!NB: All trading accounts are subject to very low stop out levels, regular accounts have a stop out level of 10%, and NDD/STP accounts are 20%. The lower a stop out level is, the more money a trader can lose, if no proper risk management has been implemented and trades are left unattended. 

Financial Operations

Forex4you offers a number of methods for deposits and withdrawals. All deposits and withdrawals have to be done using accounts own accounts, no third-party payments are allowed. 

Deposit and Withdrawal Options

Credit/Debit Card: Cards issued by VISA, MasterCard and Maesto are the only cards permitted for use on Forex4you via SOREXPAY payment processor. Card deposits are charged at 2.8% transfer fee + a flat fee of 0.5 USD. 

Alternative methods: Neteller and Webmoney (WMZ / WME) for everyone, and Skrill as an option for few regions. Neteller and Skrill have maximum deposit limits of $50,000 each, Webmoney on the other hand has no limits whatsoever. 

Online banking methods: Bank deposits are country-specific on Forex4you. CIMB Bank, Verata Bank, BCA are just few of the online banking methods that have been created for Indonesian clients. However bank deposits and are available to a very limited amount of regions, mostly Asia and several CIS countries. 

Additional Operations

Forex4you allows their clients to make internal transfers between own trading and commission (partner) accounts. Internal transfers are instantaneous and usually take no more than few seconds to complete. 

One interesting feature of Forex4you is client’s ability to make external transfers within the brokerage. Clients are allowed to transfer funds to any other client of the company, without any certain restrictions. Nevertheless, should a company suspect foul play, suspicious activity will be stopped and accounts will be subject to immediate suspension and investigation.

Forex4you Investment Offerings

Forex4you allows traders to access 41 currency pairs, Contract for Difference (CFD) on Stocks of the largest and most well-known companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), CFD on Silver and Gold, CFD on cash instruments such as WTI, BRENT, Indices and Crypto.

Forex4you applies Swaps like any other Forex Broker – automatically during rollover (when an order is rolled over to the next calendar day). Swaps are tripled from Wednesday to Thursday and are increased or decreased in accordance with the national interest rates. Swaps are applied to every account trading type, because Swap-free accounts not available.

Inactivity Fee

Many brokers have elected to charge clients a so-called ‘inactivity fee’, each broker has their own approach to it, Forex4you charges 10 USD/EUR or 600RUB for every month of inactivity, until the account balance is 0. Inactivity Fee was implemented in the end of 2017 and remains in effect until today.

Forex4You Trading Platforms

As it was mentioned earlier – Forex4you is primarily an MT4 broker, but the company has also developed own trading platform, which is compatible with Windows and Mac. 

Forex4you Mobile App, it doesn’t differ much from Mobile MetaTrader 4, but it is visually more pleasing and provides traders with all the necessary functionality.

• Open and close positions
• Create pending orders
• Set Stop loss and Take profit
• Personalise charts and list of favourites
• Switch between multiple accounts
• Read financial news

Detailed statements and order reports

Forex4you desktop is user-friendly, and at the same time has some features, which MetaTrader 4 is lacking, some say that Forex4you desktop is more user-friendly MetaTrader 4 on steroids. 

One of the most prominent features is Slippage Control – it allows traders to set the slippage limit, it even allows 0-pip slippage, however in this case execution is not guaranteed at all times. 

Equity Stop Loss – For traders, who would rather manage risks with concrete numbers, equity stop loss is an ideal solution, it allows to force closure of all orders, once the equity reaches a specified level. This feature is of course available for MetaTrader, but only as an add-on Expert Advisor.

Last, but not least is Liquidity pool monitor, which displays the available liquidity amount on prices from different liquidity providers.

One and probably only disadvantage of Forex4you trading terminal is lack of customisable add-ons, and obviously, when something happens with the Trading Terminal, traders have to hope that broker’s technical support can rectify the situation in a timely manner.

Forex4you Market Analytics

Traders with approved accounts have access to 4 analytical tools through their Client Area, but only one of the tools is unique and exclusive to Forex4you clients.

DowJones news

Provides basic market news and reports in a clearly readable format same news feed is available inside MetaTrader Terminal.

TradingCentral 

Provides technical analyst research which uses pattern recognition to help investors with decision-making. This service is provided only for 6 currency pairs – AUD/USD, EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/CAD, USD/CHF and USD/JPY. 

Autochartist

Simple and free market scanning tool is available online and as a plugin for MetaTrader, Autochartist is one of the most popular tools employed by traders worldwide.

Forex4you Customer Service

As per the information available on Forex4you site, there are ways of reaching out to support staff 24/7, via live chat on their site, email, ticketing system in the Client Area, as well as toll-free phone numbers. According to many online reviews, as well as our research Forex4you customer service responsiveness and quality is well below average.

• Customer support phone line is not available 24/7, we have attempted to reach out to customer support on +44 207 193 9932 at different times during evening (8PM GMT) and the weekend, each time an automated message informed us that all lines are busy. During work-days, response time is usually satisfactory, however helpfulness of support agents can be rated at 5/10, due to lack of some general trading knowledge and constant attempts to refer the caller online.
• Ticketing System responses arrive in less than an hour during work-days, during weekends ticketing system seems to be abandoned. 

• Online chat does not seem to be operational during the weekends either, we have tried reaching out to Forex4you on Saturday evening (GMT), which resulted in a message stating that all operators are busy – 3 times within 4 hours. During working hours chat operator responded within 5 minutes after we have submitted a message, however once we have asked the agent to tell us how Forex4you is better than competitors, we have been advised to contact Marketing department via email.Unfortunately Marketing Department did not get back to us even within the same week.

Reviews 

Forex and financial trading in general, is one of the most discussed topics on the forums and social media. Reading various opinions can be very useful, but quite often the amount of negative comments prevails over the positive ones, which might give you a feeling that, many services are fraudulent and nobody can make any money trading online.

Forex4you has to be one of the most controversially rated brokers, on a scale from 1 to 10, Forex4you will have an average of 5,5 points, if we take all the online reviews into account. Most of negative reviews mention Customer Support, price manipulation and failure to do payouts. Positive reviews are varied, and mostly come from traders, who tend to emphasise their extensive trading experience. 

Conclusions For Forex4you

If you want to become a forex trader or you are simply looking for a reliable broker, we would strongly advise you to verify someone else’s opinions and fully trust only your own experiences. Forex4you has been in business for many years, they have a good track-record, not too many complaints, and the only major issue being absence of Islamic (Swap-free) Accounts.

We do not see any reason why anyone shouldn’t try Forex4you. Majority of reviews will often paint a very abstract picture about the service, it will be better to open a cent account and see how you feel about the broker. 

Consider before opening an account: if you are not a resident of Asia or CIS country, there are more suitable brokers with less funding and withdrawal limitations. If you happen to be a resident of CIS or Asian country, Forex4you might be one of the best choices.