Trade245 (trade245.com) It is presented as a South African forex brokerage offering trading in forex and CFDs on MetaTrader platforms. The trading conditions advertised on the website appear good, so we are going to investigate further.
First let’s search “Trade245” on BrokersView to take a look at the details page. As an industry-leading broker review platform, BrokersView is committed to assisting traders across the globe in finding the best forex broker in an easy and fast manner. We provide traders with access to detailed and comprehensive information, professional analysis, and a real commenting system.
As you can see, based on information given on BrokersView (https://www.brokersview.com/brokers/trade245), Trade245 claims that it is a product of Red Pine Capital (PTY) LTD, an authorized financial services provider licensed and regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) in South Africa. The alleged parent company of Trade245 is indeed licensed in South Africa. However, there’s another company based in South Africa -ZumaMarkets that is also using Red Pine’s license details. The FSCA registry does not feature any trading names, nor approved domains, so there’s no way to ascertain whether ZumaMarkets is indeed legit. Futhermore, Red Pine (PTY) Ltd has not responsed to confirm them yet. Both ZumaMarket and Trade245 may be cloned firms who illegally use the details of regulated firms with which they aren’t related in any way.
Of course, the scammers do that with the sole purpose to lure investors into depositing and swindle them out of their money.
Moreover, the South African license isnt as trustworthy as the Australian or the European ones. FSCA imposes no capital adequacy requirements or strict internal procedures brokers have to follow and maintains no deposit insurance funds. The lack of adequate protection certainly makes traders vulnerable, so BrokersView generally does not nominate businesses licensed by the South African regulator.
BrokersView paid a visit to the broker’s website to find out more. Trade245 offers MetaTrader4 and MetaTrader5, both of which considered the best in the retail FX industry. The trading software offered is definitely a plus for the broker.
However, Trade245 claims to provide spreads starting from 0.0 pips, but that‘s questionable because WikiFX encountered a much wider Buy/Sell difference- 2.5 pips. That’s no longer a favourable spread, so the trading conditions are not as good as described on the website, which once again undermines Trade245‘s credibility. The spread forms some of the trading costs, so lower rates benefit traders and actually show whether the broker is good to trade with or not. The FX market is highly competitive, and it’s easy to find reputable companies offering quotes difference of 1 pip and below.
The maximum allowed leverage is 1:500, a ratio overly risky for traders. This level significantly improves profit potential, but it can cause heavy losses very quickly if not sensibly used. In fact, leverage is so risky that many financial authorities enforced regulations to restrict its usage. As a result, EU, British and Australian brokers are limited to 1:30 for FX majors, while the Canadian brokers and the US brokers cant offer more than 1:50 for retail clients. Most of the brokers providing higher leverage are poorly regulated businesses, so be cautious.
In a nutshell, it’s not wise to invest in Trade245. BrokersView reminds you that forex scam is everywhere, you’d better check the broker’s information and user reviews on BrokersView before investing.You can also expose forex scams on BrokersView.