Elective professional traders can open an FXCM professional account. If you are able to answer yes to two or more of the following, you may be eligible:
Have you traded leveraged derivatives in significant sizes over the last four quarters?
Do you have a financial instrument portfolio exceeding EUR 500,000?
Have you worked in the financial sector, in a professional position requiring knowledge of derivatives trading, for at least a year?
In addition to the above criteria, to qualify for professional categorisation, you must have the necessary expertise, experience and knowledge to be capable of making your own investment decisions.
You need to be aware that professional clients forgo certain regulatory protections that are currently offered to Retail Clients under the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA") rules. These include but are not limited to the following:
What is a Professional client? A Professional client is a client who possesses the experience, knowledge and expertise to make their own investment decisions and properly assess the risk it incurs. A Professional client has waived some FCA protections afforded to retail clients, such as negative balance protection and leverage restrictions on high-risk products.
Professional clients DO NOT get the same protections as Retail clients:
Negative Balance Protection: You are responsible for ensuring that your account does not fall into a negative balance. If it does, you will need to make additional payments to bring your balance back above zero – meaning that your losses can exceed your deposits.
We may assume that a Professional client has the appropriate knowledge to understand basic terms of a product and therefore we may not present these to the client prior to the investment decision (e.g. Key Information documents, etc.).
No Compensation: Certain categories of Professional clients are not eligible for compensation under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Please ensure that you read and understand the Client Categorisation Notice as it contains important information regarding the differences in classification and the protections afforded to each level.
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