Why Offshore Forex Brokerages Won’t Take US Citizen And How To Handle It
Sunday, December 18th, 2011It is no secret that a good number of international Forex brokers have regulations that restrict US traders. US citizens are not allowed to open account with several number of offshore international Forex brokers. A good number of these brokers are the regulated ones. The reason for this will become very clear as we tackle every reason. Doing business with US citizens in this case is barred by strict regulations. Mostly, these are regulations imposed by US government. Fortunately, these regulations do not completely stop international brokers from accepting us citizens. There are a good number of offshore international Forex brokers that accept US citizens. Below is the primary reason why some offshore international Forex brokers do not accept US citizens.
Dodd-Frank Act
The Dodd-Frank Act is the most recent federal statute which president Obama signed into law. It first became operational on July 21, 2010. It is a reform agenda which is purely developed to regulate financial market. The act brought forth new rules that are designed to regulate all financial markets including stocks, futures, futures, options and Forex.
Dodd-Frank Act states that for every Forex Brokerage Company that wants to offer trading service to US citizens must be registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association (NFA). This might prove very difficult to many offshore international Forex brokers. Obviously, as at to date there are a good number of Forex brokerage companies are not registered with neither of the regulatory body. These are mostly legal and regulated offshore brokers. To avoid the paper mess, they stop accepting us citizen to open account with them. Rather than incur the unforeseen expenses, it is easier and wiser for them to decline US citizens.
The primary reason that has forced international offshore Forex brokers to decline US citizens is the implementation of Dodd-Frank Act. US government has also provided a number of reforms and changes targeting the financial markets that bar their citizens from doing business with international brokerage companies. Most of these regulations are linked to the CFTC activities. Some of these regulations have been directly implemented by the US government. There are many other disadvantages of Dodd-Frank Act. As a result of this regulation, most foreign banks have also stopped accepting US clients. Secondly, most Forex brokerage services have significantly changed the minimum account trading, leverage, and spread levels for US citizens.
The Way Out
Although the Dodd-Frank Act has imposed strict restrictions, there are substantial numbers of offshore international Forex brokers that accept US traders. If you are a US citizen, there are chances you can open account with such international brokers not registered by US regulatory bodies – NFA and CFTC. However, this is done under certain different conditions. Non-US Forex brokers can only accept us customers to open account but only under their affiliate branches in US.
Look into the specifics of some offshore brokerages that accept US clients at another look at HotForex brokerage and RoboForex details.
Conclusion
The regulation of offshore Forex brokerage companies requiring them to be registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association (NFA) before accepting us citizens has both its advantages and disadvantages. The fundamental advantage of this regulation is the guaranteed safety of the US citizens’ funds. This is what it intended to do. It is also expected to enrich the US State Treasury since the funds invested won’t be taken out of the USA borders.
Unfortunately, there are substantial disadvantage of this both to us citizens and government. First, the services of international brokers cannot be enjoyed by US citizens if such brokers are not regulated by US government. Secondly, for brokerage companies accepting us citizens, they have raised the minimum capital. As a result of this regulation, US citizens are now subjected to unfavourable trading conditions; low spread and reduced leverage. But remember that higher leverage or any other regulations won’t matter if you don’t have forex strategies that work.