Iforex

According to the company’s website, iForex was founded by a group of bankers and forex dealers in 1996. However, it was only in 2004 that iForex took the major leap to foray into online trading. Since then, iForex have managed to grow by “tens of thousands, generating mass trading volume and providing vast liquidity to traders located across the globe.”

To distinguish itself from other brokers, iForex has adopted a policy of providing their clients with tight spreads, live market pricing via a direct link to the interbank market rates and letting their traders fully utilize the margin allocated to them. In addition, iForex has also employ safeguards like negative balanceprotection to protect their traders from over trading.

Trading Platforms

There is a choice of three trading platforms for traders to choose from. They include:

iForex Trading Platform

This is the mainstay of iForex trading platforms. The platform is a windows client application and requires traders to download the application and install it on their computer.  Key features of the platform include:

• Advanced integrated charts

• Customized View

• Full Single Screen Function

• One-click deal opening

Web Based Trading Platform

The Web Based Trading Platform is designed for traders who want accessibility without the hassle of installing an application on their computers. The main benefit of this platform is that traders can access trading application with any standard browser.

Mobile Trading Platform

The mobile trading platform is designed to allow traders to trade with their mobile devices or Smartphones.

Trading Accounts

Basically, there are 4 types of trading accounts at iForex.

• Interest-Free Account (Islamic Account)
• Premium Account
• Protected Account
• Standard Account

Islamic accounts are for those who want to trade according to the Islamic principle of no “Riba”. For those who want to try out iForex trading platform, they can opt for the 14 days “Protected” account. This is similar to the demo accounts offered by most forex brokers but require traders to place a $100 deposit before they can access it. The idea of a protected account is that traders are indemnified form the losses that they occurred beyond the $100 that they deposited. However, they are allowed to keep any profits which they earned during the 14 days testing period.  

Commission & Spreads

Although iForex allow traders to fully utilize their margin facilities, the broker is not transparent with the spreads which they are charging their traders. In this respect they leave much to be desired.

Customer Support

Customer support is available 24/5 at iForex. To get in touch with the support team, traders can do so by:

• Email
• Fax
• Live Chat
• Phone

Note:

Although the site claims the traders can easily access the support services, a trail run on our part shows that the quality of support rendered is very much below par.

Reliability

As for reliability, iForex claimed that they have the following measures in place to protect their clients:

• 128 bit SSL encryption
• Guaranteed Stop-Loss
• Negative Balance Protection Program

Pros

• Different types of platforms provided
• Negative balance protection
• Remote technical assistance available

Cons

• Demo Account Not Available
• Known For Soliciting Traders To Make Deposits
• Poor Customer Service

Conclusion

In our opinion, in view of the various issues highlighted above in our review, we feel that traders are much better served by brokers which are more transparent and are willing to provide a free demo account. Although it is within iForex’s prerogative to charge traders $100 to try out their trading platform, this is not the industry standard. In addition, the lack of a MetaTrader 4 platform really sendsred flags as to whether this is a serious forex broker or not.