Forex Blog

One Financial is quite a new Forex broker, that is actually specializing on CFD and other futures trading, but offers Forex trading services too. They offer Muslim-friendly accounts (with no interest or swap) and Arabic support — so, it’s quite clear that they are aimed on the traders from Middle East. Their trading conditions are quite common — 3 pips spreads on EUR/USD, $1000 minimum positions, wire and credit card deposits and a custom platform that can be ran in browser. One Financial claim that they are registered and regulated by FSA (United Kingdom), but I’ve failed to find any mention about One Financial on FSA site. I can also note that their support isn’t very professional — it took me a lot of time to find out that they offer mini-Forex services.

FxPro is a relatively new MetaTrader Forex and CFD broker, which I’ve found out recently. I’ve seen the ad for this broker on some cable channel and decided to check it out on-line. Not many Forex brokers advertise on TV nowadays, so I was kind of interested. What I really didn’t like a lot about FxPro was their website — speaking flash marketers isn’t something I expected from the good user-friendly website. Some of the site’s links didn’t work for me (FireFox 2.0.0.12) as well. They also have some funny preproduction artifact in the Trading Terms section:

FxPro has no minimum or maximum restrictions for deposits or withdrawals
NOTE: Query the above information with earlier reference US$ 100 Minimum

The broker itself is rather interesting — it offers 1.8 pips spread on EUR/USD. That’s a record for the fixed/non-ECN spread for real MetaTrader 4 accounts as far as I know. FxPro also accepts PayPal payments, which is quite rare for the MT4 brokers. It’s also registered on Cyprus and is regulated by their SEC. The minimum account for this broker starts with $100.

Xforex is a Forex broker that I added to the broker lists on my site today. It’s not a new Forex broker at all — it operates on-line since 2003. It has only a web-based trading platform which is optimized for IE, but it also works with Firefox too (though there may be some glitches). Trading platform itself is rather poor (in terms of indicators and automation), but it loads fast. Special Muslim accounts are available for appropriate customers. Unfortunately there are no demo accounts available, so, if you want to try trading with them, you have to deposit at least $50 via credit card or a wire transfer.

MGFOREX is a Forex broker that offers its own trading platform for its clients. The main drawdown of this trading software is that it handles positions only in a FIFO (First In First Out) manner – so, if you just cannot close a new position if there is some another position for the same currency pair is still open. On first sight, this shouldn’t be a big problem, because this will limit only positions for the same currency pairs, but having different longevity and hedging position is very important for the professional Forex traders, and this limit will obviously make their life different. As for the good sides of MGFOREX, I can mention – first, Forex trading contests (on demo accounts) and the fact, that Muslims can open no-interest accounts, where overnight interest is removed with fees.

The topic of Forex trading prohibition in Islam is vast and controversial. Many points of view exist on different aspects of on-line Forex trading including - spot trading, futures and options trading, margin trading, overnight interest, etc. The majority of the Islamic jurists agrees that Forex trading can comply with Sharia only if it is spot trading (while futures and options are considered to earn Riba) and if it doesn’t involve any overnight interest (or interest hid by commissions, though Muslim traders should know that not all commissions are to hide overnight interest). One of the main point of debate lies in margin trading (almost every transaction in Forex is based on margin) and hedging (it is compared to futures trading usually). Dr. Mohammed Obaidullah of Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (located in Malaysia) discusses this topic in his article - Islamic Forex Trading. It is a well grounded article covering every aspect of Forex trading and providing references to the fundamental Islamic sources. Among other things, Dr. Mohammed Obaidullah proves margin Forex trading to be legal for Muslims, as long as it doesn’t involve any Riba (unlike some other Islamic jurists who look at margin Forex trading as forbidden activity). In this articles the Forex hedging is also analysed and is seen as the source of Riba income. I strongly recommend reading this article to all Muslim traders and those who want to start trading Forex while remaining a lawful Islamic believer.

Tadawul FX - a special broker, which provides Forex trading through Metatrader 4 platform and offers special accounts for muslim traders (with no overnight interest). You can get more information about this broker here.