GFT exits U.S. retail foreign exchange business

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8N361U20121203

Dec 3 (Reuters) - GFT has shut its foreign exchange retail brokerage business in the United States to focus on institutional business in both the United States and globally, the firm said on its website on Monday.


Terming it a "difficult business decision," the firm said all U.S. retail forex customers were placed on a "position closing-only basis" from 7 p.m. on Sunday.


"We understand that this is an inconvenience for you, so we are working to make arrangements with one of our high quality institutional partners to accept the GFT U.S. retail forex accounts," the firm said. "We expect that your forex account will return to its normal status soon so that you can continue trading forex markets normally."


The firm did not immediately return calls for comment.


The institutional market makes up more than 90 percent of the global foreign exchange market, dominated by banks and a dozen non-bank customers or electronic communication networks such as ICAP's EBS, Currenex, and Thomson Reuters.


GFT follows a trend of recent months of firms either entering the institutional business in combination with retail brokerage services or leaving retail brokerage altogether.


The retail currency trading industry in the United States has been showing signs of stress because of tougher margin and capital requirements.


GFT is a division of Global Futures & Forex, Ltd with corporate headquarters in Grand Rapids, Michigan and offices in Jersey City, New Jersey, London, Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney, according to their website.

Yeah like we didn't see this coming... 50:1 max leverage in USA increases capital requirements plain and simple.

It's either consolidate into a handful of brokerages or go out of business. But yet we still see these ads to open accounts for $50 in the US. It's laughable really.

i have a friend that also live in the u.s. but he set-up an offshore IBC and have power of attorney with the agent and director who open an account for him so now he gets 400:1 leverage, not that he need that much

I would like to know.. how long has he had account set up with him and how is his experience?

he set up his IBC once he found out about the new regulations, when i say IBC im talking about International business company

I'll have to look into it more. I want to do something similar but I don't want to get into any legal trouble. I would like to leave this country all together actually but I'm not in a position to do so financially and because of family.

A shocker - not really given the whole slew of regulations and rules..no wonder clients are moving their accounts elsewhere and yeah, it makes sense for some of the brokerages to follow suit..what did they think was going to happen?

How is GFT these days?

First Forexclub now GFT, pretty soon the last man standing will be Oanda. Funny isn't it how US trading conditions quickly converged to the business model of Oanda (max 50x leverage no hedging). Plus, Oanda adds interest to dormant accounts in order to claim their traders' winning percentage is 50/50. Kinda shady if you ask me. I live in USA but trade off shore through Seychelles IBC and it's a shame that I cannot hire my friends here in USA. I have to ship my jobs and assets offshore because of stupid overregulation. How did the regulators do with Bernie? 20%/yr consistently trading 500x leveraged Options out of a 800 sqft office? How about PFG? MF Global? .....

I'm glad GFT is gone anyways, their sales department used to call me 3x a day and I had to change my number because of them.

To answer your question AMMEO they're actually pretty good. Slippage and fills during volatile markets is above average, customer service is pretty good. They are just making sure they aren't the last man standing on the titanic.

makes you wonder if oanda didn't LOBBY the u.s. goverment for these new Laws/Rules