I've been using GFT for 3 months now and really like the trading platform. I was shocked this morning to get the following mail: "This is to advise you that we have made a business decision to cease doing business with customers in the United Kingdom after August 18, 2005. However, as a service to our UK customers such as yourself, we have identified a Europe-based forex dealer, WH SelfInvest, which is willing to accept transfers of customer account balances from us for the purpose of opening accounts at that firm. If you would like to have your account balance transferred to WH SelfInvest, please reply to this email with the applicable instruction checked below. You will need to complete the documentation required by WH SelfInvest in order to establish an account at that firm. WH SelfInvest, whose website is at www.whselfinvest.com, is not an affiliate of ours, and you will need to make your own decision whether to transfer your account balance to that firm and to open an account there. If you choose not to have your account balance transferred to WH SelfInvest, your account with us will be closed as of the close of business on August 18, 2005, and your account balance will be returned to you. If there are positions to be settled at that time, the funds will be sent upon settlement after 2-3 business days. Enclosed is a Funds Request form which we request that you complete in order to have your account balance returned to you. Whether you have your account balance transferred to WH SelfInvest or returned to yourself, all open positions will need to be closed by the close of business on August 18, 2005. Therefore if you have not closed all your open positions by that time, we will cancel all working orders, liquidate any open positions, and close your account at that time. We have appreciated the opportunity to serve you, and hope to make arrangements to do business in the UK again at some time in the future, at which time we would be pleased to service your account again. " This was completely without warning! What on Earth has happened to cause this decision?
I read on trade2win that it is due to Brussels/european regulation that a FX broker must have an office/presence in the country that it services... ...so they need to open an office in the uk or close uk accounts.
If the Brussels thing is true then it should apply to all customers throughout the EU and not just be isolated to the UK.
That explains a lot actually! My broker explained to me just last week when I called him, that they plannedto open an office in about 8 major cities over the next 6 months. It appears that the company has changed it's mind!
lol - it will be interesting to watch how many 'mis-quotes' occur on aug 17/18 just before they cancel all working orders. last chance for theft gft - better get a move on!!
I tried to open an account at GFT some time back, they couldn't complete the application due to some legal restriction. Although they didn't elaborate on what exactly, this could have been the problem. I hope this does not effect all fx brokers, Oanda doesn't have an office in the Netherlands if I'm correct.
although the European broker WHS ( the company that GFT reccomended) is supposed to be a completely separate entity, it looks suspiciously like GFT's platform...
Maybe I am missing something but couldn't they open a temporary office anywhere in the UK and hold onto their clients? Wouldn't that be better than closing all of their UK accounts and then trying to regain them when the permanent office is opened?