WestwoodOfe Review by professional Forex trading experts the “ForexSQ” FX trading team, Finding out everything you need to know about the broker is in this WestwoodOfe Review.
WestwoodOfe Review
Westwood Ofe is a forex and binary options broker. The company offers multiple account types, but does not announce any improvement in the trading conditions for the better account types. Benefits are mostly narrowed down to the catchy phrases like “personal account manager”.
The Company. Security of Funds
Company Country Regulation
Westwood LTD UK N/A
Westwood Ofe stands for Westwood Online Financial Experts. The band is owned by Westwood LTD, which is registered in the United Kingdom. That being said, they are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This immediately lowers their credibility substantially.
For those of you who are unaware, trading with an unregulated company is very risky. While these entities can be regular companies, they are oftentimes dishonest or outright scammers. When dealing with an unregulated broker you are basically taking their word for the security of your funds. In order to tackle this issue, most countries have created dedicated agencies to oversee the financial services sector.
The aforementioned FCA is the UK’s watchdog, which monitors the activities of a lot of companies (not only forex brokers). When it comes to the security of your trading funds, two major rules are in place. First of all, client accounts must be segregated – a special mechanism, which prevents the broker from accessing your the money freely. Additionally all FCA-regulated brokers must participate in the Financial Services Compensation Scheme – they contribute funds to a collective pool which later serves as a guarantee against one of the companies going bankrupt. In the event of such a firm becoming insolvent, clients may claim up to £50,000 per account.
Trading Conditions
Minimum Initial Deposit
Westwood Ofe requires a minimum investment of $500, which is quite high for the current competitive environment. Many other companies, like HYCM, demand only $100 for the creation of a new account, while some go even lower.
That being said, the minimum deposit level shouldn’t be a major factor when comparing forex brokers. It isn’t directly related to a company’s credibility, unlike its regulatory oversight.
Average spreads & Commissions
The average EUR/USD spread at Westwood Ofe, which we discovered after testing the platform was above 4 pips (we provide a screenshot a little later on in the review). This is an absurdly high level, given the current competitive environment. Most brokers offer something in the 1.0 – 1.5 pips range for this pair. You can compare the current conditions provided by some of the leading forex brokers, in real-time, at our dedicated platform.
Leverage
Westwood Ofe provides 1:200 in leverage for most of its clients, with the ratio going even higher for the bigger ones. First of all, most brokers who offer different levels for the different account types usually provide lower ones for the bigger accounts. The situation at Westwood Ofe is the exact opposite, almost as if they are advertising higher leverage as a better trading condition.
Experienced traders will tell you, this is not true. Leverage only determines the amount of risk you can take, and a higher ratio is actually worse for newbies. That being said, forex brokers have been competing to offer ever greater levels, with many providing 1:500 or even more.
Trading Platforms
The platform, provided by Westwood Ofe is a web-based one, which also allows binary options trading. In fact a similar design is used by other binary-only brokers, while this one has forex trading integrated (rather poorly) with it.
Charting is very basic, although some customization is available. The platform’s simplicity makes it feel less serious. It appears to have been designed with binary options trading in mind.
Overall this platform will get the job done, but it isn’t anything special. While the web-based functionality may be enjoyed by some it does come with its own inherit problems, like the lack of multiple monitor support. The world’s most popular currency trading platform MetaTrader4 also has the same issue, but it offers so many other features, that there isn’t any ground for a comparisson.
Methods of Payment
There is a bit of conflicting information on the deposit methods available at Westwood Ofe. While the website has logos of multiple e-wallets, such as Qiwi, Webmoney and Yandex, only Credit Cards are available in the account management section. We are not sure whether or not the other options are truly available.
Westwood Ofe is an unregulated forex and binary options provider. The company offers its services by a web-based platform, which feels a bit too simple. More importantly the spreads which they offer are very wide, when compared to the current industry standard.
The Broker is not a safe forex broker, Instead you can use Plus500, XM, eToro, Fxpro or AvaTrade forex brokers.
WestwoodOfe Review Conclusion
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