WikiBit rated Fxsway as high-risk mostly due to its lack of regulatory compliance: the firm holds only a Seychelles FSA license (regulatory intensity score 2.3/10), while FCA-regulated brokers are required to maintain a minimum net capital of at least 7.3 million pounds. The difference in their ability to secure the capital is 317 times. In 2024, the UK FCA issued a warning that Fxsway had tricked 87 investors while illegally operating in the UK, in an aggregate illegal deposit of 4.3 million pounds. Of them, 23% of the funds failed to withdraw successfully because of “technical malfunctions.”. In comparison to the CySEC-regulated XM Group, whose clients’ funds are placed in segregated accounts at Deutsche Bank and are subject to a statutory cover of up to 20,000 euros, Fxsway has not been part of any investor compensation scheme and has 100% exposure to bankruptcy risk.
The issue of safety of users’ money is at hand: In 2023, third-party auditing demonstrated that Fxsway segregated customer fund accounts were checked on a yearly basis (the EU MiFID II requires quarterly checks), and the name of the custodian bank was not disclosed. According to the ASIC report in 2024, the rejection percentage of withdrawal by customers of its Australian subsidiary equaled 14% (the industry standard of 1.2%). A Malaysian client was held up for 29 days to receive a $58,000 withdrawal due to an “anti-money laundering investigation”, and the final payment amount received fell by 12.7% (approximately $7,370) due to exchange rate losses and deductions of fees. To compare, the median of comparable withdrawals of IG Group under FCA regulation is 2 hours and 17 minutes, and exchange rate deviation is controlled within 0.12%.
It causes suspicion regarding transaction transparency: Probability for the spread on euro/dollar of fxsway at the time of publication of non-farm payroll data amounting to 4.2 points is 85% (maximum of max-market quality trading platforms such as LMAX Digital was only up to 1.6 points), and secret commission amounts up to 37% of commissions for transactions. The 2024 liquidity test found that the deepest its gold (XAU/USD) order book was only at 280 lots (approximately 280,000 ounces), a shortfall of 94.4% from IC Markets’ 5,000 lots depth, increasing the probability of more than $2 slippage of market orders to 48%. 150 GBP/JPY limit orders per second were executed by an institutional client via API. Due to system delays, 23% of the orders were not fulfilled, with potential loss estimated at 39,000 US dollars.
Inadequate technical risk control capacity: Penetration testing detected an SQL injection flaw in Fxsway’s MT5 server in 2024 (the fixing took 96 hours), with the success rate of hacker attacks reaching 0.07%. Its iOS mobile App crash rate is up to 19% (the industry average is 4%), and its real-time quote update limit is one per second (12 times per second for the cTrader platform). The September 2023 system breakdown led to the failure rate of stop-loss orders during the crude oil futures trading session (GMT+0 14:00-16:00) rising to 15%, with the maximum loss incurred by one customer reaching $54,000. The FCA-regulated system availability of CMC Markets was, on the other hand, 99.99% in the given year.
Regulatory penalties and disputes escalate threats: LexisNexis data shows Fxsway was involved in 11 international arbitration proceedings during the period of 2020 to 2024, and the average settlement amount was as low as merely 14% of the principal in dispute, which is well below the standard of 68% for FINRA’s average arbitration payout percentage. In March 2024, it was fined by French AMF 1.8 million euros for falsifying customer transaction reports (23 forged order execution records). In the case of Saxo Bank, following international multiple regulation, it achieved a 97% client grievance resolution rate within five days in the 2024 Financial Times report, and its transparency report is published on a monthly basis.
Market feedback validates risk designations: According to Trustpilot platform data in 2024, the one-star negative review rate of Fxsway stood at 34%. Excessive levels of forced liquidation (started with the margin ratio reaching 90%, the usual level being 50%), misleading language employed in educational material (an “average annual return rate of 45%” being mentioned without disclosure of the pulldown rate cap of 62%), etc. were among the main grievances. Its user retention rate for VIP account holders is a paltry 18% (the industry standard being 63%), and the ratio of complaints of large-sum clients (>100,000 US dollars) is a whopping 41%. Based on these parameters, WikiBit’s risk algorithm has given Fxsway a rating of 2.1/10 on compliance, 3.7/10 on capital security, and 4.5/10 on technical stability, and marked its general risk level as “extremely high”.