How do we rate?

After some thinking, we decided to have a lion be our main “rating score”. The lion is something we adore here. It’s the king of the jungle, so nobody would doubt that it is also the king of ratings right? Well, you’ve probably already seen some of the ratings, and are familiar with our lion. I call him Mufasa, but we don’t really have an official name for him, so you can call him whatever you want. Let’s now take a look at different expressions Mufasa makes and decide what each one means. Don’t worry, I fed him this morning, he won’t bite.

Third place

The lowest rating, other than the scam rating, is represented by “sad Mufasa”. This is my second favorite rating measurements. The face on the lion is just so expressive. The disappointed expression really helps to illustrate our emotions when we use it. The “Sad Mufasa” will mostly appear next to spreads, leverage, the withdrawals, minimum deposits and of course general transparency discussions in the review of the broker. Don’t take it lightly, however, if the broker gathers enough of “Sad Mufasas” he will be branded as a scam, although we use it as an implication that their services are rather average or below.
Here’s where the “sad Mufasa” will appear:

• The broker has a license, but it is from shady sources (E.g. Vanuatu or anything offshore);
• The minimum deposit is above 3,500 ZAR;
• The leverage is below 1:100;
• The spreads are above 1 pip;
• The number of assets to trade is low. For example, there are only Forex and stock CFDs available;
• The transparency is there but it’s not the best. Information is hard to find, an account is required to view all the trading features like leverage & spread.
• Withdrawals have fees and there are not too many options. E.g. only Wire transfer and credit cards;

Second place

The “Cool Mufasa” is the second place rating representative. We use this lion to indicate that the services offered by the broker are above average. This Mufasa will be used only for the brokers that were able to pass our test. Meaning that they scored above average in all of the aspects but are still falling short in some of them. You will see this rating at the beginning of an article if the broker is trustworthy but doesn’t have the best features out there.

• The broker has a local regulation under FSCA/FSB and is displaying the license number. Also, they are easily searchable.
• The minimum deposit is between 2,800 – 3,500 ZAR;
• The leverage is above 1:100 but below 1:500;
• There are no commissions, the spread starts at least 0.5 pips;
• The number of tradable assets is acceptable. Meaning that there are more than 3 options. E.g. currency pairs, stocks CFDs, crypto CFDs and etc.
• The transparency is commendable, an account is not required to find out about the features like leverage and spreads. The info is 1 click away.
• There are no fees on the withdrawals, but the options are limited to Wire transfer and Credit cards;
• The broker has already some kind of audience and is well regarded;

First place

This is my favorite iteration of Mufasa. He is the king, he is the best and he has no rivals. Only the brokers that are extraordinary in their disclosure of information and services they provide will be able to score this lion. It is reserved for only best of the best features. If you see “The Cooler Mufasa” at the start of a review, you can be more than sure that the broker has passed our test with flying colors and that we believe them to be the ultimate source of value for traders of every caliber.

• The broker is regulated in multiple countries with high authority regulators such as FSCA, FCA, ASIC, BaFin and etc; They’re easy to find on any of those regulators’ websites;
• The minimum deposit is below 2,800 ZAR;
• The leverage is either 1:500 or above;
• No commission based business model, the spreads start at 0.1 pips;
• The number of tradable assets is abundant, you have more than 5 tools;
• The transparency is amazing, every strategy, every bit of info and professional assistance for beginner traders is provided. All the info is 1 click away and the company has good community forums;
• No fees on withdrawals with multiple choices like PayPal, Skrill and etc;
• The broker has good branding and marketing, their name is well regarded in the trading community (E.g. multiple conferences and connections with the customers);

The Scam

We have a specific lion for all of the scam brokers we find. It has an expression on its face that tells you what you need to know directly: DANGER, DO NOT ENTER. That is the vibe you should be getting from this lion; its mouth is open and is very hostile, meaning that the broker cannot be trusted. Usually, when we find out that the broker is not regulated, we immediately give them this rating, no matter how good the other services are. So in case a broker gets 1 of these lions for at least one of the features, its whole score will be revoked and they will be branded as a scam. It’s sort of like, multiplying by zero, even if they have “The Cooler Mufasa” in everything else, 1 “Angry Mufasa” is enough to bring them crashing down. So what warrants this lion?

• The broker has no or a revoked license and is not searchable on the internet;
• The broker makes most of their money through commissions and has terrible spreads of above 1 pips as well.
• The withdrawals take way too much time and personal information (ID number, phone number, picture, residence address) to process. There are fees connected and no variety, only WIRE and Credit cards;
• Ex-customers of the company are universally disappointed and are reporting having their funds stolen or “gambled away”.
• The staff displayed on their website have fake accounts.

Hopefully, we will not have to use this lion too often, but you can never be sure. Should you see it at the beginning of the article, immediately withdraw all of your funds from the broker, if you already have an account.

The importance of reviews

We believe our lions will guide you through the process of choosing a broker with ease. Of course, we also encourage that you do your own research, but be careful when you do so.

What is most advisable to do if you want to strike out on your own is to create a demo account on a broker’s website. This way you will not be committing too much information to the broker, you will be able to experience their spreads and trading services first-hand, and will also be able to make an educated guess on your own.

However, if the broker does not feature a demo account we advise that you ignore them completely, especially if the reviews show unilateral disappointment in them.

Resources we use for confirming licenses

No matter how much the industry is digitalized, sometimes the broker may still lie about their regulation. Therefore we always double-check with the regulator to see if they do indeed hold a license.

If it’s what you want to do as well, so keep this in mind. When searching the company on a regulator’s website, make sure that once you find it, the license is still viable. To do this you will have to contact the regulator directly and confirm it manually. Sometimes the website either forgets to add extra info about a terminated license, or they just leave it for companies as a reference. We always double check, to make sure.

It’s simple and easy

So after reading through this information, I hope you understand why you’ve been seeing so many lions on our website. We love them, so we use them to help us depict South African Forex brokers for what they truly are. Hopefully, you will find it to be very easy to understand. If not, then contact us immediately and we will guide you through all of the information. But until then, happy hunting for your next Forex broker.