24Option opened its doors in 2008. Our 24Option review found that the broker offered binary options in their early days. Today they give traders access to both CFDs and forex instead.
Their parent company Rodeler Ltd is based in Cyprus. Their registration is with CySEC, the financial regulator for Cyprus.
The broker also operates through another company, Richfield Capital, to provide services outside of the European Union.
24Option has had a number of problems with financial regulators in the past. The Italian regulator Consob ordered the broker to stop all activities within that country in December 2019. They stated that the broker is no longer allows to take on new clients or solicit any business.
Furthermore, the regulator ordered that they must stop doing business with their current clients within Italy, after allowing those clients to close out their positions and withdraw any funds.
Consob has said that their prohibition of 24Option was justified by a number of complaints they had recently received. These complaints by Italian investors described several irregularities in the way 24Option operates, irregularities that the regulator found deeply concerning.
24Option has also faced the scrutiny of their own financial regulator, CySEC. On two separate occasions, the financial regulator issued fines against the broker.
CySEC also found that the broker did not keep adequate client complaints and how they handled them.
€20,000 of the fine was for not taking reasonable measures to avoid operational risk when outsourcing activities to third parties.
Then a further €60,000 was for their misleading advertising practices. €15,000 was for not disclosing risks to their clients, and €40,000 was for failure to assess the eligibility of new clients to engage in their investment activities. The final €10,000 was for not having proper systems in place to identify clients adequately.
These endorsements build up trust between the brokers and their clients, with the clients completely unaware that they have been duped.
There have been numerous warnings by other regulatory bodies against doing business with 24Option. The Australian ASIC warned against doing business with this broker back in 2016 when they were still offering binary options. The New Zealand FMA issued a similar warning.
In 2016 the French AMF banned 24Option from providing financial services in France, stating that the broker does not comply with certain professional obligations.
2008 was the year when the online broker 24Option began its’s operations. In the early years, the broker traded in binary options. Binary options are an overly simplified form of trading that appear less risky than they really are.
During our 24Option review, we determined that the parent company behind this broker is Rodeler Ltd. This company operates out of Cyprus. The broker has a registration with the financial regulator for Cyprus, CySEC.
This registration gives the broker access to EU markets and investors. Numerous rules allow for the oversight of financial regulators in one country to be accepted in another.
24Option also offers its services to those outside the EU. It does so through another company called Richfield Capital. This company is based out of Belize and has a current registration with the IFSC of Belize.
This division into two separate companies with different regulatory bodies allows 24Option to offer services that are banned in one jurisdiction to other jurisdictions’ residents without violating the rules about offering that service.
Our 24Option review found there to be four account categories for new traders to choose from. These categories are basic, gold, platinum, and VIP. The higher accounts offer more favorable trading conditions.
The VIP account has the spreads around 0.9 pips, the basic account around 2.7 pips, and the other account types in-between. The basic spreads aren’t so great, and you’re going to have to put down a major deposit to unlock the better spreads of the higher accounts.
There are a number of other fees that 24Options use to collect revenue from their users. There is a seemingly unavoidable maintenance fee of $10 per month.
It’s not clear what this fee is for, and it is highly uncommon for a broker to have a maintenance fee. The broker also has several levels of inactivity fees. After two months of inactivity, users are charged $80 for each month of inactivity.
After three months, it’s $120, and after six months, it is a whopping $120 per month of inactivity.
24Option offers several other perks for higher accounts, besides improved spreads. The broker puts on webinars where investors can learn from the best.
The basic account doesn’t allow any access to these webinars. Gold members enjoy access to one per month, platinum can attend three, and there are five for VIP members.
These webinars are an amazing educational resource, but it’s hard to say if they’re worth making a large enough deposit to access the higher tiers.
We evaluated the variety of assets available during our 24Option review. They have over 130 assets to trade CFDs on. These include currencies, with 34 choices, 11 different commodities, 25 market indices, and stocks from over 60 companies.
The broker also has a good selection of forex currency pairs, over 45 at this time.
There are several options to pick from when trading with 24Option. They have an in-house platform designed for optimal trading. They have simplified the design in order to streamline the entire investment process. Information is displayed clearly and prominently.
It’s easy to find order forms, previous orders, market updates, and your open positions. It’s not very customizable compared to other platforms where users can arrange individual components in separate windows.
Their platform has some good charting tools available. Each chart has an indicator that shows the general trend among fellow users of the platform. The charts can be customized and altered to other chart types quite easily.
The platform has the ability to overlay technical studies onto charts, letting traders perform advanced analyses. Users can also overlay other drawing tools to analyze trends more accurately.
You don’t have to use their platform, though. 24Option also gives its users the option to use MetaTrader4. Many online brokers use this platform. It has a wide array of features that many traders have come to expect. The automatic trading options on this platform are highly advanced.
Together with the great charting tools, this is the best platform for experienced traders who need a wide toolset to make the most of their expertise.
The broker has a mobile app for users who would like to trade on the go. The app is on both the iOS and Android app stores. It has many of the same features as the broker’s custom platform.
These include making orders, charting, and calendars. The app is available in a dozen languages.
During our 24Option review, we found the broker to have a wide variety of educational resources for traders. They put out daily updates on their website with tons of information. These include daily market analyses and other technical analyses. They offer these educational resources to their users for free.
The highlight of their educational resources is their webinar series. These are for members only, with members gaining access to more webinars through higher account tiers.
Included with these are a variety of video lessons that break down the important elements of online trading. There are videos that explain different parts of trading, like risk management and the different types of analyses, along with asset-specific videos about CFDs and forex.
They have a section on their website that has content specifically for beginners. This beginner’s content explains the very basics of forex trading, including a glossary of terms that many new traders might not be familiar with.
These tools are a great place to start for traders that aren’t familiar with the more technical aspects of trading.
24Option has several ways for users to contact them. They are available by phone, email, or through their websites live chat.
Unfortunately, they’re only available through the week and don’t have support staff through the weekends.
Our 24Option review found that the broker offers a demo account for users to try before setting up a funded account. This lets users try out the platform, explore spreads, and give the broker a thorough try before making their decision.
Users get $100,000 of demo money to make pretend investment with and to try out all the technical tools that 24Option has to offer.
24Option has both MetaTrader 4 and a proprietary platform available. Their custom platform is a bit oversimplified, missing many features that traders expect.
The spreads for basic accounts aren’t very good, but they become competitive at the premium account levels. The higher account types also give traders access to the broker’s webinars with trading tips and education.
24Option started out as a binary options broker back in 2008. We now know that binary options were a disaster, with countless inexperienced traders losing significant amounts of money due to a lack of proper risk disclosure by the many online binary options brokers.
Since that time, the broker has received numerous fines from CySEC and has been warned against by several other regulatory bodies. It would be unwise to ignore the advice of some of the most well known and respected financial regulators in the world.
We can’t recommend doing business with 24Option, based on this history of fines and warnings from regulators.
Brokers can change over the years, but the recent CySEC fine shows that 24Option might not have.
Not anymore, the broker moved away from binary options when the most significant financial regulators in the world all began passing legislation banning any trade in binary options.
Yes, you can. They offer a bonus to eligible clients of up to 50% of their first deposit amount. They make this offer through their Belize holding company rather than their Cyprus headquarters. This kind of deposit bonus is illegal in the EU.
The basic account requires a minimum deposit of $100 to get started, but to get better spreads, you’ll have to put down much more for a higher account.
Yes, the broker has faced fines from CySEC twice for a variety of non-compliance and other infractions against the strict rules set by the regulator, to a total of €436,000.
Not anymore, the broker moved away from binary options when the most significant financial regulators in the world all began passing legislation banning any trade in binary options.
Yes, you can. They offer a bonus to eligible clients of up to 50% of their first deposit amount. They make this offer through their Belize holding company rather than their Cyprus headquarters. This kind of deposit bonus is illegal in the EU.
The basic account requires a minimum deposit of $100 to get started, but to get better spreads, you’ll have to put down much more for a higher account.
Yes, the broker has faced fines from CySEC twice for a variety of non-compliance and other infractions against the strict rules set by the regulator, to a total of €436,000.
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