nevis is a satellite office based in the west indies, they do not have physical offices in north america, so i wouldn't bother with them.
questrade claims to have a prop group, but they haven't replied to a single email inquiry off their web site, and it is highly unlikely they have leveraged margin above the standard 50% or 30% under canadian rules. in fact, i'd bet on it they don't because they'd be operating outside traditional iirc margin requirements. i don't know of a single prop shop in canada publicly listing their margin levels, nor would they publicise their payout levels or their commissions, because they have to clear through the same company as every other broker dealer, and that's _____ .
my guess is they are in name only, and manage client risk by taking positions against retail accounts. if they're virtual, and using sterling on the stock side, and gain capital as a transparent throughway via a java web interface for forex trading, they're no better, and likely worse, than any bucket forex shop.
my attempt to open a normal forex trading account to test their compliance competence has resulted in over a week of emails and voice mails repeating the same instructions as written on their web site, and despite having completed every requirement, including having done their esign document confirmations, they still require printed signed documents.
and get this, although i asked specifically not to open a stock or options account, just forex, they still demanded i ECH $1000 CDN from my canadian bank account as additional verification to having sent in not only a voided check, my passport, a wire transfer in USD double the minimum amount to secure the balance, but they wanted a letter from my canadian bank verifying i was the account holder.
in the myquestrade section of my account, it didn't even show my forex account as active, rather, a section for the stock/options account not yet approved, and on that page, asking for a $1000 CDN ECH deposit to open the account, when the web site asks for $1000 USD minumum for stock trading.
it seems the wire transfer confirmation didn't seem to be obvious enough as proof, nor was my online equifax credit verification, nor my voided checks, nor my passport, which retardedly enough, was asked to be sent over email as a jpeg scan.
that is just stupidity.
the reason why this is a bad idea, and why i refuse to do the transfer isn't to not comply with the IIRC banking verification requirement - i did that with my USD wire transfer - but that by setting up an online transfer connection between questrade and my bank, questrade forces me to settle my withdrawls in CDN back and forth, when they require deposits and all forex transactions are settled in USD.
and as any canadian knows, canadian banks do not enable online transfers or transactions in USD.
questrade gets the spread, which in canada can be as high as .05 per side. not pips, as in .0005, but 5 cents, 5%.
i'm sorry, but that's not acceptable.
if i'm trying to minimize my risk trading on the downside of a 2-3 pip transaction spread, at 200:1 margin, and i'm paying 5% for the priviledge of using their system, i'm going to have to insist that all my transactions settle in USD, all my wires be confirmed in USD, and that my transfers not get raped for 5% in either or both directions.
it is, after all, my money.
so rather than risk continuing with this kind of idiocy, i cancelled the application and demanded my wire transfer back. my guess is they will "lose" it, or deduct fees to wire it back.
the csr had suggested i contact my bank to "pull the wire back" but as anyone knows, wires are one way, it's the responsibility of the account holder to initiate a transfer. wires cannot be reversed.
it never ceases to amaze me how incompetent canadian brokerages are, how their staff never know what or why they do what they do other than what they're told by back office staff (who then refuse to speak to customers directly to clarify or expedite the process) and how the little guy gets fucked every time for fees, bad executions, currency conversions.
i've dealt with every major discount brokerage in canada, and questrade is no different, because the system and rule they operate are designed to allow the broker to basically do whatever they want with your money, take the opposite side of your trades, slow your executions, currency convert you on obscene spreads (thus, why they "require" a connection to a CDN$ bank account, yet claim all trades are settled in USD when clearly they are not), and delay completion of CS requests, paperwork confirmations, and the like.
so far, never had a single problem with my other spot forex brokers. and their software blows anything gain capital is licensing out to canadian brokers trying to cut into this market.
it will be interesting to read the response they post, because if i were anyone looking to open an account with the prettiest web broker on the net, i'd think twice, eh?
o canada...
