Struggling through years of operation, FBS now has become one of the brokers with the stable market in the Asia. Founded in 2009, the brokers served clients with humble 35 currency pairs, 4 precious metals, 2 CFD, and cryptocurrencies. However, the 300-pip-limit of the market gap, large spreads on crypto CFDs had blocked FBS way to advance faster and further. The broker was also considered as the scam by many from forex traders community.
Fortunately, things changed since 2014, and FBS seems to find the place to land and fire their name. And 2015, Highly Recommended Broker Insurance Company in Indonesia of the year, Best Forex Brand – Asia 2015, Best Safety of Client Funds Asia 2015. In 2016, Best Customer Service Broker Asia 2016, Top IB Program 2016. In 2017, FBS marks their trust and special care in the Asian regions, especially Indonesia and Thailand with FBS special support, hence the award for the restoration of damaged roads and houses reconstruction for the villagers – issued by the Government of Indonesia in 2017, besides many other achievements.
Nowadays, as FBS has fixed most of their blockages, the broker grows fast with more than 9 million FBS clients spread over 190 countries all around the globe. For that reason, this article today is to give traders community our review on XM with fundamental standards, to re-check how FBS has changed, and whether if it is truly worth for another chance from traders. The explanation will go further besides Exness and XM – two successful brokers with the similar age and in the same online-brokers generation.
Table of Contents
Credibility
Always on top, the regulation – the first and foremost factor to judge every broker. The financial authority has the power to specify minimum standards and regulate the conduct of brokers, and also be able to issue an indefinite ban. Therefore, the regulation from those authorities can tell if brokers are qualify or vice versa. This is extremely important with Asian traders, for currency trading market is limited in many of these lands.
Many brokers hold quite a number of regulations, and the trading condition is much tighter with them. FBS, on the other hand, focuses not on the license, as one or two passports are strong enough. FBS is humble with two licenses, starting with IFSC South Africa regulation on the very first day, South African traders are safe trading with the FBS. Until now, this broker is also regulated by CySEC, one of the best financial firm. Furthermore, nine years is not short for any brokers, thus you can progress your trading in safe hands.
Trading Cost
Spread is the difference between the price of selling and that of buying for each currency pair, which brokers will take a small part as the fee for services. Most traders love to do business under low-spread brokers, and FBS offers the condition that lay in the top lowest spread. Its spread ranges from 0.2 to 1.1 pip, which is even lower than those of XM, FXTM, FXCM, etc.
Commission is the money traders pay brokers for fulfilling an order, and also FBS main income. Here the rates of commission are different between each account types. The condition for the Cent and Standard accounts are the most attractive, zero commission.
Bonus Programs are opens to encourage the veteran and also to attract new traders, which can be put into three groups of welcome or Sign-up bonus, Deposit bonus, and Lot back bonus. FBS, different from many other brokers, offer all three incentive programs. FBS Welcome bonus names ‘123’, for the highest ever $123 sign-up bonus rate. The Deposit bonus is worth-noting for the deposit amount of 100%. The cashback program rebates $7 for each lot traders complete.
Note: Recently, FBS also offers the new $50 bonus program. Sign-up, verify, then $50 will be added to your account immediately.
Trading Conditions
Account Types: FBS has multiple choice of accounts, which suit different types of traders, includes three regular option of Cent Account, Standard Account, Fixed Spread Account, and the always-high-of-volatile ECN account.
- Cent Account is for the beginner, better than Demo account because of the real trading condition, so real pressure and real loss; but with the super low required minimum deposit of $1 – only behind Exness Cent Account with no minimum deposit requirement. The order volume is down to 0.01 lot Cent, which means up to three months to testing, pressure, loss, gain, etc. with only $10 investment. Low spread and commission, free, are the advantage for novice traders, who don’t have many coins to lose.
Check FBS Cent Account HERE.
- Standard Account is for the experienced. Minimum $100 deposit, 0.5 pips – the better spread, leverage is up to 1:3000 (XM’s Standard leverage is lower, 1:888), and similar to the Cent Account, free commission. Besides the fascinating details, to keep FBS regular traders on site, there’s also the Deposit bonus as mentioned.
Check FBS Standard Account HERE.
- Fixed Spread Account for the stronger experienced. Fixed Spread or Zero Spread Account is spread-free as named, but higher $20 the commission in return. The trading condition is slightly different with the Standard, Fixed Spread Account minimum deposit is of $500, and the other features are the same.
Check FBS Zero Spread Account HERE.
- ECN Account is always for-expert design. In FBS, the ECN offer a significant high minimum deposit, $1000, but the commission is lower ($6) compared to many other brokers ($7). The condition is valuable with long-term traders, which is also applied by Exness ($5) and XM ($6).
Check FBS ECN Account HERE.
Payment System:
The paying methods are diverse with the Credit card, the online system and local bank connections for the wire transfer. In Asia, if using the Credit card, traders’ deposit would extend 1.7% to 4% of the total fund as the fee for the US or UK brokers. Those standard regulations sometimes turn traders down for difficult deposit condition from them. Thus, choosing brokers that offer local payment systems is very important.
The online-multiset broker generation has great advantages in terms of this, including the FBS. They offer the deposit and withdraw through the local bank system, as well as multiple e-wallets all around the world. This offer needs the development of transferring speed, and FBS stands again second, only after Exness with the instant transaction. With the local bank system, transactions at FBS take about half an hour to complete, while others would let you wait for hours, or even days.
Customer support:
Through times of struggling in the Forex market, FBS doesn’t have the multi-language system with over 30 tongues as XM or Exness; but their support in the new homeland, Asia, is well-rounded. The online chat support in English is available 24/7, and traders can even book FBS broadcaster to call them back later for quick help. For non-English speakers, they have regional offices in China, Korea, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar open 5 days a week, ready for questions and answers. That shows how dedicated FBS is to their clients, especially in the Asian regions.
Conclusion
We do not consider FBS as one of the best, but far more than the decent brokers. There were many disadvantages with the broker: high spread, small range of instruments, and so on; most of them were in the past. Now, FBS has improved better, and more important, find the place where they can serve their clients and perform best – Asia, FBS hometown, the world largest continent. The new, worth-trading-with FBS is promising to the community of traders, and we hope, soon, could match up with their peers, Exness and XM.
