Started in 2007, the Sydney based, International Capital Markets Pty Ltd (IC Markets) has a daily trade volume of $ 6.8 billion, which makes them the largest Forex broker in Australia and currently the 6th largest globally. The company is principally used by high volume traders wishing to generate large daily volumes.
IC Markets is regulated by the Australian Financial Services License (AFSL). IC Markets’ liquidity providers include Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, GSA Capital, and Morgan Stanley. This makes the company a reputable institution.
IC Markets offers an electronic communication network that allows for speedy execution speeds. The company has servers located in New York at the Equinix data center. The company, through its use of software and electronic communications network, which has a speed of one millisecond puts trades through real inter-bank Forex market. This means that instant processing is possible.
The company offers low spreads and fees. These are based on the different account. IC Markets offers traders three types of accounts. There beginner’s level account is the Standard account. This account attracts no commission but has higher spreads and operates on the MetaTrader4 platform. Secondly IC markets offers their True ECN account. This is aimed for intermediate or expert Australian Forex traders, or those utilizing an expert adviser. This account offers lower spreads but attracts commission. Using the Metatrader 4 platforms, traders can boost the functionally of this platform by allowing multiple accounts to be managed from a singular interface. In addition, clients are given access to the Mfxbook’s Autotrade, whereby clients can copy the trades of any system directly into their IC Market account. This is done from their website, thus limiting the need to install expensive software. Lastly, IC Markets offer regular traders their cTraders account which operates on the cTrader platform. This platform gives traders access to 60 currency pairs, as well as commodities such as gold and silver. The traders have access to streaming prices form multiple global banks, which makes it ideal for daily traders.
The costs of opening an account differs, depending on the platform selected. Meta4 and True ECN accounts attracts a minimum deposit of $200 and cTrader account a minimum of $ 1000.
In terms of leverage, the company offers a full allocation of 500:1 leverage, which is the highest in Australia. The benefit for traders are that they may reach massive gain if the currency pairing is predicted acutely, but the traders might experience the reverse. Plus, the company does not use trading desks, and they do not provide guaranteed stops. The impact could be huge losses, especially in volatility. The best is to have the leverage match the traders experience level.
IC Market does offer its clients multi-lingual customer support through online chat, and email. In addition, the company recently invested in Forex education and a training platform to assist with trader development. But they also offer clients access to a demo account and a no dealing desk.
