CURRENT STATE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN FOREX INDUSTRY

THE GOOD

With over 200 000 active traders and counting, South Africa has become more popular with some well regulated and trusted off shore brokers choosing to set up shop in South Africa, namely the likes of Ava Trade, FXCM, CM Trading, Exness and XM Markets to name to name a few of the better ones. Another good thing to note is that South African traders are to a certain degree protected by the FSCA regulatory firm, the FSCA though is noted as not being as strict as other regulators globally, and as such, some unscrupulous brokers keep rearing their heads and are able to take complete advantage of traders, so always be sure to read the fine print of every term and condition and be sure you are comfortable with the risk involved when signing up with an unregulated broker. There are many great FSCA regulated brokers to choose from locally and with most offering trading accounts in South African Rand for convenience to the South African trader and also to generate more trading volume through our home brewed currency.

More good news is that forex and investment education has come a long way as well with access to educational platform like YouTube, quality education is being distributed freely within the South African trading community and makes it easy for local traders to shorten the learning curve and access forex education without bounds and with a great deal of integrity and transparency, unfortunately the education we depend on and receive daily in South Africa could be more home brewed but due to this many traders are still able to avoid the many scams and pitfalls in the South African trading community.

THE BAD

As previously mentioned, the FSCA regulation is not as strict as other global financial regulators, the bad news comes in because this exposes South African traders to really bad trading conditions, either facing ridiculous spreads, sever slippage, pathetic customer service in some cases and local brokers who couldnt care less about whether there clients make any progress and are properly taken care of, because of this many traders have opted to and remained loyal to off shore brokers due to a better customer experience, South African brokers are however, slowly coming to the party but still have a long way to go when it comes to certain crucial aspects of brokerage and regulation.

Although accessibility to education has become a lot easier, many people in South Africa still remain ignorant to what forex trading is, South Africa has become a hub for scammers as well because of this and is slowly earning the reputation of being riddled with the most fraudulent activity within the Forex market.

THE UGLY

As proven time and time again, many of the South African forex gurus are to often implicated in all sorts of scams relating to investments in the forex market, certified self made forex millionaire Sandile Shezi is not even immune to this, being arrested recently on a second charge of fraud relating to bogus investments, Cash flow Ngcobo can even be counted among those implicated in fraud cases and the many we have already exposed here on WikiFX in last months series. It makes one wonder if there are actually any legitimate mentors in South Africa.

Almost every South African forex mentor has in some way been linked to or directly implicated in some sort of scam, the ugly truth is that nine out of ten forex mentors or brokers in South Africa are taking people for a ride and the state of the insustry in South Africa needs to under go some dramatic change in order to become the formidable force it can and will be.

CONCLUSION

South Africa still has a long way to go in ways of Forex trading regulation, integrity and awareness in the global markets, if we want to earn the respect we deserve it is up to every South African trader, influencer and local broker to ensure that we become the change we seek and to grow in leaps and bounds to be counted among the best the world has to offer.