ALB Forex is an online foreign exchange broker with an ‘About Us’ page is a little confusing. We do not fully understand what they are actually offering or trying to say, but it may be due to a bad translation though. In their own words, the little bit about them states the following, “First Forex company of Turkey to achieve Information Security Standard We care for our investors’ security and securing info is a top priority for us. ISO/IEC 27001 certification, helps you to protect your valuable information assets and protect them. Data, whatever form it takes, should be well-protected when collected and shared.”
We will be using this ALB Forex review to look deeper into the services on offer and to get a better understanding of what is actually on offer from this firm.
Account Types
There are four different account types available to use when trading with ALB Forex. They are the Basic, Silver, Gold and VIP accounts. There isn’t a full breakdown or account comparison page, so instead of finding everything and listing it here. We have outlined the differences in the accounts within each individual section of this review. If there are no differences, then the information we have provided is relevant to all four account types.
Platforms
ALB Forex offers MetaTrader 4 (MT4) as its sole trading platform. MT4 is one of the most powerful and well-used trading platforms, it offers a host of features including a wide range of indicators and graphical tools, with the ability to add thousands of other indicators and also expert advisors for automated trading. The platform has multiple languages, one-click trading, a user-friendly interface, and reliable infrastructure. These are just some of the features that millions of users all over the world love.
Leverage
ALB Forex follows the recommendations of the ESMA which limits the amount of leverage available to their clients. Leverage limits on the opening of a position by a retail client from 30:1 to 2:1, which vary according to the volatility of the underlying:
- 30:1 for major currency pairs
- 20:1 for non-major currency pairs, gold, and major indices
- 10:1 for commodities other than gold and non-major equity indices
- 5:1 for individual equities and other reference values
- 2:1 for cryptocurrencies
Trade Sizes
The minimum trade size starts from 0.01 lots which are known as micro-lots and is the equivalent of 1,000 base currency units due to a lot being 100,000 base currency units. The trades then go up in increments of 0.01 lots so the next trade would be 0.02 lots.
Trading Costs
Sadly we could not actually locate information on possible commissions. The way the website translates can be very confusing so we just weren’t able to locate this information. We are also not clear on swap charged but suspect that they will be present unless an Islamic swap-free account is used. Swap information can be viewed from within the MT4 trading platform and will be charged for holding trades overnight.
Assets
The assets on ALB Forex have been broken down into various different categories. We have outlined them below along with the various instruments within each category.
Forex:
EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, USDCHFG, USDCAD, AUDUSD, NZDUSD, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURCHF, EURAUD, EURCAD, EURNZD, AUDJPY, GBPJPY, CADJPY, CHFJPY, GBPAUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, AUDCAD, AUDCHF, ADUNZD, USDTRY, EURTRY, GBPTRY, USDNOK, USDSEK, USDDKK, EURNOK, EURSEK, USDRUB, USDZAR, USDMXN, USDPLN,
Metals:
Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium.
Commodities:
Copper, Corn, Wheat, Soybean, Cotton, Sugar, Coffee, Cocoa.
Energies:
US Oil, UK Oil, Natural Gas, BP, EXXON, USO.
Indices:
SPX 500, DOW 30, NAS 100, GER 30, US 50, UK 100, FRA 40, ESP 35, ITA 40, JPN 225, AUS 200, DXY.
Crypto:
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin.
Spreads
The different accounts have different starting spreads. The Silver account has spreads starting at around 1.5 pips, while the Gold account around 1.2 pips. The gold and VIP accounts have spreads starting from around 0.6 pips. The spreads are variable which means they will move with the markets. The more volatility in the markets, the higher the spreads will be. Different instruments will also have different starting spreads and some will naturally be higher than others.
Minimum Deposit
We do not actually know what the minimum deposit amount is due to the site being a little confusing in its translation. So at this point in time, we cannot say what the minimum deposit amount is.
Deposit Methods & Costs
We could only see evidence of Bank Wire Transfers on the site as they have listed out a number of different bank accounts. We do not know if there are any other methods available to use. Along with this, we do not know if there are any added commissions when depositing, but you should check with your own bank to see if they will add any outgoing transfer fees of their own.
Withdrawal Methods & Costs
As we could only find Bank Wire Transfers for a deposit method. We believe that this would also be the same method for withdrawals. Once again we do not know of any possible fees but as always check with your own bank to see if they will have any incoming processing fees of their own.
Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time
Unfortunately, we do not know what the processing times from ALB Forex are. We would, however, hope that any withdrawal requests would be fully processed within 1 to 7 days from the request being made. The industry standard is around two business days.
Bonuses & Promotions
We didn’t come across any possible bonuses or promotions, but then again we could not translate and understand everyone that was on the site. So if you are interested in bonuses we would suggest getting in contact with the customer service team to check whether there are any coming up that you could take part in.
Educational & Trading Tools
In terms of education, there are a couple of pages available. The first is a page with a number of training videos. Unfortunately, they are in Turkish so we do not know the quality or actual content of the videos. There is also a webinar page, but again we do not know the quality of them due to not understanding the language.
Autochartist also seems to be available. Some of its features are designed to identify patterns in charts, with the main benefit being the real-time insights it generates for market movements. Autochartist is constantly scanning the markets on your behalf, and it gives you price alerts whenever a new opportunity presents itself. Its software is designed to identify trading opportunities for you based on support and resistance levels.
Customer Service
The customer service team can be contacted using a few different methods. The first is a postal address that you can send physical mail to. There is also a phone number and email address available to use should you prefer to use one of those methods.
Address: Mollafenari Mahallesi Nuruosmaniye Caddesi No:32 Fatih/İstanbul
Phone: +90 (212) 370 0 370
Email: [email protected]
Demo Account
Demo accounts are available from ALB Forex, they will allow you to test out the trading conditions and also new strategies without having to risk any of our own capital. We do not know if there is an expiration on the accounts and the trading conditions provided should be similar to the ones that are mentioned throughout this review.
Countries Accepted
This information does not appear to be available on the website. So if you are thinking of signing up, we would highly suggest that you should contact the customer service team just to make sure that you are in fact eligible for an account.
Conclusion
The website was very confusing to us. The built-in translation was not working properly and kept reverting back to Turkish. Google translate did not make a great job of it either. From the information that we could see, the trading conditions seemed competitive. There was a limit to the number of ways that you are able to deposit and withdraw with just Bank Wire Transfer being available. Without knowing more of the broker it would be hard for us to recommend them as a broker to use and would suggest looking for another broker to use at this current point in time. Unless you are Turkish and can understand exactly what is being said, then they may be an appropriate broker for you.
