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Forex Brokers

CFsum Review

CFsum is a relatively new brand made in 2018 under the Bestfolio Consulting OU company in Estonia. The company is not known and is obscured, not present as a registered company in any official directory. The address is virtual and the regulation is also absent. Right from the start, CFsum states they are the best broker in the world. CFsum’s website presents all the fancy, rich, and business-looking action, just what unaware visitors associate with the Forex world.

On the surface, the broker is promoting all superlatives commonly used in low-quality marketing, typically when nothing substantial can be offered. Aside from redundant, self-praising content, CFsum has a very small website structure unsuitable for this business. Probably the template used for the website building remained in its original form, meaning little effort is put into building it. As we go deeper to check the trading conditions, we found very limited information.

Very quickly, it became clear that we are dealing with an extremely risky broker screaming with red flags. One of the interesting parts could be the platform and the assets offered. This CFsum review will reveal all the highlights to give you a complete picture of what is going on with this broker and should you invest.

Account Types

CFsum does not offer any account packages. Therefore there is just a single account with undisclosed conditions. From what we can see, the minimum deposit is not extremely high and the leverage can be adjusted to average levels. Contract sizes are also interesting and non-standard, like adjustable to your trade size. We are not sure if this is the contract CFD size or just a way to obscure the minimum trade sizes. There is no other information on the account, therefore we will describe what we can extract from the platform in the following sections.

Platforms

CFsum does not offer any of the MetaTrader platforms or other adopted by the majority of brokers. Instead, they use a web-based platform that does not require any installation and acts as an interactive page once you register for an account. Many big, market maker brokers develop their platforms that are accommodated to their services range. These platforms very rarely offer any freedom with the automated trading software of custom indicators. In addition to their platform, they also offer other popular licensed platforms like MT4 to give traders the possibility to have the best from both worlds.

The CFsum platform is certainly one of the most basic and unprofessional platforms in the industry, not used by serious brokers. Not only are you deprived of any trading software, but also any indicators, timeframe settings, instrument trading information, risk management tools, chart types, and many more essentials. CFsum’s platform can be best described as a pretty platform for first lesson teaching that is user-friendly and will not scare away by the complexity of normal platforms.

It is using a dark theme with blue elements. On the central dominant window is the chart in the style of a histogram showing the price up to just two decimals. So, for example, the EUR/USD rate will be presented as 1.10 over the whole chart range unless zoomed out to the maximum. The timeframe is locked to 1 minute. On the left side of the screen is the instrument listing. As the windows are not resizeable in any way, they are presented in a list mode showing the Bid/Ask prices and the daily change percentage.

The search tool is on top of the list beside the instrument category selector. We found no sources for the instrument specification data. On the right side of the chart window are ordering and profile management functions. As with everything with this platform they are simplified. When ordering you can select the order size in units and the leverage with the addition of Take Profit/Stop Loss orders in units. Profile management is just allowing you to select the account if you have multiple and the option to log out. Finally, the bottom part of the screen contains your open and closed positions without much information on the trading costs. As no demo was available, we could not test the liquidity and execution times.

Leverage

The leverage levels vary across the assets. As the leverage is not disclosed on the CFsum’s website, we have used the information about the maximum allowed leverage in the platform. Forex currency pairs allow up to 1:100 leverage maximum, stocks are limited to 1:25, Precious metals, Indexes, and commodities are set to 1:10. Cryptocurrencies are all set to 1:5 maximum leverage.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes are measured in units but they can be calculated in lots. For the Forex assets, we have noticed it is possible to set the minimum trade size to 250 units. The usual, micro-lot trade sizes are 1000 units or 0.01 lots, where 1 contract is 100,000 units. The same instrument contract size is used in this platform but the leverage is just multiplying your margin, not reducing the amount required to open a trade. This means the platform is limited to 0.25 lot minimum trading volume size which is very unfavorable to the majority of traders. In relevance to the minimum deposit requirement, this trade sizing is inadequate.

The same minimum trade size of 250 currency units is for all other assets. A platform like this is extremely unfriendly and confusing for a trader who has just started. At least for Bitcoin, the minimum is not set to 1 lot considering the current price of around $9500 for one. Additional step volume is also set to 250 currency. The platform is made for pushing traders to invest much more than $250, regardless of the official minimum deposit requirement. There is no information about the Stop Loss and Margin Call levels or Stops level. 

Trading Costs

One of the most controversial segments of CFsum is the fees. As with other key info about trading, commission, or other costs are disclosed on the website. In the platform, we have noticed a small note which states the platform fee of 0.05%. We assume this is a commission, but there are other costs involved. Swaps remain an unknown. There is no information about them anywhere on the website or legal documents except that they are charged by the broker.

Whatsmore, new fees arise, a monthly maintenance fee of 50 USD/EUR/GBP is charged and a 1% fee on all executed trades. This said we can say that the total commission is 1.05%. The fees list continues, an incomplete verification fee of 100 USD/EUR/GBP will be charged if the client does not verify their account in 30 days. Also, for inactive accounts, a fee will be calculated freely by CFsum and close the account if no activity is attained for 61 days. 

Assets

The broker has a list of assets published on the website but it is outdated as there are more assets and categories in their platform. There are a total of 28 currency pairs in the Forex category. This range is limited to majors and minors, no exotics are present. 

The precious metals category range is not limited to the classic two, Silver and Gold against the USD. We can say this offer is one of the best as there is Palladium, Platinum, and other commodity metals such as Aluminium, Zinc, Copper, and Nickel. 

Commodities are also good with 9 agricultural assets and 4 energy. WTI and Brent Oil are accompanied by Natural Gas and Gasoline. Out of classic commodities, uncommon ones are Orange Juice, Cotton, and Rice. 

The index range is also very interesting and extended with a total of 18 instruments. Those that stand out besides the majors are TA 35, Tadawul All Share Index, OMX Stockholm 30, US Dollar Index Futures, ASX 200, Johannesburg Stock Exchange Index, FTSE MIB (Milano Indice di Borsa), Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, and Hang Seng Index. 

Cryptocurrencies are also extended with a total of 18 non-repeating instruments. Out of these, some are also quoted in GBP, EUR, not just the USD. From the exotics, we found Dashcoin, BTC Gold, Monero, and Stellar. 

Spreads

We suspect the spreads are a fixed type, but it is hard to discern as the prices are not updating in real-time. There is no specific info on them on the website. The CFsum platform does not show the spread so we have calculated it manually. For the EUR/USD the spread is 15 points, USD/JPY also 15 points, GBP/USD 25 points, AUD/USD 25 points, USD/CHF also 25 points as well as USD/CAD and NZD/USD. Minors have a wider spread, so for example, GBP/NZD has 105 points, AUD/CAD 65 points, the same as NZD/CAD and EUR/AUD. Gold against the USD has a 55 pip spread while Palladium has 319 pips. Interestingly Platinum has a wider 350 pips spread. Bitcoin against the USD has $36.24 spread and Ethereum has 121 points. 

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit is stated to be $250. Nother since the minimum trade size volume is set to also $250, this amount is far from enough. Note that the minimum requirement for a Bank Wire is $500. 

Deposit Methods & Costs

The methods available will be displayed once you verify your account. These include Wire Transfers, MasterCard or VISA, and via the Bitcoin network. The costs associated with deposits are not known.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

CFsum continues with unusual practices with withdrawals too. To withdraw by Bank Wire you need to have at least 1000 USD/GBP/EUR available in the trading account. For Credit/Debit Card transfers the minimum is 100 USD/GBP/EUR. The broker states that any withdrawal fees will be compensated for wire withdrawals.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

The withdrawal request will be processed within 7-10 business days once instructions have been accepted. This time is not the usual and much longer compared to other brokers. We have noticed that the withdrawal request is not completely functional but this could be because you need to verify your account first. 

Bonuses & Promotions

CFsum does not directly promote the bonuses. From the Terms and Conditions document, there are terms for the deposit bonus. The first deposit amount needs to be traded 15 times to be eligible for withdrawing. As for the bonus amount, It is not disclosed. Interestingly, there are unusual additional conditions for the bonus too. For a position to count towards the needed turnover, the trade must be open for 24 hours. Also, sold positions do not count towards the needed turnover. Note that the broker also applies this condition to your whole balance until the trading volume is reached, consequently locking up your funds. This practice is common for dishonest brokers. The formula for the trading volume condition is (bonus amount + Deposit) x15.

Educational & Trading Tools

The only educational content is related to the FAQ section. CFsum FAQ does not have elementary questions covered. Promotional and broker-beneficial answers to questions are more than noticeable. Therefore it can be said that there are no tools nor educational content.

Customer Service

The broker does not have any other channel for contact except the email. The response rate is longer than 24h and probably infinite. 

Demo Account

The demo account is not available with CFsum.

Countries Accepted

United States citizens are explicitly avoided by the broker. No other info is available.

Conclusion

To conclude this CFsum review we will disclose some additional information about this broker. We can confirm that this broker is completely illegal with many red flags. Starting with the official FCA warning about the company behind the CFsum brand, Bestfolio Consulting OU, one of the common practices by fraud brokers is to cover behind an allegedly consulting agency that is just referring their leads to the website, or broker brand. This way they claim no responsibility for the damage done by the broker.

The absence of normal deposit methods is also a sign of fraud since these companies cannot establish a legit channel with highly regulated payment processors. Note that if the deposit by credit/debit card is also circumvented using another payment party, not directly connected to the receiving bank account of the broker, it may also mean your chargeback may be obstructed. Interestingly, the Terms and Conditions document shows clear signs that it belongs to another FCA-regulated company with statements about the document verification.

In the case of CFsum, there is no part without clues of a serious possibility that traders will be scammed. Transparency is non-existent, over-promotion makes the majority of the content, unprofessional platform designed for manipulation and sales, no support, extreme fees structure, and absolute negative ratings on the benchmark sites and internet in general.