Starfish FX is a UK-based foreign exchange broker located in Northampton. They are not giving a lot of information about themselves away and so there is a limited amount about them on the site. Some of their main selling points stated by themselves are that they offer ECN accounts with interbank liquidity, offer more than 250 products, including forex derivatives, have greater accessibility, top-notch service and support, and a shared wallet. We will be looking deeper into the services that are being offered to see what really is on offer from Starfish FX.
Account Types
There are three different account types available, there isn’t a whole lot of information about them but we have outlined the information that we do know below and as we go through the review we will outline any differences between them within each section of the review.
Star Prestige Account: This account requires a minimum deposit of $5,000, the account comes with trade sizes starting at 0.1 lots and can be leveraged up to 1:500. There are no restrictions on trading strategies and it is an ECN account. There is an added commission of 1 pip per lot traded and spreads can start from as low as 0.2 pips.
Premium Account: This account requires a deposit of at least $30,000 in order to open it up. The account comes with some additional tools such as adaptive indicators, trade aid, and others that will help with your trading and analysis. The account will close if the balance falls below $20,000.
VIP Account: This account will require you to deposit at least $100,000 in order to open it, the account comes with some other requirements such as trading 100 lots for 6 consecutive months. The account comes with some additional benefits such as interest on earnings, and cash rebates for trades during your birthday month.
Platforms
Starfish FX offers MetaTrader 4 as its trading platform of choice and it is the only one available, the good news is that MetaTrader 4 is one of the world’s most used trading platforms, and for good reasons. It is filled with plenty of features to help with both your trading and analysis. It has the ability to display multiple charts in multiple timeframes, it has compatibility with thousands of expert advisors and indicators to help customize your trading experience to suit your needs. It can also be accessed as a desktop download, mobile application, or as WebTrader within your internet browser. MetaTrader 4 is a great platform to be using and it is good to see it on offer from Starfish FX.
Leverage
The maximum leverage available on the Star Prestige account is 1:500, however, it depends on the balance that you have in the account, we have listed the requirements below.
| Balance in Account | Available Leverage |
| $10,000 and below | 1:500 |
| $10,001 to $20,000 | 1:400 |
| $20,001 to $30,000 | 1:200 |
| $30,001 and above | 1:100 |
There isn’t any additional information about the other two account types, but as they each require a deposit of more than $30,000 we would expect the maximum leverage to be 1:100 for both of them.
Trade Sizes
Trade sizes on the Star Prestige account start from 0.1 lots which are known as a mini lot. We do not know what the increments of the trades are or what the maximum trade size is, there is also no information about how many open trades you can have at any one time. The other two accounts do not have any information provided about them so we do not know what the trading sizes for those two account types are.
Trading Costs
The Star Prestige account has an added commission of 0.5 pips per trade side, so that is 0.5 pips when opening the trade and also 0.5 pips when closing the trade, this means that the total commission of 1 pip per lot traded. If you manage to trade 22 lots in a month, the commission is reduced down to 0.8 pips per lot traded, so a 0.2 pip discount. Once again there is no additional information about the other two accounts so we do not know what the added commissions on them are, but we suspect that there are some.
Assets
There isn’t a full breakdown of the available assets on the site, instead, they simply state that you should use their trading platform and look at the market watch within it, this isn’t a very user-friendly way to do it as many potential clients may want to see what is available prior to signing up or downloading anything. We do know that you are able to trade forex, commodities, indices, and more, but not exactly which instruments are available.
Spreads
The spreads on the Star Prestige account average from 0.2 pips to 0.6 pips. The spreads are variable which means that they will be influenced and move with the markets, the more volatility that there is in the markets the higher the spreads will be, also different instruments will have different starting and average spreads so some will naturally be higher than others. We do not know if there are any differences between the Star Prestige accounts and the other two account types in regards to their spreads.
Minimum Deposit
The minimum deposit required to open up the Star Prestige account is $5,000 if you want the Premium account you will need to deposit at least $50,000 and for the VIP account, you will need to deposit at least $100,000. The site doesn’t state that the deposit reduces once an account is open but we suspect that it would worth considering the fact that the initial deposits are so high.
Deposit Methods & Costs
You are able to deposit using Visa, MasterCard, Bank Wire, China UnionPay, and Skrill. When depositing you should take note that some of the methods have different deposit limits, so if you are after one of the higher tier accounts you will be limited in the methods available to you. There are also fees, we have outlined them below.
- Visa: 4% fee, but there is a 6% bonus to offset this fee
- MasterCard: 4% fee, but there is a 6% bonus to offset this fee
- Bank Wire: Fee of 10-40 USD for each transaction
- China UnionPay: 2% fee, but there is a 3% bonus to offset this fee
- Skrill: 3% fee, but there is a 4.5% bonus to offset this fee
Withdrawal Methods & Costs
The same methods are available for deposit with, for clarification they are Visa, MasterCard, Bank Wire, China UnionPay, and Skrill. There are also fees for using some methods which we have once again outlined below.
- Visa: No fee, just bank transfer fees
- MasterCard: No fee, just bank transfer fees
- Bank Wire: Fee of 10-40 USD for each transaction
- China UnionPay: No fee, just bank transfer fees
- Skrill: No fee mentioned
Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time
The processing times aren’t stated however we would hope that any withdrawal requests would be fully processed within 1 to 7 working days from the request being made, we cannot say this for sure though.
Bonuses & Promotions
There are a few different bonuses available but there don’t seem to be any terms for them, so our actual understanding of the bonuses is pretty limited. There is a 10% bonus on deposits, both the first deposit and subsequent deposits, we do not know how to convert the bonus funds into real funds though. When using the VIP account, you can receive a 2.5% interest on your account margin and you also receive $2 cashback per lot traded when trading within the month of your birthday. Again, the full terms of both of these are not fully known to us.
Educational & Trading Tools
There are a few smaller tools and educational pieces available, the first is an economic calendar that details upcoming news events and also shows what impact they could have on the markets. There are also some tutorials on how to trade that talk you through the basics of trading and analysis.
There are two main tools on offer, the first is adaptive indications, these monitor the charts and then give you entry points and they can be used to predict future movements. The second tool is called TradAid, this is an indicator that helps you look at support and resistance levels as well as a few other aspects to help with your analysis and trading.
Customer Service
The customer service is available 24 hours a day, they can be contacted using a postal address, email address, or phone number, so there is a range of ways to get in contact with them
Address: Starfish Markets Limited, 6 Prospect Way, Royal Oak Industrial Estate, Daventry Northamptonshire, England NN11 8PL
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +852 8191 7339
Demo Account
Demo accounts are available, you can sign up for one using the online form. The trading conditions will mimic those of the accounts and conditions mentioned throughout this review. The demo account will allow you to test out the markets and strategies with no real risk, we do not know if there is an expiration on these accounts.
Countries Accepted
The following statement is shown on the website:
Starfish FX’s services and all trading products including but not limited to CFD, Forex and Forex Derivatives are not available to both U.S Residents and U.S Citizens.”
If you are still not sure of your eligibility, then you should contact the customer service team to ensure you are eligible for an account prior to signing up for one.
Conclusion
The initial deposit amounts to trade with StarFX are quite high, the different accounts don’t seem to have different trading conditions, rather other features make them more unique. The trading conditions seem reasonable, the spreads are relatively low and the commission is just 1 pip per lot traded. There are a number of ways to deposit and withdraw which is good, but there are fees despite the site stating that there aren’t any, the fees are returned as a bonus but we do not know what the terms of these bonus funds are. There is also no information about available assets. It costs a lot to get started and with the little bits of missing information it could be concerning to deposit so much into a broker you don’t know everything about, whether or not you will use them, it is up to you.