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Dukascopy Review

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Dukascopy Bank is a Swiss online bank providing Internet based and mobile trading services with a focus on foreign exchange, bullion and binaries, banking and other financial services through innovative proprietary technological solutions.

Dukascopy is one of the largest retail brokers on the planet. It is heavily regulated in several countries, including its home country, Switzerland and is one of the oldest ECNs available to the retail client. It offers institutional services as well.

The company was founded on 2 November 2004 in Geneva, Switzerland where it has its headquarters. Dukascopy Bank is regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA both as a bank and a securities dealer.
Dukascopy is one of the largest retail brokers on the planet. It is a heavily regulated broker in several countries, including its home country, Switzerland. The broker is one of the oldest ECNs available to the retail clients. It also offers institutional services.

Accounts

There are several accounts at Dukascopy. Depending on the account size and monthly traded volume, different trading commissions and overnights are applied.

The SWFX technology account is a full service account and a minimum deposit of $100 is required. However, Dukascopy Bank SA only opens accounts with less than $5,000 for Swiss residents. For non-Swiss residents ECN accounts with the minimum deposit of $100 are available only for the clients of Dukascopy Europe. The other three accounts--Trading API, Bank guarantees and Third bank custodian services require a deposit of over $100.

All accounts offer equal liquidity and quotes for all clients, trading of all types including news trading, scalping etc and multiple funding facilities available, including Credit and Debit Cards, Wire Transfers and Bank Guarantees. They all trade in USD, CHF, EUR, GBP, JPY, CAD, AUD, SGD, PLN and HKD.
The company offers a 14 day demo account before committing to this broker. Dukascopy will often have trading contests, on both live and demo accounts.

Dukascopy charges a staggered list of commissions for their trading services depending on the size of your account. For the smallest accounts, it can be as high as $48 per million traded, and for larger accounts, it gets as cheap as $5 per million traded.

Education

Dukascopy provides its own TV style news reporting. An incredible amount of past programs are archived and can be viewed at any time. These include interviews, fundamental analysis and even some entertainment programs such as cartoons and contests.
There is a constant supply of live Webinars and anyone can sign up to participate in them. In fact, Dukascopy Swiss Forex Community TV is a public broadcasting area and offers traders an opportunity to earn $30 USD per hour ($15 USD per 30 minutes presentation) by hosting their own Webinar and discussing a qualifying topic with other community members.

Deposits/Withdrawals

Funding can be done to Dukascopy accounts in a number of ways: Wire transfers, bank guarantees, credit and debit cards. Withdrawals use the same methods as deposits.

Bonuses/Promotions

Dukascopy Bank SA offers a wide range of contests including weekly, monthly and quarterly contests with valuable prizes, such as Cartier watches that registered traders have the opportunity to win. These prizes offer traders an extra incentive to trade profitably.
At the time of this review, there were several contests going at the same time. The Signal Provider Grand Prix was offering $15,500 quarterly to traders showing the most consistent long-term trading results.

$6,000 a quarter was awarded to the trader of the year and in the Social Trading Contest, $4,000 monthly was going to the trader who could create the best performing portfolio by copying other traders’ signals.

In the daily Stock Option Contest, $10,000 was awarded each month to traders placing their orders before the bell. The Strategy Contest challenges traders in the Forex market who develop a profitable automated strategy and $19,000 is awarded monthly.
There are other analytic contests, poker contests and even a Miss Dukascopy contest with over $200,000 in prizes!

Customer Support

Most of the instruments are traded on a 24 hour basis without interruption, from market opening on Sunday, 21:00 GMT during Summer Time (22:00 GMT during Winter Time) until market close on Friday, 21:00 GMT during Summer Time (22:00 GMT during Winter Time).
Customer support is provided via telephone to their Geneva branch, emails and Chat. A call-back request is also available.

Their Instant Messenger is an interesting feature that can be downloaded to any smartphone of mobile device and connects traders directly with the Dukascopy Swiss bank. They claim they are the only broker to offer this direct communication.
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Conclusion

Dukascopy is an excellent broker for those looking for a professional setting in the Forex world. The broker has long been known to be reliable, honest, and cheap in their commissions. While there is no real micro account, they do offer a choice of several trading accounts.  I did find the website somewhat cluttered.
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