As many others and we have been calling for long days, FXCM joins the list of brokers forgiving negative balances following the SNBomb.
While it is not forgiving all traders and not in all jurisdictions , the 10% of the remainder belongs to the institutional, high net worth and experienced traders according to the firm.
Perhaps FXCM understood that going after negative balances would just aggravate their already troubled situation: bad publicity could have further pressured its finances.
Nearly two weeks after the Swiss surprise, only a handful of brokers are still going for negative balances. We hope that 100% of brokers forgive 100% of the negative balances. Forex traders should not be able to lose more than they deposit.
While we find it hard to believe that brokers who went bankrupt will make such announcements, we still expect those brokers that want to continue doing business to announce a forgiveness of negative balances.
Here are updates from 74 forex brokers
And here is part of FXCM’s announcement:
“FXCM worked diligently to reach this decision and we are extremely appreciative of our clients for their patience and loyalty as we worked through this,†said Drew Niv, CEO of FXCM.
The SNB announcement, extreme price movements and the resulting lack of liquidity were exceptional and unprecedented events causing many market participants to incur trading losses. These events were unforeseen and beyond the control of FXCM.
FXCM will also notify certain clients (such as institutional, high net worth, and experienced traders who generally maintain higher account balances) requesting payment of negative balances, pursuant to the terms of the FXCM master trading agreements.  This group represents approximately 10% of clients who incurred negative balances  which comprises over 60% of the total debit balances owed.
