FBS has been operating in the financial market for over 10 years. The company is licensed and officially registered in Cyprus. It has received many awards in the field of trading, but its ambition and claims to be the best broker do not exclude the presence of negative reviews. We studied the site to find out the likelihood of a scam.
- FBS General Information
- Registration and Client Portal Review
- FBS Trading Conditions
- Account Types Review
- Trading Platform
- FBS — Deposit and Withdrawal of Funds
- Verification
- Affiliate Program, Education
- Is FBS a Scam?
- Legal Information and License
- Fbs.com Domain Info
- Contacts Review
- Pros and Cons
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
FBS General Information
| Website | https://fbs.com/, https://fbs.eu/ |
| Phone number | +357 25313540 |
| info@fbs.eu | |
| Address | Vasileos Georgiou A 89, Office 101, Potamos Germasogeias 4048, Limassol, Cyprus |
| License | CySEC 331/17, IFSC/000102/310 |
| Minimum deposit | $1 |
| Assets | Forex (currency pairs), CFDs |
| Leverage | From 1:2 to 1:30, also to 1:3000 |
| Trading platform | MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, FBS Trader |
Registration and Client Portal Review
FBS is an international broker with a presence in more than 150 countries. It was founded in 2009. At the moment, 23 million traders work on the site, and 410,000 partners in different countries provide its services. And again, we have a broker which has different sites and branches.
If you are in Europe, the site https://fbs.com/ will offer you to switch to the European version https://fbs.eu/. For some reason, you can also go to registration, but you still won’t be able to study the trading conditions.
A pop-up window will appear in the registration form with a suggestion to go to the website for EU citizens. It can’t be closed. So, we had to enable VPN.
Registration is simple. You need to provide your email address and your name. You can also log in with Facebook, Google account, or Apple ID. A confirmation link will be sent to your email, after which you will be taken to your client portal.
However, we are faced with the need to select an account type. It’s not clear how to do this without having the details. Let’s open a demo account. FBS will offer to choose a terminal, minimum deposit and leverage (up to 1:3000!)
The client portal is pleasant. However, the broker pays great attention to marketing and promotions. You can also practice on a demo account and change your profile settings. The educational center has several articles and economic calendars.
FBS Trading Conditions
It is suitable for both professional clients and those who have little experience. Trading parameters depend on the selected tariff, which currently has 5 varieties. Please note that first of all we consider the trading conditions of the non-European version of the broker.
Account Types Review
The set of assets depends on the account. The main conditions are shown in the table.
| Name | Minimum Deposit, USD | Leverage | Spread |
| Cent | 1 | To 1:1000 | From 1 pip |
| Micro | 5 | To 1:3000 | From 3 pip |
| Standard | 100 | From 0.5 pip | |
| Zero Spread | 500 | Fixed (0 pip) | |
| ECN | 1000 | To 1:500 | From -1 pip |
| Crypto | 1 | To 1:5 | From 1 pip |
With this level of leverage, it is not necessary to speak of risk-free trading. At the same time, the European branch (https://fbs.eu/) offers only three accounts:
- Standard
- Cent
- Crypto.
EU citizens can use the legally limited leverage up to 1:30. However, a retail client may meet the strict requirements for qualifying as a professional client. (E.g. 500,000 euros in property). In this case, they will have access to leverage up to 1:500.
Trading Platform
The broker offers an author platform FBS Trader. It can be installed as a mobile application. The program has several charts for analysis, customizable indicators, and a user-friendly interface. Order execution speed is 0.03 seconds.
Alternatively, you can use the popular MetaTrader 4, and 5 versions. They are familiar to clients who have already traded in the market. Direct links to all versions of the platforms are located at fbs.com. You can evaluate the abilities of WebTrader in your client portal.
In addition, visitors to https://fbs.eu/ can use the same platforms. They are also available for direct download.
FBS — Deposit and Withdrawal of Funds
You can use one of the following ways:
- Visa cards
- Bank transfer
- Electronic payments.
The broker charges a fee only for withdrawals. (And also for a bank transfer in any case). In addition to the above, MasterCard and Maestro cards are available for Europeans.
Verification
After confirming the phone, the client should verify his identity. It’s pretty easy to do this. In your client portal, you just need to upload an ID. Proof of residence is not required.
Affiliate Program, Education
The company offers an extensive loyalty program. It includes:
- Deposit bonuses
- Account opening bonus
- Level UP bonus
- Cashback
- Referral program (earn up to $80 from each partner)
- Copy Trading
- Seasonal promotions
- Giveaways
- and much more.
Of course, the licensed European department does not advertise its services in full swing. There are no marketing materials on https://fbs.eu/.
However, you can take advantage of market analysis, trader’s tools, and educational materials. Beginners will obviously find a lot of useful information on both sites.
Is FBS a Scam?
Let’s discuss some points in the broker’s legality. FBS is not always honest, which is confirmed by reviews.
Legal Information and License
The European branch is managed by Tradestone Limited, which is registered in Cyprus. It is not clear why the broker claims to work since 2009 if the company was created only in 2016.
Tradestone Limited has a Cyprus license (331/17) dated 08/07/2018. The license allows it to provide brokerage services in the EU, so everything is fine in this regard.
However, the huge number of approved domains surprised us. It’s more like cybersquatting or creating lots of mirrors in case of blocking.
As for the main site, it is run by an offshore firm, FBS Markets Inc. The Belize registries report that such a company does exist and is licensed, but no more details are available.
They write on the Internet that in order to obtain permission from Belize, you need to open a bank account for $100,000 and register as a legal entity. Clients do not have access to the database and cannot know what type of certificate the broker has: general or regional (the right to work in Belize only).
Fbs.com Domain Info
According to FBS, it has been leading its story since 2009. Maybe this will be confirmed after checking domains?
No, unfortunately. Whois.com data indicates that fbs.com was registered in 1995. At the same time, the Web Archive reports that this URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine. In other words, the owners took care that no one could find out the true start date of the broker.
According to SimilarWeb, the website has about 1.2M monthly traffic. The domain is most popular in Thailand, Korea and Malaysia.
As for fbs.eu, it was registered in 2006. The Web Archive shows that the broker moved to this domain in November 2019, since the site was empty before.
The European domain is indeed most popular in Italy, the UK, and France. (The total monthly traffic is about 124K users). It’s a bit odd that in Italy FBS ranks in the sports betting category.
Contacts Review
Apparently, FBS saves on support staff. The European site has only one email address and a Cypriot phone number. For a quick response, you can try writing in live chat. The offshore version has only live chat and a callback form.
Pros and Cons
- CySEC license.
- Simple verification.
- Different conditions for different countries.
- Work period not confirmed.
- The offshore branch has a dubious Belize license.
- A lot of marketing stuff.
- Very few contacts.
FBS is not a primitive scam. However, you can only hope for security guarantees if you are trading with the European department. Otherwise, the offshore version has too many issues and flaws.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
This is the most popular account type where you can trade from $100.
There are 6 account types, among them Сent and Сrypto.
This is a forex broker that also allows CFD trading.
Terrible terminal!
As an experienced trader, I would not advise you to get involved with FBS. These are scammers! I was initially fascinated by low spreads, but it’s not worth it. As soon as you start trading, you will not want anything with their terminal freezing!
Fake fees
New mysterious fees appear periodically. Support promised to sort it out, but nothing has been done. Every month, in addition to what is in the contract, about $40 is simply written off. I did not order any additional services or insurance. I really don’t like this topic! Well, they force you to spread referral links.
Not suitable for everyone
I think that many people are attracted by the good reputation of a broker, a license, etc. But, people are very disappointed, because the broker is strange. I was also looking for a non-scam, and FBS was advised to me. The only thing is that my budget was something like $1,500. It is very unprofitable to trade on small deposits because everything is designed for big money. Realistically, it’s not worth it. You then receive large commissions and an unprofitable withdrawal. I wouldn’t recommend it for small traders.
This is mine!
This is broker where I have account. I think you will be interested to know opinion of someone who uses its services
Reliable company, although trading conditions are quite risky.
Reliable broker
Trading conditions of this broker are quite risky. It seems to me that leverage of 1:3000 can be quite risky if used incorrectly. Therefore, you should use it carefully.
But such leverage doesn’t mean that broker is unreliable. Company is respected and exists for many years. Which, of course, is a sign of reliability.