Intro
Summary
OlympTrade is a non-regulated online broker, established in 2014. It is owned by Saledo Global LLC, which is registered in St. Vincent & the Grenadines, widely considered an offshore tax haven. OlympTrade is a member of the International Financial Commission (FinaCom), which is a dispute resolution organization but not a financial regulatory body.
As OlympTrade is not regulated by any financial authority, we do not recommend trading with them.
We at BrokerChooser care about our users: we want to make sure you have a good understanding of how investing works, and we have reviewed over 100 brokers to help you decide which one fits your needs best. We also want to help you avoid bad experiences.
In this article, we highlight a broker that we do not recommend based on the objective research of BrokerChooser’s analysts. Read below to find out which brokers we do recommend!
Find a reliable broker
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Regulation | No regulation |
Foundation date | 2014 |
Annual financial statements published | No |
S&P credit rating | No |
Big 4 auditor | No |
Listed on stock exchange | No |
Banking background | No |
Investor protection | No |
OlympTrade Review - Not Recommended
Regulation
OlympTrade does not hold a regulatory license, therefore it’s considered a non-regulated broker.
The company behind OlympTrade is Saledo Global LLC, registered in Kingstown, the capital of St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Another company, Visepont Limited, provides "management of payment transactions". It is an entity with limited available information aside from the fact that it has been headquartered in Malta since 2020 and was established in St. Vincent & the Grenadines.
Saledo Global LLC and OlympTrade claim that they are 'category A' members of the International Financial Commission (FinaCom). However, FinaCom is not a regulatory body, but merely a dispute resolution organization.
OlympTrade Review - Not Recommended
Main issues
The main issues why we don’t recommend OlympTrade are the following:
- The site suspiciously offers bonuses as a reward for trading. This is not a common practice at all at trusted broker companies.
- The company operates out of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, a country with a reputation for a lax regulatory environment.
- OlympTrade is not regulated by a government agency, financial authority, or any trusted regulator.
- It doesn’t provide investor protection.
- A lack of transparency, as OlympTrade doesn’t publish financial information/statements, making it impossible to judge its financial health.
- The broker has no banking background and provides no information about its auditor.
Most of these issues would not be a red flag in themselves. However, when they all add up like this, it should lead you to suspect that the broker is not legit.
OlympTrade Review - Not Recommended
How to get your money back
As a general rule, we recommend that you thoroughly check your broker before you deposit any money. If in doubt, document everything, make screenshots, save emails and chats, so you have as much proof as possible in case you need to turn to the authorities.
If you do get scammed by a broker, here are a few options you can try to get your money back:
- You can turn to your bank and file a chargeback request; a mechanism whereby the banks involved in the transaction return the disputed funds from the account of the seller of the service if the service was not provided.
- You can take legal action and issue a so-called Mareva (or freezing) injunction against the company.
OlympTrade Review - Not Recommended
How to spot if a broker is a scam?
There is a higher likelihood that a broker might be a scam if:
- it is not regulated at all
- it is regulated under a jurisdiction widely seen as an offshore haven (e.g. Vanuatu or St. Lucia)
- it is featured on a warning list of a top-tier regulator (e.g. the UK’s FCA, or the SEC in the US)
If you would like to know more about scams, how to avoid them, and how to get your money back, read our Forex trading scams page.
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