Editor’s Verdict

Pros
  • Choice of Accounts

  • Demo Account

  • Host of Trading Tools

Cons
  • Only One Bonus

Overview

Review

HeadquartersMalta
RegulatorsMFSA
Year Established2013
Execution Type(s)Market Maker
Trading Platform(s)MetaTrader 4, Web-based
Islamic Account
Signals
US Persons Accepted?
Managed Accounts

GKFX is an online Forex broker based in Malta and founded in 2013. The company is owned and operated by AKFX Financial Services LTD, and authorized and regulated by the Malta Financial Services Agency. Though the brokerage has only been around for a few years, it is clearly run by experienced professionals; GKFX offers fast trade execution and tight spreads which start as low as 0.6 pips, and during our GKFX review, we found the broker to deliver on the promises it states on its website.

GKFX has already partnered with Premier League club Arsenal, a sign that this broker is looking to get noticed. Over the past nine years, this fintech company has grown to 28 offices around the globe with over 316,500 clients, more than 500 million executed trades. The company employs more than 1,500 people and has over $100 million in shareholder equity. The GK Group is headquartered in London and consists of 13 operating subsidiaries.

While the GK Group seems to be an interesting financial firm, this review will focus solely on GKFX which provides Forex and CFD trading in over 600 assets from the MT4 trading platform. While this broker serves clients from most countries, it appears that the explicit focus is Europe and Asia as judged by office locations of the GK Group. While we were impressed with many aspects of this company, traders opting to invest with such a young company should be aware that youth may breed inexperience in some aspects.

GKFX Homepage

Regulation and Security

AKFX Financial Services LTD, the owner and operator of GKFX, is authorized by the Malta Financial Services Agency (MFSA) under ROC Company ID C 60473 as a Category II Financial Services Company. The license was issued on June 12, 2013. Malta’s EU membership makes it fully compliant with the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2014/65/EU or MiFID II as well as the EU’s 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive. As per regulatory requirements, client deposits are kept in segregated accounts and GKFX offers a “Legal Documents” section on its website which provides all required documents which include the RTS reports which consist of executed trades from the previous quarter.

GKFX is transparent and also participates in the Investor Compensation Scheme which is a rescue fund that protects clients deposit in the event of a default by an MFSA regulated financial firm. This fund is based on the EU Directive 2014/49/EU on deposit-guarantee schemes and is typically limited to €20,000 which should fully cover most retail traders. The MFSA may represent a considerably smaller regulator, but it is a member of the EU and therefore adheres to harmonized standards while being able to apply flexibility of more limited jurisdiction. This establishes a more practical approach to supporting traders and allowing financial firms to expand in a competitive environment.

GKFX MFSA regulation

Fees

Spreads and commissions are applied to all trades, and these are the main revenue generator for GKFX. It also appears that this broker is a market maker which means it is usually the counterparty to retail positions and earns the money lost by its clients. GKFX does publish an order execution policy, but the execution model was not mentioned. This is standard when a broker is indeed a market maker.

Dividends are passed on to clients if they hold a position past the ex-dividend date. Long positions receive the dividend amount while short positions will see the amount deducted from their accounts; this applies to share CFDs as well as index CFDs. Swap rates on overnight positions also apply and traders can get the exact positive/negative swap rates from insider their MT4 trading platform.

What Can I Trade

GKFX offers over 600 assets across five classes and continues to grow this base. Traders have access to the Forex and cryptocurrency markets, equity and index trading as well as commodity trading. This constitutes a robust asset pool suited for entry-level cross-asset diversification and is suited for all retail traders to advanced traders, while professionally managed portfolios may run into limitations. Overall, any portfolio under $250,000 should find the asset selection adequate. GKFX provides “Market Information Sheets” with comprehensive information about targeted spreads, maximum leverage, margin rates as well as minimum and maximum trading volume.

Forex traders can choose from over 50 currency pairs, spreads start as low as 0.6 pips for the EUR/USD and maximum leverage is 1:30.

GKFX is expanding into the cryptocurrency sector and currently offers five cryptocurrency pairs with a maximum leverage of 1:2 while maximum trading limits are additionally in place.

GKFX crypto offerings

Since equity CFDs are offered, it is reasonable to extend this to index CFDs where majors can be traded with a maximum leverage of 1:20 and minors with 1:10.

GKFX indices offerings

Even more asset diversification is offered through commodity trading. GKFX offers a decent selection of hard as well as soft commodities, and maximum leverage ranges between 1:10 and 1:20.

Account Types

GKFX offers three account types, but most traders are likely to manage their portfolios from the Standard account which can be opened with a minimum deposit of just €100. Spreads start from 0.6 pips with a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots and maximum leverage of 1:30. This broker offers a Premium account where traders get raw spreads which can be as low as 0.0 pips, but a commission of €6 per lot applies; this is an extremely competitive offer but accounts require a minimum deposit of €20,000 and the minimum trade size is increased to 0.10 lots. An upgrade to professional status is available if a client has at least €500,000 in assets, one year+ trading professional experience in financial markets, and 10 significant trades placed each quarter over the past four consecutive quarters.

A Corporate account is available which carries the same trading conditions as the Standard account, the two main differences being the minimum deposit of €25,000 and a minimum trade size of 1.0 lots. This is forcing the account into too much risk and doesn’t provide a favorable trading environment for corporate clients.

Asset availability is the same across all three account types, but it only lists 42 currency pairs while over 50 are mentioned at other sections of the website. A more professional approach would be to ensure all the information agrees with each other and while this is only a minor oversight, it does show that GKFX is still working out some kinks. Attention to detail would go a long way, but the right ingredients are in place with this broker to mature and address non-operating issues like this.

GKFX account comparison

GKFX account comparison continued

Trading Platforms

GKFX offers the full suite of the MT4 trading platform which consists of the downloadable version, the mobile version, and the web version. While MT4 remains the most popular trading platform, out-of-the-box it is an incomplete platform; this is particularly accurate for more advanced traders. Hundreds of millions have been invested in products and services created in the MT4 infrastructure which can transform it into a dominant trading platform.

It does come with all the basic analytics tools and one of the premier features is full support for automated trading solutions. A back-testing capability is also included and can help new traders test their strategies. As more portfolios are operated via automated solutions, the MT4 trading platform fully supports it; this explains the ongoing investment into innovative products for it.

Most of the required third-party add-ons need to be purchased, and it would have been considerate of GKFX to offer some of the more crucial ones, free of charge with each account. This is another example of this broker being youthful and without the proper experience, but it may include products in the future and as part of its maturing process.

GKFX MT4 desktop offering

Unique Features

While we were happy to find during our GKFX review that the company offers a VPS service, the requirements and charges are on the high end of the spectrum. A monthly charge, as well as a minimum lot size requirement per month, makes no sense; this broker should either charge per month for this service or offer it free of charge for traders who satisfy the minimum trading requirement. Asking for both clearly benefits the broker at the expense of the trader.

Autochartist is a great trading tool most new traders will learn to appreciate as it scans markets automatically for real-time trading opportunities. It additionally creates three market reports every day with an overview of popular markets. It can be retrieved via the MT4 Trader plugin or through the web trader.

GKFX Autochartist

Through a partnership with Trading Central, GKFX clients gain access to 10 daily research reports from one of the market leaders in independent research based on technical analysis. The Alpha Generation section is split into the Analyst Opinion Indicator, Adaptive Candlesticks, and Adaptive Convergence Divergence Signals. Risk Management tools include the Probabilistic Market Classifiers and Probabilistic Stops while the Indicators Lab featured Regularised Momentum, Regularised Buying Selling Pressure, and Regularised RSI. While GKFX displays some juvenile errors, it has done a great job by partnering with well-established service providers to offer their clients a competitive trading edge.

Trading Central offering

Research and Education

GKFX has outsourced its research to Trading Central which is fine, especially considering that this broker is relatively new. While GKFX is missing in-house research, it has done a good job of compensating with external offerings.

A trio of calculators is available, but most traders may never make use of them. The margin calculator is often an overlooked tool but should be part of a proper risk management protocol, the profit calculator can help with stop loss/take profit placements while the currency converter is useless in day-to-day trading operations.

GKFX caluculators

An economic calendar is provided, but at the time of this GKFX review, it returned a blank page. There is a well-presented tutorial on how to use the calendar, so the blank page may be due to a temporary technical error.

Education

GKFX offers its educational section delivered primarily through video lessons. This broker offers quite an extensive selection of educational videos, but not all are available for viewing which was rather disappointing. Some of the MT4 tutorials are presented by a person claiming to be a member of the GKFX team, but they have been created using computer-assisted technology where the presenter, visible for a few seconds only, is either sitting in a green room or has been edited into a virtual reality background. This is the first time we’ve seen the broker be less than transparent.

GKFX video sample

Quite a few videos in the library don’t exist anymore. In case this is related to a technical glitch it should be corrected; otherwise, they need to be removed. At the time of this review, the “crown jewel” of the GKFX educational section came across as sloppy.

Broken video

Webinars are mentioned as another valuable service offered by GKFX, but at the time if this review there were no webinars scheduled. It would be great to offer past webinars on their website and not ask potentially interested traders to subscribe to the official YouTube channel of this broker.

GKFX lack of webinars

A glossary is available and split into a regular one which covers trading terminology while economic indicators occupy a different section.

Customer Support

Customer Support Methodsemail-support chat-support
Support Hours24/5
Website Languages
  • The support team of GKFX is available from Sunday 10 pm through Friday 10 pm and can be reached via phone, e-mail or message directly from their website. A live chat function is listed, but it was not available during standard business hours which is when this review was conducted. At a well-functioning brokerage, clients rarely obtain the need to contact customer support and it appears that at GKFX it will be equally unlikely. Still, traders should take note of these findings.


    GKFX support section

    Bonuses and Promotions

    At the time of this review, GKFX didn’t offer any bonuses or promotions to traders.

    Opening an Account

    The account opening process is conducted online, the standard procedure with all brokers. GKFX has a five-step process that covers the basics, but new clients are required to submit a copy of their ID and proof of residency document as required by the regulator. It is refreshing to see a list of key documents to read listed on the account opening page. All things considered, this process should be completed in a matter of minutes without any complications.


    GKFX registration process

    Deposits and Withdrawals

    The strangest fact uncovered during this GKFX review is that no mention of deposit or withdrawal options is made anywhere on the website. The FAQ section makes no mention of it either, and while there is a Payment Methods section listed in the help section, clicking on it only reloads the page. Details may be provided inside the back-office after an account is open, but deposit and withdrawal information is essential and should be provided on the website.

    Trading Platform

    MT4
    MT5
    cTrader
    Proprietary Platform
    Automated Trading
    Guaranteed Stop Loss
    Scalping
    Hedging
    OCO Orders
    Interest on Margin

    Summary

    GKFX is a relatively young broker with vast ambitions. Owned by a fintech company which has a remarkable growth story, this broker contains the right ingredients to grab market share and grow into a considerably better brokerage than it currently is. Clients have access to over 600 assets across five categories and as GKFX grows, so does its asset pool. Trading conditions for clients are better in the Standard account than in the Corporate account while the Premium account offers very competitive commissions for raw spreads.

    The foundation of GKFX is sound and there is ample growth potential. The comprehensive suite of the MT4 trading platform is offered, but it would be considerate to include some key third-party additions free of charge to upgrade the trading platform from a mediocre platform to a powerful workstation. VPS hosting is available, but the conditions are terrible which remains one area this broker should attend to. Overall, trading conditions are good and retail traders should experience no issues getting started with their first trading account.

    Research & analysis has been outsourced to third parties, which is fine, especially if the adolescent age of this broker is factored in. Education is provided primarily through video lessons, but not all videos are playable and this section showed an overall sloppy approach. Minor non-operational issues where uncovered, several links didn’t function properly and redirected to the home page and information provided in regards to how many assets are available in each class didn’t match a different figured were displayed on different sections.

    Regulation is provided by the Malta Financial Services Agency (MFSA) which offers a great compromise of an EU based regulatory framework with small jurisdictional flexibility. GKFX is fairly transparent, and the only significant error uncovered was the lack of deposit and withdrawal information. While the lack of experience is evident after digging through this brokerage, the core is solid, and GKFX may be a diamond in the rough. After an intensive polishing procedure, this broker may shine eventually, and traders who prefer to grow with their broker may have found a stable partner to achieve precisely that.

    FAQs

    Where is GKFX based?

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    GKFX is headquartered in Ta Xbiex, Malta.

    How does GKFX make money?

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    GKFX receives all of its revenues from spreads, commissions and clients losses where it acts as a market maker.

    How can I deposit into a GKFX account?

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    No mention is made regarding deposit and withdrawal options.

    What is the minimum lot size at GKFX?

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    The minimum trading size depends on the trading account type and asset traded, but currency pairs start at 0.01 lots in the Standard account while equity CFDs start from 1 share.

    When does a margin call take place at GKFX?

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    GKFX initiates a margin call when the equity margin level reaches 50%.

    Is GKFX regulated?

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    AKFX Financial Services LTD, the owner and operator of GKFX, is authorized by the Malta Financial Services Agency (MFSA) under ROC Company ID C 60473 as a Category II Financial Services Company.

    What is the maximum leverage offered by GKFX?

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    The maximum leverage for retail traders is 1:30, but dependent on the traded asset.

    How do I open an account with GKFX?

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    GKFX has an online application form which is the standard operating procedure.

    Does GKFX offer the MetaTrader Trading Platform?

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    Yes, GKFX offers the MT4 trading platform.

    About the Author

    DailyForex.com Team
    The DailyForex.com team is comprised of analysts and researchers from around the world who watch the market throughout the day to provide you with unique perspectives and helpful analysis that can help improve your Forex trading.