Scandinavian Capital Markets Review |
|
| 📅 Year founded |
2011 |
| 📈 Multiple top-tier regulation |
Yes |
| 📍 Headquarters |
Kista, Sweden |
| 🌍 Country of regulation |
Sweden |
| ✅ Regulators |
FSA |
| 📈 Execution Type |
Market Execution |
| 💰 Minimum Deposit |
None |
| 🛡️ Negative Balance Protection |
Yes |
| 📉 Trading Platforms |
MetaTrader4 / MetaTrader5 / cTrader |
| ☪ Islamic account |
Yes |
| 📉 Trading Instruments |
Forex / Metals / Cryptocurrencies |
| 📱 Mobile trading |
iOS / Android / Windows |
| 💳 Payment Types Accepted |
Credit and Debit Cards / Bank Wire Transfer / Skrill / Rapid Transfer / Alipay / SEPA / Paysafe / JCB / Cryptocurrency deposits |
| 🎮 Demo Account |
Yes |
| ⓒ Copy Trading |
Yes |
| 🎁 Bonus Offer |
First seven days commission free trading / Affiliate Program |
| 💰 Account Currencies |
USD / EUR / GBP |
| 📈 Minimum Trade |
0.01 Lots |
| 📈 Account Types |
ECN / STP |
| 📈 Margin Trading |
Yes |
| 📈 Trading fees |
Low |
| 📈 Inactivity fee |
$25 USD if withdrawal takes place without trades |
| 💰 Withdrawal fee |
$25 USD if no trading activity has occurred |
| ☎ Customer Support |
24/5 |
| 💰 Max. Leverage |
200:1 |
| ✔️ Hedging Allowed |
Yes |
| ✔️ Scalping Allowed |
Yes |
| 💰 Commission |
Varies depending on spread selected |
| 💰 Spreads |
From 0.0 pips |
| 💰 Leverage |
Flexible |
| 💰 Currency Pairs (Total Forex pairs) |
70 + |
| 🔢 Number of clients |
100 + |
| 🥇 Instruments Offered |
Articles / Trading WTF Videos / Market Updates |
| 📙 Education | |
WHAT IS SCANDINAVIAN CAPITAL MARKETS?
Found in 2011, Scandinavian Capital Markets (SCM) is a respectable forex and CFD brokerage firm with its headquarters located in Kista, Sweden. This online broker is regulated by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA).
At SCM, clients can trade a range of trading instruments including forex, metals and cryptocurrencies.
The broker also offers a variety of world renowned trading platforms to its traders including MetaTrader4 (MT4), MetaTrader5 (MT5) and cTrader.
INTRODUCTION
Founded in 2011 by a group of financial professionals under Arif Alexander Ahmad and Michael Buchbinder, SCM has grown to be a huge Swedish brokerage focusing mostly on forex trading.
The company is based in Kista. Initially, it was established as a wealth management firm and then one year later, it obtained registration to operate in the forex markets. SCM deals with ECN broking purely, using an STP model to execute and deliver reliable trading operations.
SCM is registered and authorised with the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. They became Sweden’s first STP-ECN broker, when they launched this type of trading in 2017.
The brokerage firm provides access to the forex market with over 70 currency pairs and uses the Equinix NY4 Center connectivity, which has made it a powerful worldwide infrastructure.
The brokerage firm is known for its tailored pricing, custom liquidity feeds and overall flexibility over its trading processes. It is built based on extensive technical knowledge and expertise of the foreign exchange market.
PROS & CONS
The services provided by SCM are top-notch; they differ greatly from other forex brokers that focus on clients with smaller deposits.
The issue with the model of targeting clients with small deposit accounts is that the brokerage firm will need many clients to be profitable. The higher the number of clients a brokerage firm has, the higher the amount of money they will use for their operations; this eventually degrades the quality of services they offer.
SCM tailors their services to high-value deposit customers and money managers, while this may look like a barrier to entry to many, the quality of service provided by them is top-notch for this reason.
PROS
- SCM have transparent trading conditions; they offer premium account management to their clients.
- They have many trading platforms including MT4, MT5 and cTrader.
- They are registered with the Swedish FSA, thus giving a sense of security to their clients.
- They provide very competitive spreads.
- They are solid banking partners: The company collaborates with leading Scandinavian banks to hold and receive their clients’ money.
- They regularly host conferences, leadership conferences and seminars where they develop relationships with their clients and partners.
- There is no minimum deposit, as they trust their clients to have enough understanding of the markets to choose their own deposit amount.
CONS
- The maximum leverage is 200:1. With SCM being an STP-CTN broker, their trading conditions are aligned with liquidity providers and institutional brokers. However, with the large capital amounts usually deposited, this leverage is generally not an issue.
- They offer a limited range of trading instruments as they focus majorly on their forex offering.
- Withdrawal and inactivity fees are applicable with SCM.
TRADING INSTRUMENTS
Forex
The trading instrument most commonly associated with SCM is forex pairs, which they have decided to specialise in. SCM offers over 70 forex pairs to its clients, which is a relatively large offering in comparison to other brokers in the industry.
Forex trading is a currency exchange market where individuals, companies and even financial institutions trade by exchanging currencies at floating rates.
Metals
Trading precious metals is also a feature of SCM, with gold and silver available to trade against the account base currencies such as USD, EUR and AUD. They also offer metals such palladium and platinum to traders, which are quoted against the USD.
Cryptocurrencies
SCM has also added cryptocurrencies to its offering of trading instruments and can currently offer traders up to 30 cryptocurrencies to trade, which is a lot compared to its competitors. They also offer leverage of up to 33:1 on these cryptocurrencies.
TRADING PLATFORMS
First, let us start by understanding what a trading platform is; it is software that a brokerage firm provides to its customers, and this is what is used to carry out their trades. A platform is a multi-asset as it can be used to trade forex and other asset classes like stock indices, cryptocurrencies, precious metals and CFDs. In the case of SCM, it is used to trade forex, metals and cryptocurrencies.
SCM provides the following trading platforms:
MT4 and MT4 Mobile
SCM accounts support using the popular MT4 platform for trading. This platform can be downloaded on their website.
Many traders are starting to prefer using this platform and prefer to keep using its resources and tools to analyse the market, prices and to manage trades. This platform also allows users to customise its features according to client preferences like colour and other settings representing their style.
MT5 and MT5 Mobile
MT5 is MetaTrader’s upgrade on the world renowned MT4 platform and includes even more features than MT4. Despite this, traders still opt to utilise both platforms.
cTrader
cTrader is an advanced trading platform that features the latest trading technology in the forex trading industry. It features ultra-low latency and makes use of state-of-the-art servers.
It has become one of the most preferred trading platform for both professional and retail traders. It is even more attractive, especially when paired with deep pools of liquidity, offered with SCM’s Tier 1 liquidity providers.
cTrader also has options for various devices and can be downloaded on desktops, mobile phones (both iOS and Androids) and web traders, thus enabling its clients to use it for trading anywhere.
Auto Trading and API
SCM also supports automatic trading features from other technology platforms like Myfxbook when connected to MT4 and MT5.
ACCOUNT TYPES
Unlike most brokers, SCM does not provide fixed account options to their clients. Rather, they allows their clients to build their own accounts to perfectly suit their trading styles. This is an advanced feature, that clearly shows why SCM is at the forefront of innovation in the trading industry.
Accounts are available on all the trading platforms that are offered by SCM, while they allow for base currencies of USD, EUR and GBP.
Opening an account with SCM, works on a sliding scale between spread and commission charges. For example, on the one end, traders can choose to trade with raw spreads (0.0 pips) where they will be charged a commission of $3.50 USD per lot per side. On the other end of the scale, traders can trade with higher spreads, from 2.0 pips, where they will not be charged commissions on their trades.
SCM also allows clients to opt for high frequency trading systems that are customised to the clients’ needs, as well as accounts for institutional trading. Both of these will require you to contact the broker directly, to set up.
HOW TO OPEN AN ACCOUNT
Opening an account with SCM is quite simple. Like the normal procedure followed when opening a bank account the first time, when opening an account with the brokerage firm, the first procedure is the basic “Know Your Customer” (KYC) process.
This process allows the brokerage firm to ensure that submitted personal details of interested clients are correct and also to provide surety that the client account and funds will be safe.
After the above procedure of initial registration, the client is normally emailed login details which will correspond to the login on their trading platform, which will match your account type.
Once this is received, funds will need to be deposited and you can then start trading. For the first 7 days of trading, no commissions will be charged by SCM.
The brokerage firm also allows potential clients who first want to try out their platform, to open a demo account.
DEMO ACCOUNT
To open a demo account with SCM, traders will need to follow the same steps as above, but instead of depositing funds, you will select the demo account option. You may then customise your account to your preference, as you would when signing up for the normal account. Traders will then have access to virtual funds with which to practice or test out new strategies.
SCM does utilise real-market conditions in their demo account, but do warn that it may be difficult to simulate accurately on high frequency trading accounts.
SOCIAL TRADING AND COPY TRADING
SCM allows for copy trading and social trading on all their accounts. This can easily be access through MT4 and MT5, where EAs are readily available.
They also offer the well-known cTrader Copy platform which offers detailed strategy profiles that give actionable analytics, a journal of trading histories and key performance indicators. The cTrader Copy platform replaces cMirror, which was initially used as a tool for copy and social trading.
The cTrader Copy platform delivers comprehensive strategies profiles and advanced risk management where the providers can display strategies for both professional and retail traders. The strategies can also be posted online, and traders from other brokerage firms can also follow the trades.
Another new feature that cTrader copy offers is that the strategy providers can operate on a flexible fee structure. The strategy provider can charge the investors a fee for opening and closing the trade. This is a feature that was not present on cMirror.
COMMISSIONS & FEES
As mentioned previously, SCM offers a unique method of charging commissions and fees on trades. When opening a new account, traders have access to a sliding scale, where they can change the spread they have access to, as well as the commission they are charged on trades.
Commissions vary from $3.50 USD per lot per side, to $0 USD while the spreads offered range from 0.0 pips to 2.0 pips. This is certainly a feature that is not common amongst its competitors.
SCM does charge a withdrawal fee in the event that money is withdrawn from an account without a trade being placed. While not directly charging an inactivity fee, this withdrawal fee may be seen as that. Fortunately, no fees are charged on deposits.
LEVERAGE
When trading, it is important to understand the term “leverage”. Leverage is a facility that will enable a client to get more exposure to the market they have chosen to trade-in than the amount deposited to open the trade.
Leveraged products have the potential to magnify a client’s potential profit and increase a client’s potential loss.
SCM, being a European broker which obliges to their regulatory restriction, provide low leverage levels due to the risk involved. They offer retail traders a maximum of 30:1 for all their major currencies pairs and lower leverages for other instruments, for the traders based in the EU.
For clients outside of the EU, they offer leverage of up to 200:1 on forex pairs, and up to 33:1 on cryptocurrencies.
WITHDRAWALS AND DEPOSITS
SCM strives to practice secure, transparent and prompt forex operations, especially when handling their client’s funds, usually held in European banks of high reputation.
Depositing of funds in the brokerage firm accounts is done mainly through bank wire transfers, but may also be done through the other methods in the table above. Deposits made are usually credited to clients’ account within one business day, depending on the method used.
Deposits may be made in an array of currencies, however the account base currencies are limited to USD, EUR and GBP, so it is to be noted that certain currency conversion fees may apply through the financial institutions.
Withdrawals are also swiftly processed and provided that trades have been made on the account prior to withdrawing, there are no withdrawal fees applicable.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Before trading with a given brokerage firm, it is important to ensure they will offer support and help whenever needed. This assists clients in finding the exact answers to their queries, thus improving the user experience.
SCM provide their clients with these services by taking emergency inquiries while scheduled calls can also be arranged at the client’s convenience. This allows the client to get personalised attention for their queries from the account manager assigned to them.
Clients are welcome to fill out the query form on SCM’s website, whereafter an account manager will reach out to assist with any queries. This personalised service is difficult to come by in the trading industry, making SCM stand out from its competition.
SAFETY AND SECURITY
When thinking of investing in a money market, there is a need to establish whether the brokerage firm you are thinking of investing with is safe to trade with or not. One of the things that can be used as the surest of benchmarks is measuring a brokerage firm’s safety by establishing which regulatory authorities act as watchdogs of their actions.
SCM certainly applies the necessary legal procedure, ensuring its safe trading conditions. As the trading branch finds its root in an investment firm, SCM has a long history and understanding of compliance.
The brokerage firm is registered and authorised by the Swedish Financial Authority (FSA); this regulatory Authority is also responsible for overseeing the most stable and reputable financial trading markets. This gives traders an assurance of safe investment conditions.
SCM also complies with the European ESMA regulations and the directives of MiFID; thus, investing with them guarantees transaction transparency without any conflict of interests.
SCM is also a member of compensation schemes in case they become insolvent. Furthermore, they keep client funds segregated, meaning that they do not use client funds in their business operations.
PROMOTIONS
SCM currently provides a discount on trading fees for new clients. When you sign up with SCM and begin trading, you can expect to trade commission free for the first seven days of trading, regardless of the spread and commission structure selected.
Additionally, the broker offers an affiliate program whereby you can earn up to 20% of revenue generated by clients you have referred to SCM. In our opinion, this is quite a significant amount and represents one of the better affiliate programs in the industry.
RESEARCH
Unfortunately, the research offering at SCM is rather thin compared to other brokers, with only free articles and market updates offered by the broker. However, it should be considered that once you sign up for an account and start trading, dedicated account managers may represent a good source of information to find additional research features.
The standard research features on offer on the MetaTrader platforms and cTrader are also available there, this would include features like an economic calendar.
EDUCATION
Since forex trading is a speculative business, potential clients of SCM are encouraged to avail themselves of possible trading skills and information necessary to succeed in the forex and commodity trading world.
SCM provides regular webinars, which entails training on various topics for both beginners and experienced traders. The topics include Forex Education for Professional Traders: How to Trade Using Fibonacci, and many more. They also record their webinars so that those who missed them can easily access them.
They do also offer a range of articles and “Trading WTF” videos. However, the educational tools are fairly limited as SCM is more geared at professional and institutional traders.
GLOBAL AWARDS
Even though SCM is highly regarded and highly rated by many of its happy clients according to personal reviews, there is no information of any awards received by the brokerage firm on their company website.
This does not mean that they haven’t won any awards and they may still do so in future. It does not take away from the fact that SCM is a high quality brokerage.
SAFE OR SCAM?
This question always crosses the mind of many traders; this is because no one likes losing money. And for that reason, it is imperative to do an adequate background check on any brokerage firm before investing.
The regulatory authority responsible for overseeing and regulating trading firms in Sweden is the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. SCM is registered with the regulatory authority and its operations are regulated by them.
SCM has a strong background in financial services prior to launching their trading branch and this compliance experience has carried over into their trading offering.
As a further boost, SCM keeps client funds segregated from their own, in order to safeguard client funds.
It is also compliant with the European ESMA regulations and the directives provided by MiFID. Based on this analysis, it is safe to say that SCM operations are safe.
CONCLUSION
In this review, we have discussed various features and operations of SCM. From our intensive research on the various topics on how they run their functions, we can conclude that this is a brokerage firm that strives to provide quality trading services to its clients and operates in full compliance with the necessary laws and regulations.
Thus, SCM is safe to engage in business with, due to the constant obligatory conditions of their business.
SCM also use sophisticated tools and platforms that are suitable and essential for a high level and quality of trading conditions required by institutions and fund managers. It should be noted that this broker certainly seems to cater for more experienced and even institutional traders, especially considering their strong focus on the forex market.
At Brokersuggest.com, our favourite feature has to be the fact that clients have the ability to customise their own accounts, to suit their needs. SCM provides many high quality features that make this broker an excellent option for more experienced traders.
