STMarket Review – Likely To Cause You Some Financial Headaches

Poor regulations seem to go hand in hand with false advertising. The firm discussed in the following STMarket review is a Cambodian broker that’s allegedly been the top Forex provider for over 18 years. 

Their features, tools and services are marketed as world-class that not even leading world broker brands can compete with. Read on as we investigate the truthfulness of these and many other claims. 

Lax Regulatory Environment

World leading Forex provider that’s focused on servicing millions of customers worldwide and providing prestigious service. That’s the words this firm uses to describe their agenda. 

We can hardly believe so, given the fact that the company operates under very weak regulatory oversight that cannot even come close to the strict standards imposed by Tier 1 entities. 

The Cambodian regulator – SERC, has indeed licensed this business as a derivative broker, which can be confirmed from the database of intermediary companies. However, the scheme doesn’t just operate from this country.

They claim to also have a UK office, registered with the UK Companies House as ST Market UK Ltd. Unfortunately, just registration isn’t enough to consider them eligible for selling online trading services without a FCA license.

These findings have prompted us to warn our readers not to easily engage in any trading activities on this suspicious platform. We’d recommend you to also stay away from Bits Panda, which we’ve previously reviewed.

Something’s Not Quite Right

The SERC database does not contain the date of incorporation of this firm, but the stmarket.com website can be dated back to 2006. It did not host an online brokerage until much later, 2020 more precisely.

Here’s an overview of countries that generate the majority of traffic:

• United States
• United Kingdom
• France
• Netherlands
• Canada

The manner in which this company attracts clients is more comparable to a boiler room like Capitalco, rather than a regulated securities dealer. For instance, the firm is tagging unrelated videos on YouTube and TikTok just to get more hits in the search engines.

It simultaneously manages a number of parallel accounts on Facebook and Instagram, including one named STMarkets Thailand, a jurisdiction in which the firm is not licensed.

The reported number of employees doesn’t match either, starting with zero on CrunchBase, followed by 2 on Lusha and almost 200 on the LinkedIn page. With the chronic lack of any STMarket reviews, it’ll be best to keep your guard up, and contact our experts if you need help with recovery.

Shady Approach to Transparency

Trading costs and fees involved in the price speculating process are crucial to many potential customers. Without enough transparency, these brokers don’t instill enough trust in future users. 

For example, spreads are never even approximately defined, and all you’ll hear is that they’re “fluctuating” a lot and could be as low as 0.1 pips. Furthermore, not even the maximum leverage ratio is revealed. There’s talk about 1:50, 1:100 and 1:200 being available, but the cap is not known. 

No Astonishing Range of Services

Despite all the advertisements and statements about excellent service and dedication, not much proof of any of it exists. Starting from the overly demanding account creation process to the mysterious platform, everything is hidden under a veil of secrecy. Approach this site and its features with utmost caution.

Long Way to the Platform

If you apply for a Demo version, you’ll automatically be forced to download a software from an unconfirmed source. We decided not to risk acquiring malware and rejected installing the app.

Now, if you first decide to register for a live trading account and get access to the terminal from the user area, prepare yourself for an unpleasant surprise.

The trading solution we expected to find upon registering couldn’t be located anywhere. At that, all the icons that should contain links for downloading MT5 are inactive!

Table of Available Markets

To everyone’s surprise, this somehow untransparent firm does offer an extensive list of the instruments sorted in the following groups:

• Forex (EUR/USD, EUR/CHF, GBP/USD)
• Metals (Silver, Gold, Platinum)
• Energies (WTI, Brent, Natural Gas)
• Indices (AUS200, CHN50, ESP35)

Costly Trading Accounts

Another area in which the STMarket Forex provider raises some suspicion is the account types. These are the notorious “tiered accounts”, common with various swindlers.

While not exorbitantly costly, the minimum deposit is way higher than the current industry average of $10 or less.

Take a look:

• Standard – $50
• Premium – $100
• ECN – $200

A demo is advertised, however it’s a demonstration of the MT5 app itself, and not an actual demo trading account provided by the company.

Do Payouts Really Happen?

Withdrawals should be processed relatively quickly – no more than 48 hours is promised to take for the request to be reviewed. With that, no fees are mentioned as commission following the payouts with $100 being the minimum withdrawal amount. Available channels for conducting monetary transactions are:

• Bank Wire
• Credit Cards
• China Union Pay 
• Third Party P2P Payment

Of course, none of these claims are verifiable, and the weak license cannot serve as a confirmation of the website’s statements about security and diligence.

Contacting the Broker

The primary way of establishing communication with this company is via email and phone numbers in the UK, Cambodia and Thailand. There’s also two physical addresses of the offices in Cambodia and the UK. How dedicated to their clientele this loosely regulated broker really is, is up for discussion. 

Need Help With a Withdrawal? Consider Our Services

Although the firm is regulated in their home country of Cambodia, it is known to operate outside of this jurisdiction as well. Needless to say, it is not licensed to provide this sort of foreign service. In many aspects, the STMarket broker is comparable to your average boiler room.

After looking into all of the cons of dealing with this entity, we strongly advise against investing into their service. It would be best to withdraw your assets as soon as possible, and contact our experts should you encounter any payout issues.

FAQ Section