Terms of Business

The terms of business, sometimes called the client agreement, is the contract between you and a broker. It is the document that actually governs the account, and where the commercial promises made on a website become enforceable obligations — or turn out not to be. The clauses that matter most are the ones a marketing page rarely repeats: how and when the firm may change spreads, swaps or margin requirements, the circumstances in which it may close positions or refuse an order, how slippage and requotes are handled, what happens to your funds on insolvency, which entity you are actually contracting with, and which country's law and courts apply. That last one decides everything else, because a group can operate several entities under different regulators and the one named in your agreement is the only one you have a claim against.