Definition and types
A broker, in simple words, is an intermediary between the seller and the buyer, the lender and the borrower, the insurer and the policyholder. This list can be continued depending on the type of brokers. Translated from English, the word “broker” means intermediary.
Brokerage activity is the execution of client instructions and the performance of any actions at his expense. For example, the purchase and sale of securities, currency, registration of real estate transactions, searching for profitable offers on mortgages, etc.
A broker can be an individual or legal entity that has received a license from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. The license is unlimited. On the official website of the Central Bank there is an up-to-date list of operating organizations that have a brokerage license. You should definitely check with him when choosing an intermediary. There are now more than 300 companies there: banks, brokerage platforms, investment funds, etc.
Types of brokers:
- The exchange provides intermediary services in the securities, currency, and derivatives markets.
- Credit - an intermediary between participants in the credit market (banks, borrowers, real estate agencies, appraisal offices, insurance companies, etc.).
- The insurer works in the insurance market, helping to meet the insurer and the policyholder on mutually beneficial terms.
- A type of credit is a mortgage broker. It serves the mortgage borrower.
- Forex broker is an intermediary in the Forex market.
- Brokerage is intermediation in the commercial real estate market.
All these varieties can be combined and called one phrase – “financial broker”. That is, it is an intermediary who works in financial markets with client funds. There is also a leasing, customs, aircraft broker, etc.
General information about WQ Broker
The official website of the CFD broker wqbroker-ltd.com reports that the company is managed by professional traders. The mediator is positioned as international. It provides services to residents of all countries without restrictions.
The administration of the service guarantees depositors the withdrawal of earned money. However, all brokers do this, because otherwise traders will not cooperate with them.
The office is registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (offshore zone). This is an alarming fact, because offshore companies are often home to swindlers who want to profit from other people’s capital. However, the place of registration cannot be considered a direct confirmation that this is a scam project. Since its inception, VQ Broker has not yet earned a bad reputation. There are negative reviews about it, but they are not supported by serious evidence.
WQ Broker operates in a legal field as it has a brokerage license No. 24869 IBC 2020 issued by the FSA (financial regulator of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines). The document is presented on the website.
Main functions
Let's take a closer look at what each type of broker does.
Exchange
One of the most common intermediaries in our country. The fact is that access to trading on the stock exchange is provided to individuals and legal entities only through licensed brokerage companies. You will not be able to independently enter into transactions with securities, currencies, options and futures on the stock exchange.
The intermediary will help you open a brokerage account, accept an instruction from you to complete a transaction with assets and carry it out, operating with your money in the account. His reward will be commissions.
There are a number of additional functions that Russian stock brokers undertake:
- consulting – they advise clients on issues of working on the stock exchange, taxation, trading software systems, etc.;
- educational – conduct webinars, organize training courses, record lessons for beginners and more;
- analytical – they make analytical reviews, make forecasts, make recommendations;
- settlement – calculate and transfer taxes on income from customer transactions to the Russian budget.
Credit
This species is still less common in Russia, but in vain. Our citizens think that they themselves have a mustache. All information is on the Internet. Why would anyone overpay for intermediary services? They respect them, sign unfavorable contracts with one bank, and then move on to another. The result is a bunch of unnecessary credit cards, extortionate terms on credit agreements, including mortgages.
At the beginning of the 2000s, the Mortgage Broker company was organized in our city on the basis of the mortgage department of the city administration. For a fee, employees selected options with the best conditions for the client, helped with paperwork and obtaining a loan.
The experiment failed. There were few people willing to pay the intermediary. Although the commissions were not commercial, but very small. The company closed due to low profitability.
Services that credit intermediaries can provide:
- selection of the optimal lending option based on an analysis of the client’s solvency and bank offers;
- checking your credit history and recommendations for improving it;
- negotiations with the creditor in case of problems;
- preparation of documents for obtaining a loan, including work with insurance and appraisal companies;
- lawyer consulting.
Insurance
Acts similarly to a credit broker, only between insurance companies and policyholders:
- selection of insurer;
- analysis of insurance conditions;
- registration, conclusion and maintenance of the contract;
- preparation of documents in the event of an insured event;
- consultations.
It should be distinguished from an insurance agent who puts every effort into luring a potential client to his insurance company. The broker interacts throughout the insurance market.
Forex broker
Has a controversial reputation in society. The negative aspects are related to the fact that most investors who go through Forex intermediaries to trade currencies sooner or later lose their money.
The real Forex market is only available to large players. The cost of a transaction or lot starts from $100,000. Players who only have a few hundred or a couple thousand dollars in their investment pockets cannot get into the real Forex market. They make transactions for the purchase and sale of currency not with other participants, but with a Forex intermediary, who closes them with his capital.
Brokerage
This is a brokerage in the commercial real estate market. What does a mediator do:
- looking for tenants and buyers for office, warehouse, and retail premises;
- participates in drawing up an agreement for the lease or purchase and sale of an object;
- negotiates with the owner on the terms of the transaction;
- accompanies the transaction until its legal completion.
Further in the article we will consider the exchange intermediary, since it is he who serves as the connecting link between the investor and the exchange.
How does an online broker work?
I will say this, if there were no brokerage companies, you and I would not be able to trade or invest. A broker is a cog in the financial mechanism that connects the trader to the global financial market , as well as the investor and the trader . Yes, rearrange the market participants as you wish, the meaning will not change. The broker brings everyone together and gives everyone the opportunity to earn money.
In other words, there is a seller of currency or ( stocks ), it doesn’t matter, who urgently needs to get rid of this property, that is, he decides to sell his asset. What he does is he goes to the stock market ( not directly, but in the sense of turning on the computer and entering the market using an online broker ), then he puts up for sale this asset he does not need.
At this time, in another part of the globe there is a buyer who urgently needs what our seller has just put up for sale and he purchases this asset for the price that was offered. So that these two wonderful market participants do not have to fly to each other on a plane to visit each other in order to carry out a purchase and sale transaction, the world stock exchange was invented. This is, of course, a simplified version of what happens on the stock exchange, but that’s the point.
On this exchange, millions of transactions per second for billions and hundreds of billions of dollars occur. There are hundreds or even millions of such sellers and buyers every day. These can be large banks, companies, private funds, traders , investors, etc. They all want to sell or buy something ( I mean financial assets ). I wrote about how to choose stocks for trading in this article .
So, in order for the necessary information to reach these two comrades on the monitor, there is an online broker who will select and sort all the requested information for you and give the exact result in the form of a graph. All this happens in a fraction of a second and with very high precision. Brokers regularly monitor the speed of execution of trading operations, regularly update trading equipment designed for working on the stock market, so this is a very complex and high-speed mechanism.
Here's what it looks like visually:
"Online b rocker
(from the English broker - broker, broker, intermediary) - a legal or natural person performing intermediary functions between the seller and the buyer, between the insurer and the policyholder (insurance broker)"
The broker provides you as a client with the entire necessary set of tools so that you can work with financial markets comfortably. The broker will give you the opportunity to invest in professional traders using trust management, in stocks, in raw materials, in currencies, in ready-made ETF funds , in everything in which you can make money.
Criterias of choice
If you still think that trading on the stock exchange is difficult and accessible only to people with millions in their pockets, then you are mistaken. No more difficult than opening and replenishing a deposit in a bank. And access to trade is possible even with a few tens of rubles. The main thing is to choose a brokerage platform.
It is the selection criteria that we will consider.
- Availability of a license. This information is best obtained from the Central Bank website. Enter “list of brokers” into the site search bar and download the table. There are 314 companies on the list as of June 28, 2020.
- Experience in brokerage activities. In the table that you download from the Central Bank website, there is a column with the year the license was issued. The oldest players on the market received it in 2000.
- Number of active clients. This is a kind of rating that shows how client-oriented the brokerage company is. It is compiled monthly by the Moscow Exchange.
- Trade turnover. The volume of transactions will show us the biggest players. The rating is also compiled by the Moscow Exchange.
- Which sites are accessible through a broker? This is an important point, because someone works only on the Moscow Exchange. In this case, you have the opportunity to buy and sell shares and bonds of Russian companies, and invest in foreign ones only through ETF funds. Access to the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange will allow you to purchase shares of foreign companies. Large intermediaries such as Finam, BCS, Otkritie also provide access to foreign exchanges (Nyse, Nasdaq, etc.), but only for those with the status of a qualified investor.
- Minimum entry threshold. Some do not even set the amount with which an investor can open a brokerage account. For example, Tinkoff Bank. Some regulate it using a service fee. For example, Opening. Up to 50,000 rub. on the account - pay 295 rubles. according to a regular account and 200 rubles. according to IIS. More than 50,000 rub. – 0 rub.
- Service tariffs. This is probably the most difficult point to analyze. I went through it myself. On the websites of brokerage houses the devil will break his leg. Therefore, my advice is to call the broker and ask specific questions: for what, when and how much you will pay.
- Possibility to open an IIS. That's an additional 13% from the government on top of your investment return. Suitable for long-term investment, because an IIS is opened for at least 3 years.
- Possibility to open an account online. Almost all major brokers do this. All you need to do is fill out information about yourself on the website and attach scans of your passport without visiting the office. In 1–2 days, accounts will be opened and contracts will be sent by email. You can start investing.
- What software is used for trading. It is convenient when a broker has a mobile application and its own trading program. For example, I trade with the Otkritie broker through my personal account on a laptop. Everything is simple and intuitive. And, of course, there is access to popular trading terminals such as Quik.
Asianodds
https://asianodds88.com
Another well-known name in the brokerage market. Unlike VOdds , here there are bets not only on football, but also on basketball (but, admittedly, quite rare) - again, everything is from the line of those partners with whom this broker cooperates. Asianodds has a shorter list than VOdds and includes 6 bookmakers (of course, there is Pinnacle and SBOBet ).
The interface is subjectively darker and more intricate than that of VOdds, but this, as they say, depends on taste and color. Sometimes, due to the abundance of simultaneous events, there are delays when placing bets on “bread” days (Saturday and Sunday), but now this is not as relevant as a couple of years ago. Asianodds also allows for API functionality.
With maximum rates, everything is at the standard top level for brokers. Here are the maximums for the live Norwegian Football Championship match:
Big markets, of course, charge many times more.
On topic: Bookmakers without TsUPIS
The minimum deposit is very affordable - 10 units. There are slightly more deposit/withdrawal methods here than in the competitor discussed above: ecoPayz and Bitcoin have been added to Skrill, Neteller and bank transfer, and the account currency is euro and British pound sterling.
How to open an account with a broker
First, a little about the reliability of the brokerage platform. It is an intermediary and does not hold the securities you purchase in its accounts. Securities are now issued in book-entry form, and information about the owner is stored in the depository.
The main depository in the Russian Federation is the National Settlement Depository (NSD). If the brokerage company's license is revoked, you will still remain the owner of your securities. Just switch to another broker to service your accounts.
You open 2 accounts: brokerage and depository. The first will be your money, with which the intermediary will buy assets on your instructions. The second contains records of what and how much you bought.
The opening procedure is simple. There are 2 options:
- Come to the office with your passport. You fill out the necessary documents, sign the agreement and get access to the trading terminal or your personal account.
- Online. You will have to spend time studying the tariffs.
Choose one of them and leave a request. After gaining access (usually after 1 - 2 days), you can start trading on the exchange.
VOdds
https://vodds.com/
One of the most popular brokers. By registering in it, the user will have access to bets from nine bookmakers (most from the Asian market) under one account, including the world-famous Pinnacle and SBOBet .
This product is suitable for those who bet on football. Or rather, only for those who put it on - there are no other sports here yet. The interface is very nice and friendly, but it will still take a little time to adapt.
By agreement with the support service, access to a demo account is possible, where anyone can try out the functionality of this broker for free. It is possible to use the service through a software application (API).
The line (and this is a characteristic moment for most brokers) is not replete with an abundance of paintings, there are no outs and goal kicks, offers on what color shorts the third goalkeeper will wear on the field and other game from gamnobet (although there are corner and yellow cards), but the main thing here is the highest maximums for almost any presented event and the best odds on the world market . For example, on the total of a Portuguese championship match live, you can bet about 40,000 units of foreign currency (and the minimum, as you can see in the screenshot, is 3).
On topic: Types of bookmakers: from recreational to professional
Of course, they charge a lot more for European Cup matches and confrontations between the strongest European leagues. For Arsenal's victory over Red Star in the Europa League match, you can charge six tens of kilocurrencies:
In general, on large markets, maximum bets can reach several hundred (!) thousand, but very respectable maximums are accepted not only on big markets, but, for example, on the English youth football championship.
One of the advantages for the mass user will undoubtedly be the fact that there is no lower limit for the minimum deposit, and the minimum bet amount can vary from 1 to 4 units of the selected currency (euro, dollar, British pound sterling). The support service works in real time and will answer any question regarding their product as soon as possible, however, unfortunately, not in Russian. When choosing bets, those bookmakers who have been seen to do such bad things as canceling these very bets are marked with an asterisk (this is very rare, but, unfortunately, it happens).
The disadvantages include a very limited number of methods for depositing/withdrawing funds: Skrill, Neteller and bank transfer.
Stages of trading on the stock exchange
You carry out all operations through a broker, giving him instructions. There are different methods for submitting an application. Choose the one that seems most convenient to you.
- By phone. After the call, you must say the code word that you came up with when signing the contract. It will be used to identify you. Then you must tell the operator the number and name of the securities you want to purchase, or the amount. Sometimes the phrase “at market price” is added. This means that the broker will buy assets at the current price.
- Through your personal account on the website or mobile application. Select securities, indicate quantity and price. If this is the market price, then the transaction will take place instantly. If you write less than the market price, you will have to wait for an offer at that price. Sometimes a deal is canceled if an offer at your price is not received.
- Through trading terminals. First you have to study the program interface. Many brokerages have free lessons and webinars that explain how to submit buy and sell orders through trading programs.
The largest brokers allow you to open demo accounts where you can practice making trades on the stock exchange. There you will not risk your own money, only virtual money. Master the technology, software, choose your investment tools. Then switch to a real brokerage account.