When you first begin to trade using the Forex system, it should ideally be via a broker who is registered with your country’s regulatory agencies. It would be unwise to use the services of any unregistered broker simply because you will have no recourse if he takes off with your hard earned money! In America, a Forex broker should be registered as a Commissions Merchant with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC). You can find out if your broker is registered by checking www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet  The same principle applies in the UK, where brokers should be registered with the Financial Services Authority (FSA). You can research this at www.fsa.gov.uk.

It would be wise to research your broker yourself too and ensure that you can expect help over the ‘phone and/or via the ‘net. You can always contact your chosen broker prior to engaging them and put a few question to them about their services. In so doing, you’ll find out if they reply to you in a timely manner and if they answer your questions satisfactorily. Bear in mind though that they want your business so the quality of their pre-agreement customer service may exceed that of the service post-agreement.

Brokers who offer ‘net accessibility to your account generally have one of two different sorts of access. Some use web-based software hosted directly on the broker’s site. The advantage to this is that you can use it wherever you happen to be, in the same way as you can access web-based email like Hotmail for example. Alternatively, you may be offered software that you run from your own PC at home or at your office, however generally speaking, you are only permitted to run this on one computer, so it’s somewhat limiting if you wish to use both home and office computers to access your account. A further issue with this is that they don’t usually offer the software to Apple Mac users.

For anyone wishing to trade using Forex from home, you would of course need to ensure that your broker offers up to the minute Forex trading figures. You would be wasting time if you traded based upon out of date information; that could cost you dearly. Even a time difference of a few minutes can radically affect your profit so be sure your broker has real-time trading figures available to clients. For this reason, it’s essential to have a fast connection to the ‘net; dial up is slow and therefore prices may have changed by the time you get through. Also, you should check that your broker's trading hours match the trading hours of the international Forex.

Your broker should also use a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) system of displaying trading figures. This is achieved by using a standard user platform – such as ‘Easy Forex’ – that enables you to easily keep track of your used/unused margins. It’s also advisable to use a broker who offers mini and micro lots which means that you can start trading for around $200. Many offer ‘fractional’ lots too, or ‘odd’ lots which means you can establish your trading-unit size. You should also check that your broker offers trading in all major currencies. These are usually considered to be USD, GBP, EUR, JPY, CHF, AUD and CAD.

Finally, you should check how your broker calculates ‘rollover’ charges. Rollover charges are applied to your account when your trading goes over – or ‘rolls’ over – the end of the day’s trading. These charges are based on the differing interest rates of any country’s currency against those of the country with whose currency you are trading. For instance, the traditional pairing of GBP/USD, rollover charges are the difference in interest rates of each country, in this case, the UK and the US.