TopOption Review
TopOption is owned and operated by Leadtrade Ltd, a company that was authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) under licence number 296/16 licence date 16/02/2016. Leadtrade Ltd. Leadtrade was also EEA Authorised by the British Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under Reference number: 749356. The listed address for this company is Treppides Tower, 5th Floor, 9 Kafkasou Street, 2112 Nicosia, Cyprus. The previous name of Leadtrade Ltd. was Spot Trading S.T. Ltd.
Leadtrade Ltd has renounced its CySEC license (Voluntary Renunciation) and is no longer authorized by the British FCA. The brokerage TopOption is now closed (as well as some other Leadtrade brands)! Read more in our Regulatory Warnings And Announcements section below.
Is TopOption a Scam?
TopOption, as well as the other brands operated by LeadTrade Ltd closed shop. The website is inaccessible. I guess we will never know if they were a scam or not because the renunciation of the CySEC license was voluntary and not due to a lawsuit or major fine. However, if things were rosy, I don’t think Leadtrade would close several of their brands.
Editor’s Note – Why TopOption doesn’t Suck in 50 Words?
Even if they’ve recently changed their owning company, this still remains a regulated brokerage. On top of that, Leadtrade Ltd (the new owning company) has its feet well planted in the binary options industry and I say that because they own and manage a few other notable brokerages, such as Prestige Option and OptionsClick. That being said, I don’t think that CySEC regulation is such a big deal nowadays because it’s not very difficult to get and we’ve seen lots of regulated brokers do “bad” things.
Why does TopOption Suck?
When TopOption first launched, we had high hopes for them. Unfortunately they’ve disappointed more or less: they are not the worst, but definitely not one of the top tier brokers (and complaints are munching into their reputation). We’ll see… a new company, new management, new policies and maybe better reputation in the future, but right now their reputation kind of sucks. Oh, and one more thing: their Social Trading… what’s up with that? I can’t follow, I can’t copy automatically, I see trades that are half an hour old (and even longer). All I can do is “like” the trade. Come on, this is not FaceBook.
Should I Open an Account with TopOption?
Even from the first minutes spent on the website, clients can see they are dealing with a serious broker. The website looks polished and well designed, not like the normal white label platforms that look like mirror images of one another. The technology is provided by KeyStone, plus TopOption managed to personalize the platform and to repack it in a new form, paying a lot of attention to detail. There are no broken links and the whole experience feels totally uncluttered. Fortunately, there’s no trace of the overly used slogan “We focus on who really counts. You” and the education provided is more than just empty words or misleading information like “Binary Options are not risky…” They call things by their names and don’t hide behind words: they inform the traders that they are risking their money when trading Binary Options, just like the risk it when trading any other financial instrument.
The difference between an unregulated broker and TopOption is huge: all the information is publicly displayed and you can be sure it is real because they are constantly verified by CySEC. Ok, but the most important and appealing thing about regulation is that your money is kept separately from TopOption’s money. In other words, they don’t have access to it and cannot use your money as they please. Once an unregulated broker gets a hold of your money, it all depends on whether they are honest or not; if they are scammers, there’s not much you can do about it. The money is lost and you don’t even know who to sue or at least where to find them. This horrible scenario cannot happen with a regulated broker (well, the world may end tomorrow so I guess everything is possible) and more than that, because your money is held in a separate account from the broker’s, in case of bankruptcy, your money will be safe. There’s more: TopOption undertakes serious risk protection measures like the Investor Compensation Fund insurance protocol of up to 20K Euros per client. Do not mistake this insurance fund for the trading insurance some brokers offer you. It has nothing to do with protection against losses incurred from trading. That’s the trader’s problem. They protect your money against other non-trading related occurrences.
A lot of brokers offer daily market analysis these days but unfortunately, that analysis is anything but daily. Usually, it’s so old that spider webs and cracks appear on the page. That’s not the case with TopOption; the analysis is indeed a daily one, they have a good economic calendar with events ordered by importance and expected impact, “Breaking News” section and overall, they provide a professional environment, just how Binary options trading should be. Let’s just hope their eagerness to be professional doesn’t fade away when some time passes and this is not just an attempt to create hype around them.
Update October 2016: The trading platform is TradeSmarter and they no longer offer daily market reviews but they still have a well organized economic calendar. Given that more and more brokers are stepping up their game, TopOption has fallen behind a bit. Let’s hope that the new management will do a better job.
Check out our More Recommended Binary Options Brokers
TopOption Complaints
Team ThatSucks.com (former BinaryOptionsThatSuck.com) advices every newbie traders to make this search for themselves. It’s simple! Try Googling TopOption complaint, scam, fraud, etc, and make your own research. Here’s what we found: The only complaints I’ve come across till now have been about the platform lagging/freezing from time to time and I’ve experienced this myself. We’ll keep you updated on this matter when we know more.
Update October 2016: Unfortunately this brokerage suffers from a tainted reputation because more and more complaints have surfaced lately. It’s nothing really alarming but I recommend you keep an eye on our Comments section just below this review.
Update February 2017: Apparently, the new management is not doing a better job than the old one and TopOption has become one of the tops commented brokers… in a bad way. People complain about frozen accounts as soon as a deposit is made but also about blocked transactions and disappearing funds (!!!) or deleted accounts. We cannot confirm the disappearing of funds but one of our readers has posted a YouTube short video where he/she clearly shows that all transactions are blocked; not one trade goes through, due to various reasons like high volatility or exceeding the upper limits of the investment amount. Clearly, volatility wasn’t very high and the invested amount was 100 ZL then 40 ZL (that’s about 10 USD and 25 USD respectively – clearly not too high). The thing is that we are not dealing with a singular complaint, but with many of the same type so we cannot dismiss them, thus we recommend caution when dealing with this brokerage. *To find the video, please go to page 9 of our Comments section below.
TopOption Regulatory Warnings And Announcements
06.07.2016: The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) warned that over 40 binary options and margin FX providers are operating and soliciting Australian citizens without proper license or authorization. Out of all the providers contacted by ASIC, 21 including TopOption have agreed to co-operate and take remedial steps to ensure they are no longer providing investment services to Australians without proper license or authorization. On ASIC’s list, TopOption appears as the trading name of Nuntius Brokerage & Investment Services S.A. Source: ASIC Media Release 16-218MR.
31.03.2017: CySEC announced they’ve suspended the licence of Leadtrade Ltd (operating company of TopOption) due to suspicions of alleged violations regarding the company’s own funds and capital adequacy ratio. Within 10 days the company had to take measures to comply with CySEC’s guidelines. Source: CySEC Decision
03.04.2017: CySEC decided to withdraw the suspension of Leadtrade’s authorization due to the fact that the company has already complied with the provisions of the Law (meaning they resolved the issues for which they were suspended in the first place). Source: CySEC Decision
28.04.2017: CySEC announced that Leadtrade Ltd renounced its authorization. Therefore, the CIF authorization with number 296/16 lapsed as from the abovementioned date. Source: CySEC Announcement
TopOption Bonus
Update February 2017: Due to new CySEC regulations regarding Bonuses (source: CySEC Circular C168), TopOption ceased to offer a deposit Bonus. Instead, they now offer a “Loyalty Award” that consists of real money credited to the clients’ account based on trade volume. Once a predetermined volume is reached, the Award is released into the account and can be traded or withdrawn. The formula used for calculation is [Deposit amount + Award amount]*Trading Volume Multiple. This “Trading Volume Multiple” is a new terminology for the old Turnover requirement and varies from 20 to 25 and to 30. For more information, please read their Terms and Conditions.
TopOption Withdrawal
TopOption does not charge any withdrawal fees but the money must be sent to the same source it was debited from. Once the withdrawal request is approved, the client may wait up to 7 business days until the account is credited. However, TopOption mentions that 7 days will pass only in “exceptional circumstances” which makes us believe that usually withdrawals take less than that.
Update February 2017: They have reverted back to the 7 business days timeframe for withdrawals: after a withdrawal request is processed and approved (they don’t mention how long that may last) it will take up to 7 business days for the funds to reach you.
TopOption Ratings
User Friendly 18/20
The website is available in 20 languages, the information has an intuitive layout and the trading platform itself is both accommodating for rookies and complex enough for seasoned traders. Except the platform lag, another downside is the time displayed on the platform, it cannot be changed to your current time. Forgetting this time difference can become a major issue when picking expiries!
Update February 2017: The platform time now coincides with the client’s time or at least it did in my case.
Number of assets and expiry times 17/20
TopOption’s basket of assets is composed of 16 stocks, 13 currencies, 8 commodities, 16 indices and 3 pairs for a total of 56 tradable products. Although it is not an impressive number, the most traded assets are available so the trader can surely find a good opportunity among them. The expiry times range from 60 seconds to the end of the year, with an option builder feature which allows you to customize your trading. Roll Over, Double Up and Sell Option features are also available.
Update October 2016: Their asset index is now composed of more than 180 assets, a great improvement from last time we visited them.
Commissions, Support and Effective return 17/20
TopOption doesn’t charge any commissions or fees for opening an account or for withdrawing funds but there is a $5 monthly fee for Inactive Accounts. Their Live Support is helpful, quick and offered in more than 10 languages. The effective return goes up to 85% but unfortunately there’s no refund for OTM trades.
Update October 2016: Inactive accounts (no activity for 90 days) are now charged a $10 monthly fee.
Update February 2017: Live support was totally unhelpful: after waiting several minutes to get in touch with a representative, he/she did not speak to me at all. I asked a simple question (if they offer a bonus) and all I got in return was silence. First contact was made at 11:51 am and at 12:31 pm I decided to close the chat after several failed attempts to get a single word out of the representative.
Deposit, Payment and Bonus 17/20
The minimum deposit for a Starter account is $100, a Pro account requires $1000 and VIP accounts start from $5000. Deposits can be made via Credit Cards, wire transfers and e-wallets like Moneybookers, Neteller or WebMoney. Withdrawals must be made using the same source of the funds (if you use a certain bank account for depositing, withdrawals will be made in the same account). Once processed, a withdrawal takes up to 7 business days.
Update February 2017: The Bonus has been replaced by a Loyalty Award. For details, see section “TopOption Bonus” above and read their Terms and Conditions.
TopOption Extra 10/20
Regulation of the owning company is a rare thing when it comes to Binary Options. The owning company of TopOption is regulated by CySEC and this grants them entry in the exclusive club of the elite regulated Binary Options service providers. Could have more extras.
TopOption Overall Ratings **CLOSED** -/100