For anyone who is just getting started on their trading journey finding an excellent broker to work with can be as good as gold. The same can be said for intermediate and advanced traders with years of experience. With so many brand new brokers popping up we thought we would take a look at an old dog in the industry – The Investment Center.
Below you can read more of our thoughts on The Investment Center and make the decision for yourself whether they are worth trying, or you simply want to pass them by.
Investment Center First Impressions
When landing on the home page of The Investment Center you won’t be surprised to learn that the broker has been providing its services since 2001. We say that because the website is definitely in need of an overhaul. Some of the graphics indicate that this is already happening, but the website does look a bit dated.
Despite that initial impression, the broker has not been left in the dust of the past. They have an impressive trading platform that was developed in-house, helping them stand out from all the other MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 “me-too” brokers that continue to pop up. That platform provides traders with customizable market monitoring, charting and analysis tools, and much more.
Also notable is the extended customer service hours offered, and the high level of personalized support offered to the clients of the broker.
In general, it seems clear that The Investment Center wants to give all their clients the best trading experience possible.
Broker Regulation
The broker is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or any other regulator. While that might be troubling with an offshore broker, it is not too concerning with this broker with nearly 2 decades of history, we think we would know if the broker was shady or untrustworthy in any way.
Investment Center Account Types
Like many other CFD brokers, The Investment Center offers a number of account tiers based on the total amount in the trader’s account. They also allow clients to open accounts in GBP, USD, or EUR.
Registration can be completed in under two minutes, although it may take a bit longer to provide all the ID and address verification documents required to remain in compliance with KYC regulations. Of course, if you have been through that process at other institutions you might already have the necessary documents saved digitally, in which case it will only take seconds to send them along to The Investment Center and complete the account registration process.
As for the account tiers, they are Silver, Gold, Platinum, and VIP. They have benefits and features as follows:
Silver Account
$250 minimum deposit
Access to all of the over 200 assets for trading
Leverage up to 1:100
Access to market reviews
Gold Account
All the benefits of the Silver account, plus:
$10,000 minimum deposit
Leverage up to 1:200
Tighter spreads
Financial and Risk Management planning
Monthly webinars
Level 3 priority withdrawals
Platinum Account
All the benefits of the gold account, plus:
$50,000 minimum deposit
Leverage up to 1:300
Even tighter spreads
Trading signals
Weekly webinars
Private analyst sessions
Special venture promotions
Level 2 priority withdrawals
VIP Account
All the benefits of the Platinum account, plus:
No minimum deposit, but by invitation only
Complete access to webinars
Leverage up to 1:400
Best spreads
Access to lucrative VIP events
Level 1 priority withdrawals
Account and Fund Security
At The Investment center all possible means are taken to ensure that client funds and data remain secure. Bank security grade SSL encryption is used to protect all data being transfer into or out of the broker servers. That includes client data and payment data. The SSL security is built right into the trading platform and works automatically.
Trading Instruments
At The Investment Center clients will have access to more than 200 different individual assets. These assets come from all the popular major asset classes. You will be able to trade on stocks and indices, currencies and cryptocurrencies, and commodities like gold are also supported. All these asset classes benefit from the ultra-tight spreads offered by the broker.
Trading Platform
As we mentioned above The Investment Center does not hand out the same vanilla MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms. Instead, they have a proprietary trading platform that offers up advanced technical analysis tools. The platform is intuitive and friendly to beginners, but also powerful enough to support even advanced trading strategies and analysis.
The platform gives traders access to all the assets being offered by the broker, allowing for trades to be made across the asset classes all in the same platform. It’s a very convenient set-up. Plus it features the following benefits:
Best execution
Innovative tools
Secure environment
Advanced customization
One of the things we did not like about the platform is that it is only available as a Web Trader. We prefer to download an application for our computer when trading. And we are pretty sure a lot of you reading this would appreciate it if the platform were available for mobile devices – which it is not.
Banking: Deposits and Withdrawals
Deposits at The Investment Center can be made in the usual bank transfers or credit cards, but can also be made via Bitcoin. There are no deposit fees to worry about and funding your account should be quick and easy.
Withdrawals are also quick and easy and can be carried out by the same three methods. No matter which method you choose for your withdrawal there is a minimum $100 withdrawal and there is a 1% fee no matter the size of the withdrawal.
Also, note that withdrawals must be carried out by the same method the funds were deposited; if the client deposits money by a credit card, the withdrawal will be transferred to the same credit card.
Customer Support
Customer support is quite good, with the broker offering support six days out of the week. When we contacted them via online chat they responded quickly and were both knowledgeable and professional. In addition to the chat function, they can also be contacted via a webform, email, or telephone. Conveniently they have three different phone numbers to cover the various groups of traders around the world.
As you can probably guess by now, we were favorably impressed by The Investment Center. We would appreciate if they could port their trading platform to PC and we are sure others would appreciate a mobile version. Otherwise, we liked the variety of assets available, and the account tiers, which actually provide additional value as they progress, rather than simply adding fluff.
The fact that this is a broker with almost 20 years of experience is also a big plus in their favor.
Whether you are a new trader or one with years of experience we think you will be favorably impressed by the offerings of The Investment Center.
