PrestigeOption Review
Why PrestigeOption Doesn’t Suck In 50 Words?
Apart from the regular binary options platform (with small charts and limited features), they offer a Pro version. Once you click on it, the chart expands on your entire screen and things start looking a lot better (more on this later). This is definitely an improvement and is part of a new trend seen lately, where binary options brokers are starting to give more importance to the trading part of the business.
Why PrestigeOption Sucks In 50 Words?
They offer a Social feature, where you can follow other traders. This doesn’t suck in theory, but in practice, the trades on the Social Wall scroll too fast and there’s no option to quickly copy a trade, so you will have to memorize the asset and price used by the trader you want to follow and then manually open the same trade. More than that, there’s no information about what expiry the trader used and some of the information is outdated.
Is PrestigeOption A Scam?
This brokerage is very new (launched earlier this year) so it’s too early to tell. The owning company is regulated by CySEC and registered with several other authorities across Europe so at least for now, things look good for them and we have no scam suspicion. Keep in mind that “registered” does not equal “regulated” and getting a CySEC license is not the hardest thing in the world, so even if we don’t suspect them of any wrongdoing at the moment, we recommend caution (as with all brokers).
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Should I Open An Account With PrestigeOption?
PrestigeOption is a brand of Leadtrade Ltd., which is a Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF), regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) under license number 296/16. Their office address is Treppides Tower, 5th Floor, 9 Kafkasou Street, 2112 Nicosia, Cyprus, and the company is also registered with the British FCA, the Italian CONSOB, and the German BaFin among others. Leadtrade Ltd owns and operates other binary options brokerages such as TopOption and OptionsClick.
This new brokerage operates on the TradeSmarter platform and although SpotOption is the “weapon of choice” of more than 70% of binary brokers, I don’t think TradeSmarter is worse. All the regular features are present and on top of that, you can use the Pro version (no special account needed or another type of requirements). Once this version is activated, the platform expands on your entire screen and you can choose your chart type (line, candlesticks, etc.), you can change the timeframe of the chart and you can even add technical indicators such as MACD, SMA, RSI or Bollinger Bands. The good thing is that the entire platform remains simple and easy to use, so you won’t be overwhelmed by tons of stuff happening on your screen.
Just like the platform, the website is well organized and kept clean but some weird stuff kept happening: whenever I tried to scroll down, the page kept jumping to the top. This wasn’t a problem on all pages, but most of them; anyway, after enough scrolling down, the pages eventually stayed there so looks like perseverance beats internet bugs. If this is a problem on my side, well, that’s not a big deal, but if it’s on their side and more people experience it, they need to fix it ASAP.
This brokerage seems to be focused on the more “prestigious” clients because their lowest account is $500 and their highest (Platinum) requires you to deposit more than $100,000 (!!!). Now I don’t know about you, but to me that sum is gigantic and if I would have it, I surely wouldn’t deposit it in a binary options brokerage, even if it’s regulated. To be honest, their offering as a whole is nothing out of the ordinary and I don’t really understand why the lowest account is 500 bucks when the average in the business is 200 bucks. As for the VIP account (over $50,000 deposit), the advantages you get are not worth it in my opinion: economic info, daily market review, trading videos (among other stuff).
The advanced features of the TradeSmarter platform are Ok, the website is nice, the trading conditions are normal but overall I don’t see them as a major player on the binary options scene. For now, Prestige Option is just another new brokerage, a bit on the pricey side and without something spectacular to put them ahead of the pack.
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PrestigeOption Complaints
The brokerage was just launched so there are no complaints so far. As always, we will keep monitoring and will update this review when more time passes or when complaints start to appear.
PrestigeOption Bonus
The Bonus starts at 25% (for the lowest account) and goes up to 100% for the VIP account ($50,000). The bonus for the Platinum account (more than $100,000) will be discussed with an account manager. The best thing is that Prestige Option’s bonus is Pending until the required turnover is reached (the client will see a progress bar on the platform and once it fills completely, it means the turnover has been reached and the bonus can be withdrawn). This is the best way to approach the Bonus problem because this way the clients’ money is always available for withdrawal.
The required turnover according to their Terms and Conditions is $10,000 (!!!) for each $1 received as a bonus and you have to reach it in 90 days from the day you received the bonus. In other words, if you receive 100 bucks, you will have to trade 1 million bucks in 90 days if you want to withdraw that initial one hundred. Any withdrawal of a client’s own funds will cancel the bonus.
PrestigeOption Withdrawals
The processing time is 48 hours and additional 3 to 5 business days will pass until you will receive your funds. Personal IDs are required due to anti-money laundering policies. The withdrawal methods are the usual ones: credit card, wire transfers, and certain e-wallets (WebMoney, Skrill, etc.)
PrestigeOption Extras
Regulation, an advanced trading platform, AutoChartist tool offered for free, and a Pending Bonus structure. I would like to mention here the $10,000 for every $1 received as a bonus; it’s something that I haven’t seen before but it’s definitely not a good thing.
Prestige Options Ratings
User Friendly 16/20
The website is available in only 3 languages (English, French, and German) but I guess that’s enough because they are widespread languages. The platform takes a bit longer to get used to compared with SpotOption but that’s only because it offers more features. U.S. clients are not accepted.
Number of assets and expiry times 15/20
The trading basket is composed of 26 currency pairs, 41 stocks, 6 commodities, 16 indices, and 2 pairs (it’s not the most I’ve seen but it’s definitely enough). The expiry times start at 30 seconds (also 60 seconds, 2 and 5 minutes) as well as longer expiries such as the end of day and even Long Term.
Commissions, Support, and Effective return 16/20
There are no commissions for opening an account and Prestige Option doesn’t charge fees to withdraw (bank wires may incur a fee). Support was surprisingly helpful but gave me different information than their Terms and Conditions; the effective return goes up to 80%.
Deposit, Payment, and Bonus 14/20
Min Deposit is $500 and can be made via credit cards, wire transfers, and e-wallets (Skrill). Withdrawals are made via the same methods and take between 5 and 7 working days (including the processing time). The bonus works on a Pending model (it will only be released after the turnover is reached) but the trading volume is huge: $10,000 for each $1 received as a bonus. Also, this turnover must be reached in 90 days (which I believe is impossible).
Website Extras 15/20
Autochartist, candlestick charts, technical indicators, and Regulation are positive extras. On the negative side, we have the huge turnover required before you can withdraw the bonus.
PrestigeOption Overall Ratings (76) + Regulated (+3) = 79/100
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