Review of broker ITI Capital (formerly ITinvest): tariffs and reliability + customer reviews and personal opinion

ITI Capital is a brokerage firm that, as reported on the website, has been operating for more than 20 years, but until 2021 it was known as “ITinvest”. The resource also states that the company provides clients with ready-made investment products, gives access to the best exchange platforms, and helps in business development. Additionally, we are notified that the office has profitable and promising offers for:

• novice investors and those with experience;
• corporate clients;
• professional participants;
• HFT and algorithmic traders.

Regarding brokerage services, people are informed that ITI Capital has the following commissions, depending on the type of market:

• for stock – from 0.017% of the transaction;
• for urgent – ​​20% of the exchange commission;
• for foreign exchange – from 0.004% of the transaction.

The company is trying in every possible way to attract new clients, so it tries to describe the positive aspects of cooperation as much as possible. But what are things like in reality? Is working with the company really convenient, profitable and safe?

additional services

Analytics

In my opinion, the analytics on the ITinvest website are presented quite adequately. The section contains an economic calendar, visual recommendations, videos with analysts, weekly reviews, discussions, and issuer news. By the way, Vasily Oleynik is considered one of the best analysts at ITinvest.

Buying and selling foreign currency on the market

Any ITinvest client has the opportunity to change and buy currency on the Moscow Exchange using real-time quotes (from 10.00 to 23.50). You can do this either yourself (via the SmartX terminal) or by giving an order over the phone.

On the interbank market you can purchase any amount divisible by 1000 (dollars, euros, etc.). By the way, every broker has such a service today, but BrokerCreditService was one of the first to offer it.

SMS alerts

Users of the SMS Alerts service receive signals on their mobile phone about important events in the market or on their own trading account. Well, this won’t surprise anyone, because even a small Kit-Finance sends such signals several times a day.

About company

Tariff policy

The size of the brokerage commission, as always, depends on the type of market in which the client trades. And this is perhaps one of the company's weakest points.

Stock market

The “Stock” tariff plan is designed for active traders. The broker's commission depends on the daily turnover: from 0.035% to 0.17% of the transaction amount.

For large professional traders, the broker has developed a “Stock Consulting” tariff plan. The broker will have to pay 0.3% of the transaction amount for a turnover of less than 100 million per month.

Derivatives market

For traders trading on the derivatives market, the former IT Invest offers four tariff plans.

The "Future" plan offers a floating rate, depending on the volume of contracts traded per day.

Brokerage commissions here are based on exchange commissions (reminiscent of Alor, doesn’t it?). The price of the tariff includes a full set of tools necessary to start: news channel, terminal, quotes, charts.

The “Consulting Urgent” tariff not only allows you to use the services of a company analyst, but also increases the cost of service.

And finally, unique terms of service can be discussed with the broker within the framework of the “Individual” and “Individual VIP” tariff plans.

Negative reviews about ITI Capital

The sign of a successful project is satisfied clients. Judging by the criticism in the comments, the broker has a lot of problems.

On the otzyv-broker.com site, Alexander reported that ITI Capital does not return money. The man received a response that the funds were withdrawn, but they are not there even after three weeks. The company is hiding its management, the managers sent a notification that they would call back.

Another client has been cooperating with ITI Capital for 5 years. He develops skills without much investment. Over the years of observations, the man came to the conclusion that before the market excitement, when you can make good money, the broker’s server goes down until the evening. All the blame is shifted to the provider, but this has been going on for several years. It becomes more difficult to short (buy an asset when the price falls). The reason is that the securities limit has expired. The author of the review decided to close the account and look for another intermediary.

We found several reviews from the resource otzyvdengi.com. The user said that ITI Capital, despite its popularity on the Russian market, did not create normal conditions for trading. It may be profitable to invest for the long term, but trading is definitely not. SMARTx platform is of poor quality. Employees are constantly annoying with calls to offer additional services or increase the deposit.

In another review, the author talks about training materials. There is no practical use in them, rather it is a matter of solidity. Kostya asked the expert’s opinion about ITI Capital. He was told that this company was not in demand among experienced market players. There are delays in payments. There are other projects where you can trade profitably.

Eduard said that ITI Capital is a common manipulator on the Russian market. The broker may reduce leverage. This point is very important for a trader, because he will not be able to buy many assets or choose the most profitable one. The company encourages people to buy shares based on news and analytics. When there are many holders of these assets, they reduce the price to a minimum. The company makes money on commissions, reduces leverage, putting clients in a deplorable situation.

Personal opinion

Negative reviews about the broker are mainly associated with the lack of professionalism of the technical support staff. From time to time the SmartX terminal produces incorrect numbers. But, unfortunately, the same claims can be made to almost all domestic brokers. Therefore, I don’t consider this a particular disadvantage. But the commissions on the derivatives market were an unpleasant surprise. In terms of greed, the company can only be compared with another expensive broker - Alor.

On the other hand, the guys make money only on commissions and services, and the expensive development of their own terminals and platforms needs to be financed somehow.

In total, this is another interesting broker with an emphasis on its own trading platforms and services: reliable, but expensive. For a beginner, I would recommend cheaper (but no less high-quality!) options - Kit-Finance, Otkritie or Finam, reviews of which you can find in the “Brokers” section.

What are your impressions of working with the ITinvest broker? Subscribe to updates and don't forget to share the latest posts with your friends on social networks!

PS By the way, if you are looking for your first broker to start investing on the stock exchange, but are still new to the market, pay attention to this free webinar from Dmitry Mikhnov.

Official site

A lot of information is concentrated on the site to increase the credibility of the company. Looking at the main page, you can understand:

• ITI Capital is a modern project;
• has been working for 20 years;
• has a wide range of services.

On the top panel there are the main menu blocks: services, tariffs, analytics, about us. Each tab contains several pages in which information is intended for an experienced trader, investor, beginner, etc. Next, ITI Capital posted a block of its advantages. All statements are not supported by real cases and reviews from grateful clients. Should you trust such information?

Below, the organization demonstrates the trading platforms to which it provides access. We have already talked about some. Here are some more markets:

• SPIMEX;
• LSE;
• SPB Exchange.

You cannot click and read more about these exchanges. There are also no liquidity providers with whom the client will enter into transactions.

Scrolling down the page, we see a form for filling out an application. For all questions, it is recommended to request a call for consultation. There are two phone numbers in the footer of the site. Scanned copies of licenses are also posted here. We believe that the place is not entirely suitable for documents. Not every user reads the page to the end.

Registration and personal account

Let's try to create an account on the ITI Capital website. The broker says that the procedure will not be difficult even for a beginner.

We did not find a standard form to fill out. Under the “Open account” button you need to enter a phone number and e-mail address.

However, we fulfilled the conditions and received a welcome letter. The system has generated a username and password. It further informs us that we need to install the author's SMARTx terminal. We are not offered to choose. After all, the site has several variations of trading platforms.

The following email from ITI Capital contains instructions for opening a trading account. First you need to follow the link https://iticapital.ru/open-account/. A form will open in front of us where we need to enter our phone number and email again. The code sent via SMS must be inserted into the form to be filled out.

Be sure to read the “Agreement” clause. It sets out the regulations for the use of electronic signatures and cases when ITI Capital can stop access.

Then you need to enter your passport and TIN information and fill out your registration address. The final stage is to sign the contract by entering the code from the SMS. To trade virtual currency with a limit of 300 thousand, the broker asks you to take a number of simple steps. But nowhere does it say that you need to enter your passport information.

conclusions

ITI Capital is a brokerage company with a AAA security rating. It provides a full range of financial market access services. However, it is recommended to work with it only for those who have sufficiently rich experience in trading on brokerage accounts. For beginners who want to take advantage of portfolio investments, the broker’s announced offers are not suitable. In addition, if their training is not enough for stable profitable work, they may not increase their capital, but lose it on commissions.

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Reviews

The network contains a huge number of negative reviews from clients of Vostochny Bank who decided to become participants in the “Guaranteed Protection” program from lTI Capital. The main content of the claim is non-payment of promised interest.

Reviews give the impression that the broker is embezzling funds and refusing to return invested amounts or pay income. In fact, the terms of the program do not require mandatory interest payments, and you can get your investments back at any time by contacting ITI Capital directly. The problem was mainly created by the managers of Vostochny Bank, who did not bother to explain the conditions to clients. Considering that most investors are elderly people, it is difficult for them to independently understand the legal intricacies.

The remaining complaints mainly relate to the operation of ITI Capital's own SMARTx terminal.

Some customers express dissatisfaction with high tariffs and complain about the work of technical support.

Information and analytical support

Analytics is one of the weaknesses of ITI Capital. The site does not publish regular analytical reviews and forecasts (unlike market leaders such as Finam and BCS), daily morning reviews do not lend themselves to analytics. This is just a short information summary. It does not represent any value, rather just “so that it is.”

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Investment ideas and trading recommendations appear periodically, but such information is random and too condensed. The broker's YouTube channel often hosts (usually on Mondays) webinars on trading instruments, strategies, trading on IIS and other topics. Due to their information richness, they can be useful not only for beginners, but also for experienced investors. Following a popular tradition in the trading community (for example, social trading from whotrades), ITI Capital offers its clients a chat room called FOX. This service is designed as an opportunity to discuss the market situation and ask questions to company representatives. Judging by the nature of the messages in the feed, the result was more of a communication environment. And the chat format itself is not very convenient for discussing serious topics.

Offers for investors

ITInvest’s set of trading and investment instruments is determined by the trading platforms to which it has access. Among our own offers for investors, it is worth highlighting structured products. This is a reliable instrument with floating returns and a high (up to 100%) degree of capital protection. The underlying asset (it can be a share, index, currency pair, etc.) of a structured product is hedged with derivative instruments (futures, options, etc.). The purchase of a structured product is formalized as a loan agreement with a floating rate. You can find out the current yield using the calculator on the website. It is typical that the calculator does not work during non-trading hours, since calculations are tied to the exchange rate of instruments in real time.

The minimum amounts for the purchase of structured products are not specified, but in the calculator they are automatically set from 300,000 rubles. The solution for small investors is a single cash position. For example, shares of a company can serve as collateral for a short futures trade on the same shares, while simultaneously allowing for leveraged arbitrage transactions. Another reliable investment asset offered to the broker’s clients is Eurobonds of Russian and foreign issuers. Only bonds of Russian issuers are traded on the Moscow Exchange. The minimum amount to start investing is $1000. Bonds of foreign issuers are not traded on the Moscow Exchange, although their acquisition through ITI Capital is also possible when entering the London Stock Exchange. To do this, the investor must have an amount of at least $100,000.

An interesting investment product is indices, the formulas for calculating which the company does not disclose. These indices comprise 5 groups. An example is SLR indexes. They show the ratio between the total long and short positions for the selected instrument. ITInvest indices are calculated based on open transactions of clients of this company only, so their information content can be quite limited.

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