- Profits held in the currency profits are made. If you short USD/CHF and make +10 you get +10 CHF. If you take a profitable GBP/JPY trade your profits are held in JPY. Nonprofessional accounts are set to convert all currency to AUD (if you’re Australian) at 9am each day but you can call up and have this feature turned off. My profits sit in the currency they were obtained in until I want them (at which point I can convert). It is nice to have a big pile of USD, CAD, CHF, GBP, JPY, NZD, etc on top of the AUD balance.
- They have fixed spread contracts, which IMHO rocks the socks off paying 6 pip spread for G/U when you want to trade from the NZ open. Also I don’t mind paying a 1-2 pip spread on EURUSD in the middle of the news when everyone elses brokers have shut down or charging a 50 pip spread (Oanda and Gomarkets, I’m looking at you).
- They have an great ‘Australasian’ forex basket, which AFAIK no other Aussie broker provides. For example, everyone else pays a 10-20 pip spread on pairs like EURAUD and GBPAUD. On IG aside from those two pairs they have inverse AUDEUR and AUDGBP for their Aussie clients only with a much much tighter spread. In fact on those two pairs I’m pretty sure you won’t get a better spread elsewhere. Of course you need to take into account your pips for these contracts will be denominated in the foreign rather than local currency.