How to open a live trading account

Updated 13 November 2026

You open live trading accounts yourself in the client portal at app.jafx.com. It is free and takes about a minute.

Before you start

You need:

A JAFX portal account with a verified email address. See How to create a JAFX account and verify your email.
Money in your wallet. Deposits go into a wallet first. Until you deposit, the Trading Accounts page shows: "Make a deposit to open your trading account."
Answers to the trading experience questions on the Verify page. If they are missing, you see: "Please answer the trading experience questions below before opening a live account."

You can hold up to 5 active live trading accounts at a time. You can open up to 10 yourself in total, and accounts you have since closed count towards the 10. There is no daily opening limit. After 10, contact support to ask for another. Extra accounts are reviewed and not guaranteed.

This article covers live accounts. You can also open a demo account in the portal from the Trading accounts page. See Demo accounts: opening, logging in and expiry.

Open the account

Sign in at app.jafx.com.
In the menu at the top of the page, click Accounts. This opens the Trading accounts page. On a phone, open the menu and choose Accounts.
Click New account. The Open trading account window opens.
Choose a Base currency and a Leverage (see below).
Click Open account.

You see: "Your trading account is open and the login details are on their way by email." The portal then opens Internal Transfers. Money in your wallet cannot be traded until you transfer it to a trading account. See How to transfer funds between your wallet and trading accounts.

Message	What to do
"Account options are unavailable right now. Please try again later."	Wait a few minutes and try again.
"New trading account creation is disabled for all platforms and currencies. Please contact support."	Email support@jafx.com.
"Something went wrong. Please try again later."	Try again later. If it keeps happening, email support@jafx.com.
"Couldn't create the trading account right now. Please try again in a few minutes."	Wait a few minutes and try again.
"We didn't get an answer in time, so we can't tell whether the account was opened. Check your accounts list before trying again."	Check Accounts for the new account first, so you don't open two.
"Choose an account type from the list."	Pick one of the types shown.
"Your wallets have no money in these currencies. Deposit first, or move money back from a trading account to your wallet, then open your account."	Use Deposit now → or Transfer → in the message.

Account type

JAFX offers one account type, the JAFX Terminal account, so the window does not ask you to choose one. An Account type choice appears only when more than one type is on offer. You trade the account in the JAFX web trader at terminal.jafx.com. See Trading account types explained.

Swap-free (Islamic) accounts are not offered at this time.

Currency

Accounts are available in USD, EUR, GBP and BIT (bitcoin). You can pick only a currency your wallet holds money in. The other currencies are greyed out and show, for example, "No EUR in your wallet" and "Deposit EUR first". If you choose one anyway you see: "You have no EUR in your wallet. Deposit EUR first, or pick a currency you hold." Deposit in that currency first, then open the account. There is no ZAR option. The account's balance, profit and loss are shown in this currency. If you fund the account from a wallet in a different currency, the transfer uses a live exchange rate. See Currency conversion on internal transfers.

In the web trader, a BIT account's money is shown in bitcoin (₿) with 8 decimals. The account is kept in bits: 1,000,000 bits = ₿1. The PDF account statement shows bitcoin and the CSV statement shows bits, so the numbers in the CSV are much larger.

Leverage and risk

JAFX offers leverage up to 1:500. Lower leverage is safer while you learn.

You cannot change the leverage of an existing account in the portal. Choose carefully.
A margin call happens at a margin level of 100%.
Stop-out happens at a margin level of 70%. At that point JAFX starts closing your open positions without further notice.
JAFX has negative balance protection across all your accounts. If the market gaps against you, a negative balance on one account is first set off against the balances of your other JAFX accounts. If the total across all your accounts goes below zero, JAFX does not ask you to pay the shortfall. You can still lose all the money you deposit.

Your Login number and platform password are emailed to your registered address when the account opens. The Login number is also on the account card on the Trading accounts page (menu item Accounts).

Your trading account password is different from your portal password. See Trading account passwords: reset, forgotten password and investor password.

Other trading platforms

JAFX offers one trading platform: its own JAFX Terminal, which runs in your browser at terminal.jafx.com. No other trading platform is offered, and there is nothing to download.
If you cannot find an older account, create a new one in the portal.

We are available 24/7 via live chat or email.

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