Non UAE residents can open a trading account with a regulated broker in the UAE, however, those brokers are not allowed to openly solicit business from UK nationals.
There have been some recent rule changes, that you should be aware of.
In December 2021 the DFSA introduced new rules for retail clients who trade CFDs through brokers under its oversight.
In common with other regulators, the DFSA has mandated the maximum, margin levels that can be applied to retail CFD trading accounts.
As a result, margin rates have more than doubled for retail clients trading vai Dubai based brokers.
However, these new margin restrictions are still more generous than those allowed by either the UK’s FCA or the European Union’s ESMA.
Under the DFSA rules, clients can access margins of 50:1 on Indices and FX majors, and some commodities such as gold and oil, whilst other commodities are margined at 20 to 1.
CFDs on individual shares are leveraged at 10 to 1, whilst cryptocurrencies can be traded on margins of 20% or a ratio of 5 to 1.
The regulator has also introduced negative balance protection for the retail clients, of the CFD brokers it regulates, limiting a client’s maximum loss to the balance of funds on their account
And at the same time, the DFSA has imposed an automatic close out rule whereby open positions are closed if a client’s equity falls below 50% of their margin requirement.
In addition, DFSA regulated brokers can no longer offer volume-based rebates to their retail customers.
Nor can retail customers offset margins for long and short positions in the same asset, instead, they must now margin each position separately. Client money is held in a segregated client bank account under the DFSA’s client money rules.
