FSC licence RG-03-02-05

The broker states that client funds are held in bank accounts kept separate from company money, that it is a member of the Bulgarian Investor Compensation Fund, and that an automated risk system stops a balance falling below the initial deposit. Those are the right protections to look for, but they are the firm's own statements and were not independently audited here. Its own risk disclosure says 63.41 percent of retail investor accounts lose money trading CFDs with it.

No. The account-opening form states that the firm cannot offer leveraged real trading accounts to American or Belgian citizens because of governmental restrictions, and it carries a declaration box for exactly that. The form's country selector, which is what actually governs registration, lists 231 jurisdictions and omits only the United States and Belgium.

The site says an account is credited immediately once a transfer is confirmed, but it does not publish a withdrawal processing time, so expect normal banking timescales. A bank withdrawal needs a completed and signed request form, sent by fax, emailed to info@varchev.com, or handed in at an office. Money is always returned to the route it arrived by. The tariff charges nothing for a transfer into a client's BGN bank account, and 0.40 percent with a 2 BGN minimum for cash withdrawals up to 9,999 BGN.

By card in USD, EUR or GBP, through PayPal, Skrill, ePay or the Neteller gateway, by bank transfer through Raiffeisen, UniCredit, UBB or FIB, or in cash at the Sofia and Varna offices on working days between 09:00 and 18:00. The first deposit has to arrive by bank transfer from an account in your own name, because that transfer is part of identity verification.

Three. MetaTrader 5 is the one the broker leads with, on its own branded server, with Windows, macOS and Linux builds, a browser terminal and mobile apps. MetaTrader 4 is still listed for Windows, iPhone and Android. Varchev Absolute Trader is the firm's own platform and carries instruments the MetaTrader range does not, including emerging-market currency pairs, index futures, ETF CFDs and agricultural commodities.

There is no commission on forex, index, commodity and cryptocurrency CFDs on MetaTrader 5, and spreads are market-based, with EUR/USD quoted from 0.4 pips on the current site. Shares are charged separately at 0.05 USD per US share with a 5 USD minimum, or 0.10 percent with a 5 EUR minimum on European shares. Positions held overnight pay swap, tripled from Wednesday to Thursday, and custody of client money at a depository institution costs 0.5 percent a year unless you are a professional client.

Retail clients are capped at the European levels: 1:30 on major currency pairs, 1:20 on non-major pairs and on major indices and gold, 1:10 on minor indices, commodities and metals, 1:5 on shares and ETFs, and 1:2 on cryptocurrencies. Leverage up to 1:500 exists only for clients who ask to be categorised as professional, and it falls by balance to 1:50 above 400,000 USD. Professional categorisation removes retail protections, so it is not simply a higher-leverage upgrade.

The trading-conditions page states a minimum deposit of 200 USD, EUR or GBP, or 400 BGN, when opening a new account. Separately, the account-opening page says the first bank transfer that completes the process has no minimum requirement, because its purpose is to verify the client's identity. Treat 200 USD as the practical starting figure.

Nothing found in this research points to a scam. The company behind the brand is real, active in the official Bulgarian register, more than twenty years old, run by named people at real offices, and its site implements the European retail-protection rules in detail. The honest caveat is that the licence itself was not confirmed on the regulator's own register here, and some pages on the site are years out of date, so the picture is favourable rather than fully verified.

The Bulgarian Commercial Register records Biser Simeonov Varchev as the sole owner of the capital of VARCHEV FINANS EOOD, company number 103775285. He is also a manager, together with Dimitar Ganchev Kalapov, and the two represent the company jointly. Registered capital is 511,300 euro, fully paid in.

Varchev Finance states that its operating company, VARCHEV FINANS EOOD, is authorised and regulated by the Financial Supervision Commission in Sofia under licence RG-03-02-05 dated 15 March 2006, and it repeats that number in its client agreement and its published tariff. WIKILIX did not confirm the entry on the authority's own public register in this research, so the licence is best described as claimed and consistently stated rather than independently checked. The Bulgarian Commercial Register does confirm that the company is active and that its registered business is investment services in securities.