Indonesian forex brokers, along with regulations, need to adopt many service features from foreign brokers to develop the forex industry in Indonesia.
This morning, October 14, 2025, I read an article from one of the Indonesian brokers, ForexIMF, which previously wrote a review; Why Choose a Foreign Broker When There Are Bappebti Regulated Brokers in Indonesia?. The review was quite interesting, especially since for decades, Indonesian traders have preferred using foreign brokers over local ones.
For further comparison, I also found information from Forexmagnates.com that in 2024, Exness was crowned as the CFD broker with the largest trading volume. Even the second-place broker, ICMarkets.com, had less than a third of Exness’s trading volume.
To dig deeper into why Exness is so popular worldwide, including in Indonesia, here are the results of my further research:
1. Exness is Not Regulated in Indonesia
Despite this, what makes Exness so successful as a CFD forex broker?
In Indonesia, there is a significant amount of news, reviews, advertisements, and influencers promoting Exness services through affiliate programs and Introducing Brokers (IB). Although Exness, as a CFD broker, does not have regulatory approval in Indonesia, IBs in Indonesia act like promotional managers, aggressively running marketing funnels through various methods. One financial app, Pluang, even features a review of Exness that can be read here. I logged into the Exness dashboard to analyze further why Exness is so favored.
User-Friendly Portal
As a CFD broker, I studied Exness in depth by creating an account directly. It turns out they have a very attractive client portal with easy navigation. Deposits can be made through various methods, including local Indonesian eWallets, bank transfers, and cryptocurrencies. This ease of deposit certainly gives Exness a special place among traders.
Anyone Can Become an IB
Additionally, traders who have an Exness account, whether they deposit or not, can easily spread referral links and join the Exness IB program to earn commissions from every trade made by referred clients. Thus, even without being an active trader, any Exness member can become an IB.
Comprehensive IB Portal
Exness also appears serious about developing partnerships with traders. The IB portal offers comprehensive campaign support for tracking promotions conducted by IBs, which allows them to optimize their promotional performance. This is a strength of Exness that I see is rarely found among most CFD brokers, including IC Markets, Pepperstone, and even Indonesian CFD brokers.
Strong Support System for IBs
Even though the Exness domain is often blocked by regulators in Indonesia, their system is very responsive to address this issue by changing to a new domain. With their system, IBs do not need to make any effort to change referral links. This shows that Exness wants to ensure that IBs do not suffer losses due to frequent blocking issues, making IB promotion a priority that they facilitate.
Equipped with Social Trading
Another factor that makes Exness more accessible to traders is their Social Trading program. Social Trading is a copy trading program where traders can copy trades as investors for a low fee of only 10-30% of the profit. Exness’s Social Trading has become one of the most popular, alongside the Social Trading offered by broker Etoro. More information can be found here.
2. Exness Trading Services
What about the trading services offered by Exness?
This is perhaps the most important aspect for traders: spreads and commissions. This broker indeed shows very low spreads and commissions in their trading account comparison table, and they also offer cent accounts that are often chosen by traders with limited capital.
3. Promotional Funnels
The funnels commonly used by Exness IBs to promote this broker’s services include social trading funnels, Expert Advisor robot funnels, copy trade funnels, and trading community funnels. The promotional media frequently encountered include Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram Channels/Groups, and WhatsApp.
With the strong support system that Exness has, it is quite reasonable for this broker to grow in terms of trading volume. However, I believe this broker has thrived due to the significant role of its Introducing Brokers (IBs).
4. Other Facts About Exness
Trade Execution Time
In addition to the advantages mentioned above, I tried to measure the transaction speed of this broker using the tool tradeexecutiontime.ext, and the result showed an execution time of around 1100 ms. This indicates a very high order execution delay, exceeding 500 ms and even more than 1000 ms. Such a delay is not ideal for traders engaging in copy trading across platforms (MT4 to MT4 or MT4 to MT5 or vice versa). A high delay can lead to significant price discrepancies in copy trading. For tight scalping, this is also less than optimal, especially for traders using expert advisors for the same reason, due to the high order execution time.
The causes of high transaction delays can vary, possibly due to servers that are not performing well to support numerous client transactions, or even due to high delay settings on the broker’s side to maintain system stability and manage their business risks.
Read a brief review about broker latency in the article; Common Misunderstandings Among VPS Users for Forex Trading.
Over Leverage
One of the broker’s services that can be a double-edged sword for traders is leverage. Exness even offers unlimited leverage, which is often touted as an advantage for full margin trading. This is ironic because even brokers regulated in Australia, the UK, and the USA have strict limits on the leverage they can offer to their users or traders. However, Exness stands in stark contrast to this. This actually confirms that this broker is not well-regulated. But is high leverage what traders desire?
Exness in Processing Trader Orders/Transactions
As a CFD broker, Exness certainly has its secrets on how to run its business. As the largest CFD broker currently, Exness has the capability to be a market maker or a hybrid brokerage. Exness can provide liquidity directly from trader to trader or act as a counterparty to traders. Additionally, they can also route client transactions to the liquidity providers they use. How traders’ accounts are treated is quite difficult to ascertain, but it may be felt when trading with a live account directly.
Exness’s Regulations Are Not Strict
From my research, I have not found any cases of Exness being penalized by regulators for issues that harm traders. This may also be because Exness currently does not have any entities in developed countries like Australia, Japan, Canada, the USA, the UK, and other European countries operating as CFD brokers. In the UK, Exness does have an entity, Exness UK, but it does not operate as a retail CFD broker. https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000003587sXAAQ. From the official Exness UK website, it seems that they operate as a technology provider assisting institutions in establishing brokerage firms, rather than as a forex broker directly.
Exness only facilitates retail traders through regulators from several offshore countries, such as Seychelles, Mauritius, the British Virgin Islands, Curacao, Sint Maarten, South Africa, Kenya, and Cyprus. These countries are indeed very comfortable for brokerage firms to operate. The limitations of jurisdiction and perhaps the absence of strong bilateral agreements between Indonesia and these offshore countries allow foreign forex brokers to continue operating and accepting clients from Indonesia. Meanwhile, the steps usually taken by the government to address this situation are to block access to their websites.
5. Can Indonesian CFD Brokers Grow as Large as Exness?
The forex trading industry in Indonesia is indeed starting to develop, especially in the last five years. The spreads and commissions of brokers are now quite competitive, and if further explored, the Alternative Trading System (SPA) implemented in Indonesia ensures that Indonesian CFD brokers do not act as counterparties to traders. This guarantees that brokers in Indonesia want traders to profit and succeed so they can continue transacting with Indonesian CFD brokers (Indonesian brokers are not harmed if traders profit). The question is, are all CFD brokers in Indonesia fully SPA?
IBs, affiliates, or referrals from Indonesian CFD brokers are also growing and becoming more numerous, ranging from retail traders to well-known YouTubers, influencers, and important financial figures. If the forex trading environment continues to improve and facilitate, it is not impossible for Indonesian CFD brokers to push back against the rapidly growing and proliferating foreign CFD brokers. For Indonesian CFD brokers to develop further, they will also need the support of traders as business partners, just like Exness in running its business.
Local figures, influencers, and YouTubers have already popularized Indonesian CFD brokers, such as Ryan Filbert with ForexIMF, who has also been an ambassador for Octa Investama Berjangka, and Traders Family with MRG Berjangka, Astronacci with Orbit Trader Berjangka, and others.
6. Conclusion: Support for Indonesian CFD Brokers
“Exness is big because of the support from its IB community, not just because of its products.”
Indonesian brokers can also compete with this, with a strong regulatory foundation, transparent systems, and innovations that facilitate traders and their partners.
a. Build a “One Ecosystem” between brokers, educators, and communities.
Encourage collaboration among three elements: brokers – academies – trader communities, so that education, promotion, and trust grow together.
b. Expand services based on modern technology.
Additional features such as trading signals, copy trading, and social trading. Some Indonesian CFD brokers have already adopted such services. For instance, MIFX, one of the oldest brokers in Indonesia, offers a comprehensive Trading Signal feature that can help traders find the best pairs for trading. There is also ForexIMF, which has a Copy Signal service where traders can participate in the copy trading process from the best signal providers, although I believe the metrics to help traders obtain quality signals are somewhat lacking.
API trading support can also be crucial for providing traders with opportunities to innovate with AI-based trading systems.
Also, utilize analytical systems to support IBs and clients in monitoring their performance.
Adopting services like trader funding, such as the Axi Select program offered by broker Axi, is also essential as Indonesian brokers currently lag behind in innovation. While trader funding is very popular worldwide, no brokers in Indonesia have been able to adopt it yet.
c. Transparency in costs and execution data.
Publish trade execution speed, average spreads, and server uptime so traders can understand the broker’s quality and build trust.
d. Campaign “Trade Legal, Trade Local”.
Educate the public about the importance of transacting with licensed brokers for long-lasting business, emphasizing fund security and legal protection — not just promises and fantasies of high profits.
e. Innovative incentives for IBs and communities.
For example, tiered commission schemes, rewards based on trading volume, or support for community events (seminars, trading contests, educational roadshows).
f. Avoid Hard Promotion
There are still many Indonesian CFD brokers whose marketing promotes services opportunistically, prioritizing deposits first, etc.
Your opinion may differ, I am just learning and learning.
I hope this is beneficial & happy trading without margin calls.
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