Company and Licence Information
This Risk Disclosure is issued by North Crest Group, a trading name used by a group of affiliated companies. The website northcrestgroup.com is owned and operated by North Crest Capital Holdings Ltd, with its registered office at Suite 4, Maeva Plaza, Pope Hennessy Street, Port Louis 11328, Mauritius.
Trading services under the North Crest brand are provided by the following regulated entities, each independently authorised by its local regulator: North Crest Securities (Pty) Ltd, authorised by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) of South Africa under FSP number 53197; North Crest Capital Markets Ltd, authorised by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) under licence number 412/22; North Crest International Ltd, authorised by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of Mauritius under licence number GB22200851; and North Crest Global Ltd, authorised by the Mwali International Services Authority (MISA) of the Comoros under licence number T2023123.
The entity that contracts with you depends on your country of residence and is identified in your client agreement. The scope of regulatory protection — including any investor compensation arrangements, leverage limits and negative balance protection — differs between entities and jurisdictions. You should read this document together with the client agreement issued by your contracting entity. Questions about this document may be sent to compliance@northcrestgroup.com.
Risks of Trading CFDs
North Crest offers contracts for difference (CFDs) on forex, indices, commodities, shares and cryptocurrencies. CFDs are complex, leveraged derivative instruments: you do not own the underlying asset, you take a position on the change in its price. The categories below describe the principal ways in which trading CFDs can result in loss. They are not exhaustive, and several of these risks frequently materialise at the same time.
General Risk Warning
Trading CFDs involves a significant risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. 72% of retail investor accounts experience capital loss when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Never commit funds you cannot afford to lose in full. You should not fund a trading account with money needed for living costs, with borrowed money or with retirement savings. Because losses on leveraged positions accrue at the speed of the underlying market, an account can lose a substantial portion of its value within minutes during fast market conditions.
Before placing your first trade, make sure you understand the contract specification of each instrument you intend to trade — contract size, margin requirement, trading hours and applicable costs — and consider practising on a demo account, which North Crest provides free of charge. Demo performance is not a reliable indicator of live performance: demo execution carries no emotional pressure and, in some conditions, does not replicate live fill quality.
Leverage Risk
CFDs are traded on margin. Leverage allows you to open a position whose notional value is many times the funds you commit, and it amplifies losses exactly as it amplifies gains. With leverage of 30:1, a margin of 1,000 currency units controls a position of 30,000 units, and an adverse price move of roughly 3.3% is enough to lose the entire margin allocated to that position. Even small market movements can therefore have a disproportionately large impact on your account.
Each open position requires maintenance margin. If the equity in your account falls below the required margin level, you will receive a margin call — a notification that you must deposit additional funds or reduce your exposure. In fast markets a margin call may arrive with little or no warning, and North Crest is not obliged to give you time to respond before further action is taken.
If your equity continues to fall and reaches the stop-out level applicable to your account, the trading platform will begin closing your open positions automatically, normally starting with the position showing the largest loss, until margin requirements are met again. Stop-out is a last-resort risk control, not a guarantee: in gapping or illiquid markets, positions may be closed at prices materially worse than the stop-out trigger, and losses may exceed the margin allocated to a position. Where your contracting entity provides negative balance protection, your loss is limited to the funds in your account; whether this protection applies depends on your contracting entity and your client classification, as stated in your client agreement.
Market Risk
Prices of the instruments underlying our CFDs can move sharply and without warning in response to economic data releases, central bank decisions, political events, natural disasters and shifts in market sentiment. Volatility can widen spreads, slow execution and increase slippage — the difference between the price you request and the price at which your order is actually filled.
Markets can also gap: a price can jump from one level to another without trading at the levels in between. Gapping commonly occurs at market open, around scheduled news releases and after unexpected announcements. If the market gaps through your stop-loss order, the order is executed at the next available price, not at the level you set. A standard stop-loss therefore limits your loss but does not cap it.
Positions held over a weekend or market holiday carry additional risk. Most CFD markets are closed from Friday evening to Sunday evening (platform time), but the events that move prices do not stop. The reopening price can differ substantially from the previous close, and stop orders attached to positions held over the weekend will be filled at the reopening price. Cryptocurrency CFDs, where offered for trading outside standard market hours, can experience extreme volatility at any time.
Liquidity Risk
Liquidity is the ability to open or close a position quickly at a price close to the displayed quote. Under stressed conditions — major news events, market opens, thin holiday sessions or disruptions affecting an underlying market — liquidity can deteriorate sharply. Spreads may widen well beyond their typical levels, execution may be delayed or rejected, and larger orders may be filled in parts at progressively worse prices.
In extreme cases it may become temporarily difficult or impossible to close a position at all, for example where trading in an underlying instrument is suspended, an exchange imposes a daily price fluctuation limit, or a pricing venue stops publishing quotes. While the position remains open you stay exposed to further price movement and to continuing margin requirements. CFDs on less liquid underlyings, including some shares and cryptocurrencies, are more prone to these conditions, and liquidity outside main trading sessions is generally thinner.
Costs and Charges
Trading costs reduce your net profit and increase your net loss, and they apply whether or not a trade is successful. Before trading you should understand every cost applicable to your account and to each instrument: the spread (the difference between the buy and sell price), any commission charged per trade, overnight funding (swap) charges or credits applied to positions held past the daily rollover time, currency conversion costs where an instrument is denominated in a currency other than your account currency, and any inactivity or administrative fees set out in your client agreement.
Overnight funding deserves particular attention. CFD positions held for days or weeks accrue funding charges that can be substantial relative to the price movement you expect to capture, and a triple charge typically applies on one day each week to cover the weekend. A position that is profitable on price alone can still produce a net loss after costs.
Current spreads, commissions and swap rates for each instrument are published on northcrestgroup.com and in the trading platform. The figures applicable to your account are those of your contracting entity and account type.
Suitability
CFD trading is not suitable for everyone. It is generally appropriate only for clients who understand leveraged derivatives, are able to monitor open positions actively, have a high tolerance for risk and can bear the loss of the entire amount they deposit without any change to their standard of living.
As part of account opening, your contracting entity will ask about your trading experience, knowledge and financial situation in order to assess whether CFD trading is appropriate for you. Answer those questions accurately — an assessment based on inaccurate answers protects no one. If the assessment indicates that CFD trading may not be appropriate for you, you will be warned; proceeding after such a warning is your own decision, made at your own risk.
If you are uncertain whether CFD trading fits your circumstances, consider practising on a demo account first and consult an independent licensed financial adviser before committing real funds.
Past Performance
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Historical price movements, backtested results, hypothetical scenarios and previous trading outcomes — whether your own, those of other clients or those shown in market commentary — do not predict what will happen next.
Any references on our platform to historical price levels, chart patterns or prior market behaviour are provided as factual or analytical information only. They do not represent that any account will, or is likely to, achieve profits or losses similar to those shown. Market conditions change, and strategies that performed well in one environment can fail completely in another.
Simulated and demo results have inherent limitations: they are achieved without real capital at risk and may not reflect the impact of slippage, liquidity and funding costs on live trading.
No Investment Advice
North Crest does not provide investment advice. All content made available on northcrestgroup.com and in our trading platforms — including market commentary, analysis, news, educational material, webinars, calculators and any signals or indicators — is generic information provided for informational purposes only. It is prepared without regard to your personal objectives, financial situation or needs, and it is not a personal recommendation to buy, sell or hold any instrument.
Nothing communicated to you by North Crest staff, including account managers and support personnel, should be treated as investment, legal or tax advice. Every trading decision you make is your own. If you require advice, obtain it from an adviser who is independent of North Crest and licensed in your jurisdiction.
Conflicts of Interest
North Crest entities and their affiliates may have interests that conflict, or appear to conflict, with the interests of clients. For example, a North Crest entity may act as the counterparty to your trades, may earn revenue from spreads and other trading costs that increase with your trading volume, or may hedge client exposure with related parties or external liquidity providers.
We maintain a conflicts of interest policy designed to identify, prevent and manage such conflicts, including organisational separation of functions, remuneration controls and rules on personal account dealing by staff. Where a conflict cannot be managed in a way that prevents a risk of damage to your interests, we will disclose it to you before providing the relevant service.
A summary of the conflicts of interest policy of your contracting entity is available on request from compliance@northcrestgroup.com.
Complaints Procedure
If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of our service, contact support@northcrestgroup.com in the first instance — most issues are resolved at this stage. If your concern is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may submit a formal complaint to the compliance function of your contracting entity via compliance@northcrestgroup.com, stating your account number, the events giving rise to the complaint and the outcome you are seeking.
Complaints are acknowledged promptly, investigated by staff not directly involved in the matter complained of, and answered with a final response setting out our findings and reasoning. If you remain dissatisfied with the final response, you may be entitled to refer the matter to an ombudsman, dispute-resolution scheme or financial regulator in the jurisdiction of your contracting entity; details of the competent body are provided in our complaints procedure and in the final response letter.
Making a complaint does not affect any legal rights you may have, including any mandatory client protections in the jurisdiction of your contracting entity.