I know readers who have been complaining about their broker for two years: support replies after three days, the EUR/USD spread widens exactly when volume peaks, the platform freezes during data releases. And they still do not move the account, because "transferring money is such a hassle". Changing broker genuinely costs time — identity verification, transfers, learning a new platform — so it is worth knowing when the move is actually justified. Below are seven signals that settle the matter, and five situations in which it is better to stay.

Seven warning signals

Signal 1: problems with withdrawals

This is the most serious signal and the only one where there is no point waiting to see how things develop. If the broker refuses to process a withdrawal, drags it out beyond a week without a concrete explanation, or suddenly demands that you verify your identity again although the documents were accepted earlier, treat it as a warning: either the firm is in financial trouble or it is not playing straight. In both cases time works against you. Before you conclude that this really is obstruction rather than ordinary procedure, compare how your case is going with what a normal withdrawal from a broker looks like — and with the typical behaviour of dishonest firms.

Signal 2: slippage that always goes against you

Go through your last fifty trades and check which way the execution price moved relative to the price you saw when you sent the order. With a broker that operates fairly, slippage falls on both sides — sometimes in your favour, sometimes against you — and the average across a long series sits close to zero. A persistent drift in one, unfavourable direction is no longer coincidence; it tells you something about how orders are being filled. The simplest way to test it is to watch quotes in parallel on a demo account with another regulated broker at the same moments, especially around macroeconomic releases.

Signal 3: support that does not help

A reply after two days, an agent who cannot explain how swap points are calculated, no chat and no phone line — as long as everything works, this looks like a detail. It starts to matter on the day an order does not go through, you have an open position and five minutes to decide. Judge support not by how the broker answers questions before you open an account, but by how it reacts when the problem costs money.

Signal 4: a spread clearly wider than the competition

Half a pip of difference looks harmless until you multiply it by your own number of trades in a year. For an active trader the spread is the single largest cost item, and the only one you genuinely influence simply by choosing a broker and an account type.

Signal 5: the instruments you need are missing

This signal usually appears after a few years. The strategy matures — you want to add European shares, commodity contracts or options — and the broker's offer does not stretch that far. It is not a reason to hurry, but a reason to do the arithmetic: either you limit the strategy to what you have, or you move to a broker with a wider range, such as Saxo or Interactive Brokers. There is also a middle path: a second account opened purely for the new instruments, without touching the main one.

Signal 6: a change in the broker's status at the regulator

Supervisory registers are public and free — the KNF keeps a list of capital market entities, CySEC and the FCA maintain their own records of authorisations. Look there once a month and check whether your broker still holds an active licence. An entry about a suspended authorisation or an opened investigation is information you act on immediately, not once withdrawal problems begin. If you are not sure where to look, start with how KNF supervision over brokers in Poland works.

Signal 7: repeated platform outages

Outages happen to everyone. One or two a year, lasting from one to three hours, fall within normal operation. Four to six breaks a year, or a single one dragging on beyond six hours, is information about infrastructure rather than bad luck. The minimum precaution is an account with a second broker so that you can protect open positions during an outage; if the breaks keep repeating, changing the main account is the more sensible answer.

When not to change broker

  1. After a single loss. A loss proves nothing beyond the fact that the market went the other way. Before you blame the broker, check whether the order was filled near the market price — if it was, the problem sits in the strategy, not the platform.
  2. Because a friend has a better one. A broker that suits someone who opens one position a week need not suit someone who closes ten trades a day. Compare against your own style and your own turnover.
  3. After one delayed withdrawal. Transfers can get stuck on the bank's side, particularly with a first payment to a new beneficiary or over a holiday. What is worrying is repetition, not a single case.
  4. Because of a one-off outage. Every platform freezes eventually. React to a pattern spread over several months, not to one event.
  5. In the middle of the tax year, when the signal is not urgent. Moving mid-year means two sets of statements feeding one tax return. If nothing is flashing red, wait for the turn of the year.

The practical transfer procedure

Moving an account is not one decision but a process of several weeks in which the order of steps matters. The most common mistake is closing the old account before the new one is fully operational — and spending a few days with no access to the market.

  1. A week before you start: check the new broker — the authorisation held at the regulator, the account model, the costs at your own turnover — and test the platform on a demo account.
  2. Day 1: registration and submission of documents for identity verification.
  3. Days 2–4: waiting for the documents to be accepted.
  4. Day 5: closing open positions at your current broker.
  5. Day 6: submitting the withdrawal instruction.
  6. Days 7–12: withdrawal and bank transfer — with SEPA usually one to three business days, with SWIFT three to seven.
  7. Days 13–14: deposit into the new account and confirmation that it has been booked.
  8. Weeks 3–4: trading in the smallest positions, around 0.01 lot, to check order execution and platform behaviour without exposing capital.
  9. After the fourth week: moving the capital in full and closing the old account.

What to do before you close the old account

  1. Download the complete transaction statement for every year you used the account. It is that document — not screenshots or memory — that will be the basis of your settlement if the tax office asks for an explanation of your return.
  2. Save the annual profit and loss summaries separately for each tax year. If your broker issues a PIT-8C statement, add it to the set and keep it with the rest of your tax documents rather than in your inbox.
  3. Export the order history into the file format your trading journal uses. Access to the client panel usually expires once the account is closed, and reconstructing several hundred entries from memory is not realistic.
  4. Keep the full set of documents used for identity verification. The scans, the proof of address, the date of acceptance — the new broker will ask for exactly the same things, and you will then compress the whole procedure into a single evening.

An investment firm is obliged to retain documentation of the services it provides for at least five years, but an archiving duty is not the same thing as convenient access. Once the account is closed, you have to request documents in writing and wait for an answer. Your own copy settles the matter in a minute.