Want to check whether I understand this correctly. It appears that as a retail trader residing in Australia, I can't trade on margin: https://www.interactivebrokers.com.au/de/index.php?f=6438&p=forex Bottom of page says: Due to regulatory restrictions, Interactive Brokers does not currently offer margin lending to natural persons who are residents of Australia If true then IB account is pretty useless in Australia. I can only trade on a few pairs and cannot trade on margin. Am I reading this right?
You may want to contact IB, but Forex seems to be excluded and allowing margin, according to this article: https://ibkr.info/article/2101
You need a broker in some form to access the market. They do not work for free and you either pay a margin or a commission - this is unavoidable - no such thing as a free lunch (or trade).
Margin is the amount of money that a trader needs to put forward in order to open a trade. When trading Forex on margin, you only need to pay a percentage of the full value of the position to open a trade.