₹5,845.
That is the difference between paying 1.0 pip and paying 8.0 pips on a single standard-lot EUR/USD trade at the current USD/INR rate of roughly 83.5. One pip on a standard lot is ₹835. Your broker advertises a 1.0 pip average spread — and during the three minutes surrounding a US Non-Farm Payrolls release, that spread balloons to 8, 12, sometimes 15 pips. You clicked to close your position because your stop loss was about to trigger anyway, and you paid ₹5,845 more than you expected. That is not a bug. That is your broker's terms of service working exactly as written.
Whether that matters — and what you can actually do about it — depends entirely on who you are. How much capital you are working with, what kind of broker account you are on, and whether you are trading forex as a side hobby or building toward doing this full-time. We are going to walk through three hypothetical scenarios with real numbers from actual broker disclosures. None of these people are real. All three situations are.
Scenario 1: The ₹50,000 Weekend Scalper
Imagine a trader — let us call this composite profile Riya — who opened an account with ₹50,000, roughly $600 at current rates. She picked FBS because the minimum deposit is $1 and the EUR/USD spread on the standard account averages 0.7 pips — the tightest standard-account spread among the brokers we track. She trades 0.1 lots because her account size does not support anything larger with responsible risk management.
At 0.1 lots, one pip on EUR/USD costs her approximately ₹83.5. On a normal trading day, her spread cost per trade is 0.7 × ₹83.5 = ₹58. If she makes three round-trip trades in an evening session, her daily spread cost is roughly ₹350. Over 20 active sessions in a month, she is paying about ₹7,000 in spread alone. That is 14% of her starting capital consumed by friction in one month, before she makes or loses a single pip of profit.
Now picture what happens during a news event. Riya saw on Forex Factory that the US Federal Reserve interest rate decision was coming at 11:30 PM IST. She thought: volatility means opportunity. She opened a 0.1 lot EUR/USD position ten minutes before the announcement. The spread, which had been sitting at 0.7 pips, widened to 12 pips in the 45 seconds surrounding the release. Her position instantly showed a floating loss of ₹1,002 — just from the spread. Her stop loss, set at 15 pips from entry, triggered not because price moved against her, but because the spread widened enough to eat most of her buffer.
*FBS, like every broker we have reviewed, uses the phrase "variable spreads" in its terms of service. Variable means exactly what it says: can change at any time, for any reason, including scheduled news events.*
Here is what Riya can actually do. She can file a complaint through FBS's internal process. FBS holds licenses from ASIC and CySEC. If the spread widening was within the broker's published terms — and it almost certainly was — the complaint will be acknowledged and denied. If she believes the widening was excessive relative to actual market liquidity at that moment, she can escalate to ASIC, which has a documented complaint mechanism. But ASIC's jurisdiction covers the broker's conduct under its Australian license, not whether 12 pips during a Fed decision was "fair." That is not a regulatory question. That is a market-structure reality.
The realistic move for Riya: stop trading during high-impact news events. At her capital level, one bad spread spike is a 2% account hit from friction alone. Over a year, that compounds into the difference between a learning account and a blown account.
Scenario 2: The ₹3 Lakh Evening Trader
Now picture a different profile. Let us call him Vikram — an IT professional in Pune with ₹3 lakh in his trading account, roughly $3,600. He did his research. He opened an Exness Pro account because the average EUR/USD spread is 0.1 pips — essentially zero. He trades 0.3 lots during the London-New York overlap and pays approximately ₹25 per trade in spread on normal days. That is 0.1 pip × ₹835 per pip per standard lot × 0.3 lots. Twenty-five rupees. Coffee money.
Vikram understands that spreads are variable. He chose a pro account specifically because he assumed tighter normal spreads meant tighter news spreads too. This is the mistake.
Pro and ECN accounts pass through interbank pricing more directly. During news events, interbank liquidity providers widen their own quotes or pull them entirely. The 0.1 pip average on Exness Pro can and does widen during high-impact releases. The widening might be smaller in absolute terms than on a standard account, but the percentage shock is brutal — 0.1 to 5 pips is a 4,900% increase. Vikram's trade during a Bank of England rate decision cost him a spread of roughly 5 pips on 0.3 lots: ₹1,253. Fifty times his normal spread cost, in one click.
*Exness holds licenses from the FCA, CySEC, and FSCA. Which entity your account falls under determines which regulator you can escalate to. The FCA entity carries the strongest consumer protection framework, but Indian residents are frequently registered under a different entity. Check your account agreement.*
Here is where the Indian tax desk angle enters. Vikram funded his ₹3 lakh account through the Liberalised Remittance Scheme. Under Section 206C(1G), his bank collected Tax Collected at Source at 20% on any foreign remittance above ₹7 lakh in the financial year. Even if this particular transfer was below that threshold, the principle holds for his overall trading capital: every rupee sent to an offshore broker carries tax friction that he only recovers as a credit when he files his ITR. The spread widening did not just cost him ₹1,253 in direct terms — it cost him that plus the time value of the TCS on the money sitting in that account.
What Vikram should do: the complaint route is the same as Riya's, but with potentially more leverage. Exness's FCA license means the Financial Ombudsman Service in the UK is theoretically available as a second escalation step. Practically, the FOS prioritizes UK-based consumers, and an Indian resident trading through an offshore entity may not have standing. Verify which Exness entity holds your account before investing time in this path.
But the more important action for Vikram is mathematical. If he trades through 12 major news events per year and each costs roughly ₹1,253 in extra spread, that is ₹15,030 annually in news-spike friction alone. On a ₹3 lakh account, that is 5% of capital — just from moments he chose not to avoid.
Scenario 3: The ₹10 Lakh Aspiring Professional
This is the scenario that matters most for the "going professional" question, and the one where spread widening stops being an occasional annoyance and becomes a line item in your survival arithmetic.
Let us say there is a trader — call her Meera — with ₹10 lakh, roughly $12,000. She has been trading part-time for two years. Her account has been net profitable over the last 14 months. She uses an FXTM Pro account with a 0.1 pip average spread on EUR/USD, trades 0.5 lots, and averages eight trades per day. She is considering quitting her job to trade full-time.
Let us build her annual cost model. This is the part that separates the Telegram group fantasy from reality.
Normal spread cost: 0.1 pip × ₹835 per pip × 0.5 lots × 8 trades × 250 trading days = ₹83,500/year.
News-event spread cost: roughly 24 high-impact events per year reliably cause widening — NFP releases, Fed decisions, ECB decisions. If Meera has positions open during half of these and spread widening averages 6 extra pips per event on her 0.5 lots: 6 × ₹835 × 0.5 × 12 = ₹30,060/year.
*FXTM's standard account spread is 1.5 pips on EUR/USD. The pro account is 0.1 pips. The gap between these two numbers — 1.4 pips — is larger than the annualized news-spike cost we just calculated. Account selection matters more than any news-avoidance strategy at this volume.*
But spreads are only part of Meera's cost structure if she goes professional.
TCS on account funding: 20% on remittances above ₹7 lakh under Section 206C(1G). On a ₹10 lakh transfer, that means ₹60,000 locked up as a tax credit until she files her ITR. Not lost — but not tradeable either.
Income tax on profits: Meera's forex income taxed at her applicable slab rate if declared as business income. If her CA classifies it as speculative business income, losses can only offset speculative gains — not salary or other income. This is an ITR-3 filing, not ITR-2, and the classification genuinely requires a CA who understands offshore derivative positions. If yours does not, find one who does. This is the one place in this article where we say it, and we mean it specifically.
The monthly survival number: ₹83,500 + ₹30,060 in annual spread costs, plus ₹60,000 in TCS parked with the government, plus living expenses. If Meera needs ₹50,000 per month to live, her annual floor is ₹6 lakh in living costs + ₹1.14 lakh in spread costs + income tax on whatever she earns. She needs to generate roughly ₹8-9 lakh net per year just to break even before she takes a single rupee of profit home. On a ₹10 lakh account, that is an 80-90% annual return — sustained, year after year. We have seen enough accounts to say plainly: that target is not realistic for most traders.
The spread spike that brought Meera to this article is the least of her problems. Build it into the cost model. Close positions before news or size them so the widening stays within budget. The complaint route exists — FXTM holds an FCA license — but for someone going professional, the strategic answer matters more than the grievance answer.
What All Three Share
The SEBI FAQ from 2022 warns Indian residents about trading on "unregistered online platforms" offering forex. The FEMA Master Direction on the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, updated in 2023, permits outward remittances under LRS for any permissible current account transaction. Both documents are operative. Both are relevant. Neither addresses whether a broker widening its spread during a news event violates any Indian regulation — because the broker is not regulated by SEBI, and spread behaviour is governed entirely by the broker's terms under its home regulator. This is the gap our three hypothetical traders are all standing in.
The complaint escalation ladder for an Indian resident trading offshore has a hard ceiling. Step one: broker's internal complaint process. Step two: the home regulator — FCA for Exness and FXTM and HF Markets, ASIC for FBS and AvaTrade. Step three would be SEBI SCORES, but SEBI has no jurisdiction over offshore brokers. Step four is a civil suit in Indian courts, which is expensive and slow for a ₹5,000 spread dispute. Realistically, the path ends at step two.
And here is the pattern that cuts across all three accounts: the cost of spread widening during news, when annualized, is almost always smaller than the cost of account-type selection, funding friction, and tax inefficiency. Riya loses more to paying 0.7 pips every single day than to paying 12 pips once a quarter. Vikram's TCS outlay exceeds his news-spike losses. Meera's base annual spread cost is ₹83,500 regardless of news — the ₹30,060 news addition is significant but secondary. The thing that brought you to this article is real, but it is probably not the most expensive thing happening in your account.
*The SEBI helpline operates 09:30-17:00 IST. It handles complaints about SEBI-registered intermediaries. An offshore forex broker is not one of them.*
Which Scenario Is You
If your account is under ₹1 lakh on a standard account, you are Riya. Your problem is not the news spike — your problem is that spread costs at your account size consume an outsized percentage of capital every month. Either move to a pro account if your capital allows the minimum deposit, or accept that trading during news events is a luxury your account size cannot afford.
If your account is between ₹1-5 lakh and you are on a pro or ECN account, you are Vikram. Your immediate action is to check which regulatory entity your broker registered you under — the consumer protection differs dramatically between an FCA entity and an FSA entity. Your medium-term action is to calculate total annual cost of trading, including TCS and tax, and decide if news-event trading is worth the friction.
If you are building toward full-time trading, you are Meera. The spread spike that brought you here is the smallest number on your annual cost sheet. Build the full model. Run the math. If the numbers require an 80% annual return to break even, you have your answer — and that answer has nothing to do with your broker's behaviour during NFP.
Three dates on the calendar ahead. July 2026: the next round of TCS rate reviews under the Finance Bill, which could change the 20% rate on foreign remittances under Section 206C(1G). September 2026: SEBI's expected update on its advisory regarding overseas derivative trading platforms, which may sharpen or soften its enforcement posture toward Indian residents. March 2027: ITR filing season for AY 2027-28, where the income tax treatment of offshore forex profits will be tested against whatever CBDT guidance arrives between now and then. Each of these will either make the Indian retail forex path clearer or more expensive. Plan for both.