After being wrongly shut down by regulators in 2023, My Forex Funds is relaunching in 2026.
With over $300m paid out to traders before its closure, the scale of the operation makes for a complex return. Two ex-MFF leaders recently took to X to answer the questions the community has been asking.
In this X Space discussion, former My Forex Funds (MFF) growth and trading support lead Josh is joined by former director Yavuz to give traders an update on where things stand now MFF is returning to the industry. They cover the payout process, data recovery, account reinstatement, the legal situation in the US and Canada, and the road to relaunch.
While both leaders are no longer at MFF, they have extensive knowledge of the firm’s previous operations, and Josh is currently helping with the data recollection as the firm returns.
The discussion is full of detail and insights you won’t find elsewhere, so I’ve transcribed it in full below.
This transcription has been edited for clarity. If you would like to listen to the unedited discussion, you can find Josh’s original X Space here.
Key points discussed:
- Phase one payouts have begun, targeting the 800+ users whose requests were already approved before closure — with a Wednesday completion target for initial contact
- A further ~700 unverified payout requests are next in the queue, and a survey will follow for anyone who believes they are missing from the data entirely
- Delays in getting payments out are primarily due to banking and compliance difficulties caused by the CFTC case, not unwillingness — crypto payments are sorted, and bank approval is expected within two weeks
- The most recent server snapshot was taken at 00:01 on 30 August; approximately 90% of trading data is confirmed, though some edge cases (open trades at the time of shutdown) may require individual review
- Accounts are expected to be reinstated in phases due to the sheer volume — an immediate full rollout of 160,000 accounts is not considered financially viable
- MT4 will not be returning; MT5 will be the platform going forward, with positive talks underway between MFF and MetaQuotes
- Canadian users will receive separate, direct legal communications from MFF, and the situation is being handled by lawyers
- Users who issued chargebacks violated a court order and will not receive additional compensation
- A full KYC re-verification will be required from all users when accounts are reinstated
- MFF is expected to relaunch, likely with a brokerage arm (required to access MetaTrader), and with an aggressive marketing push on the CFD side — futures are not on the agenda
- Josh is not returning to MFF in a formal capacity, but will continue to advise informally; he is building his own separate, prop-inspired peer-to-peer project
Introductions
Josh: Basically, I’ll start off with who I am. A bunch of people might not know that. I think most people do, but in the MFF hierarchy, you obviously have Murtuza, who’s the founder of the company, and underneath Murtuza was myself and another guy named Haider, who’s still in MFF. He was the operations director, and I was the growth and trading support — customer-facing support. That was my role. The core of my job was basically keeping the business healthy. Underneath me was Yavuz, and that’s why Yavuz is here — because he’s very familiar with the business. He was like my second in charge, my direct person in the business. So I felt that the two of us would be good together to have a discussion about MyForexFunds and what’s going on.
Full disclosure, neither of us are at MyForexFunds right now. I am helping with the data because, of the people inside the business who knew their data, I was probably the top guy for that. So I am helping with that, and am very familiar with the payout and trading data — what might be missing, what’s there, everything like that. Hopefully I can shed some light and ease some questions here.
Phase One Payouts: What’s Happening Now
Josh: The first thing I wanted to speak about is the mail that went out yesterday. They have batched out the people who had requested a payout. It was the 28th, 29th and 30th — I think those are the dates, I might be wrong — but the three days prior to the closure. In that process, when the business was alive, there was an approval process. Payout requests would come in and enter into a system. The system would then be manually checked and gone through. They’d check the KYC, check the trading behaviour, and then approve it to be sent out to people.
The first payouts going out are from users who had already gone through that entire system. They’ve gone from request, been checked, the KYC’s been checked, they’ve been approved — and then the business was closed so their payment didn’t go out. Those are the first ones. After that are the people who were inside that process but hadn’t been approved. There may be extra information requested for those people. For example, if the KYC is outdated, it might be requested. Very simple — if that’s you, you send a KYC or they’ll give you a link. Quick process.
There could be users missing in this data — not saying for sure, but there could be. So at the end of the process there will be a survey for people to submit what they think is missing, any screenshots or anything available to verify. And then through all the available data that MFF has, they’ll cross-check it and obviously try to do their best for everybody. That’s what they’re going to call phase one, and it’s in process now.
I know there are already replies to the first email — 12 specifically. The first batch was the smallest. They sent 50 people yesterday; today they’ve sent more than that. So there’ll be more and more going out in the coming days. The target is Wednesday. So everybody from the verified payouts — it’s 860, I think, I have to double check, but it’s over 800 — should be settled in terms of contacted, their banking or crypto information replied. Should all be done by Wednesday.
Yavuz: 800 is the number of people, right?
Josh: That’s, yeah — per the ones that are approved and verified. After that there’s another 700 that are not approved, not verified, that need to be sorted out. So then that process will kick in. They may overlap the processes, so it could be two things going at once. There are only seven people available working on this at the moment. They’ve just hired a bunch more who will come in next week.
Why Has It Taken So Long? The Compliance and Banking Picture
Josh: So the first question I know is on everyone’s mind: why did it take so long to get to this stage? Because it’s still a pretty early stage. The reason is that if you go into a case where they’ve accused you of basically funnelling money to yourself from a company — even if you win that case — in banking compliance, that pops up. And I know in this case it pops up because my own bank had it pop up. So getting payment vendors, bank accounts, corporation registration — it is very, very difficult in this situation, and they’re working through it with lawyers.
MFF used to run a payment company in New Jersey. That’s why there was a US case — because MFF had a US entity, the CFTC was able to bring a case. If there was no US company, they would’ve referred the case to Canada or wherever the business was. That entity was just for handling payments — PayPal, crypto payments and the like. All of that went through that company, which worked as a service for the Canadian company. That company is no longer available, so you have to form a new one, with all the compliance issues that come with having a US regulator throw a case at you. That’s really the only delay.
I’m told the crypto payment is sorted at the moment and the bank is coming. They’re expecting approval not this Friday but the one after. Obviously with compliance teams and banks, you can’t always tell whether they’re being sincere or whether they’ll ask for more documentation. It looks very positive now though, because a lot of additional documentation has been requested and submitted.
Phase Two: Trading Profits and Data Recovery
Josh: The second phase covers people who had trading profits but no payout. This one is very complicated, because two different things are happening at once. One is certain people have certain expectations, and the second is the data reality.
I’ve said it in public a few times — every evening at rollover there was a snapshot taken of every server. In order to back it up, we’d do it when the market was quietest and the fewest trades were on the server. When the case came, everything was taken without warning. So it was literally a case of sitting down and not being able to log in, not being able to access email. In my case, the people responsible for hosting the trading servers were saying they couldn’t talk to us. We had nothing — we couldn’t run in and run backups just in case.
So we have the latest backup as solid data — very, very sure — this is what the server looked like at that time, which was rollover on the 30th: 00:01 on the 30th of August. From there it requires sorting through what data is missing, because there are a bunch of entries that are zero. That could be accounts that were deleted, accounts that breached and are somehow showing zero, inactive accounts that haven’t updated their equity — it could be anything. There’s a whole bunch of things we have to check.
Something was sent to me yesterday that could be an actual MetaTrader backup we could load. I’m talking to friends in the industry to try and figure out whether it is — if it is, that solves that problem. But for the most part, about 90% of the data we have is what it would’ve been even if we had MetaTrader live at the time. There may be a few people who had a trade open that day that they remember but that we can’t verify. That will be a conversation at that time.
I had a conversation with Murtuza about it today, and his response was that he wants to do right by people, but we have to see what it looks like. Getting the first set of payouts out is the priority. He did mention that he expects to be able to give sharper timelines once the bank account approval comes through in the next two weeks.
Reinstating Accounts: A Phased Approach
Josh: The most common thing I see in comments is: what’s happening to my account? I know people are frustrated, and being rude doesn’t help — but I get it. The only way I can see this working — and this is my professional opinion, not necessarily what’s been decided — is that accounts come back in phases. Because if there are 160,000 accounts total and you launch them all at once, the business will just go bust in the first month. There’s no sustainable way to issue 160,000 accounts in prop without significant risk to the business.
The best way to do it would probably be based on the phases first and the funded last. I know that sounds awful to some of you. But if it were my decision and my strategy, I’d say: roll out some of the phase one first, let that cycle start, and roll through that way.
On top of that, there’s the technology problem. MFF had four MT4 servers and two MT5 servers, and now you can’t get MT4 — it’s just not possible. I do know that there’s positive talk between MFF and MetaQuotes, but MT4 is not going to happen. So everything has to migrate. The data is currently in raw form. You have to take that data, run it through the dashboard, confirm that the data is correct — and there are so many lines of it. Then you start pinging MetaTrader or whichever platform it is to issue the accounts, and the balances have to be set correctly. It’s not an overnight thing. It will take time.
Until the compliance approval in the next fortnight is done, the rest of the technology — with the exception of MetaTrader — can’t be onboarded yet. So that process will start in a fortnight or so, maybe three weeks. The dashboard developer is a friend of mine, so there are no dramas there. I think the speed of setup will be decent and reasonable. There’ll have to be some changes — some of the systems I developed that I gave to MFF, anti-cheat and so on — that will take some time. But after that they’ll have a timeline for each account, saying: your account will be due within this time period. People will need to manage their expectations around that.
Community Frustration and Program Rules
Yavuz: I think you answered most of the questions, including “what happened to my account”. We forgot “where’s my payout?” — but yeah, I think you answered that.
Josh: Yeah. Look, I know that even in my comments with people there’s been a bit of emotion and negativity. I think when things start moving faster, that vibe will change. With MFF, if people remember back when it was operating, it was a different vibe. There was negativity sometimes — from other companies, from influencers, whatever — but the community itself always rallied together. I think once some positive signs are coming through, people will be a little less aggressive about it, and know that what is due will arrive.
I know people want everything right now — that’s just the environment we’re in. The only thing I can ask of people is to continue being patient. If you want to take your frustrations out on me, okay. But if you cross a line, I’m going to give it back. I’m not in the company anymore, so I’m willing to take certain punches — but if you’re mean, I’ll give it back.
There was another question from The Prop Journalist.
Yavuz: Yeah.
Josh: He asked if we expect the parameters of the program to stay the same. The only thing I have to that is: when I was in Dubai, I sat down with Murtuza and we talked about it briefly. The main discussion was about changing the Rapid program, but I think in this environment it would be better if the rules changed a little. That said, it’s hard to tell, because the program itself has a few solutions to some of the current problems built in. There’s a good chance it will be just fine. But I think the leverage has to go down — that would be the main thing — because if you’re going to have news trading, you have to manage the risk of big-ticket trades during news, which is a balancing act between reality and reputation damage.
Q&A: Funded Accounts Awaiting Payout
Viewer 1: Hi guys. Sorry if you’ve already answered this. I had an account with MFF — I was funded, and I was waiting for a payout with about a week remaining. What will happen to my account?
Josh: Those accounts are in phase two of what’s going on. After the people who had requested payouts get cleared, the next step is the folks who had some profit — going through who they are, how much it was, what stage of their account it was, and probably doing the general checks too. You’ll probably be requested for KYC.
I’ve personally noticed in the database people I know for sure I banned at AT funded for cheating — so that’s another question that has to be answered. Not an accusation, but they’ll go through in the next phase and check everything. Murtuza will come out with an announcement on exactly how that payment is going to happen and when. By then he’ll have a better timeline — not just for that phase, but also giving accounts back and when the trading service will be up.
They’re looking to clear the first set pretty quickly and then move on to people like yourself. I’d guesstimate it’s going to be a month or two before it’s cleared for all the people owed some form of funds. But given the compliance concerns, anything could roadblock that. So be patient, and any time you get an email, respond to it as quickly as you can — that will help speed things up.
I’ve also advised Murtuza today that if there are hiccups with compliance, he should come out and say so. And he has said he’ll do that. It’s coming, and it’s coming soon. The people who have profit — it’s going to be analysed first to make sure everything’s correct. If there’s a dispute, there’ll be a conversation.
Q&A: Relaunch Plans, Program Structure and the Road Back
Viewer 2: I’m really glad that MyForexFunds is doing their bit to make things right with their customers. One thing that was less obvious to me: after they make things right, what’s going to happen? Are they planning to relaunch? And if so, what might the new rules look like, given the changes in the industry — getting rid of time limits, consistency rules being introduced in some places, and so on?
Josh: Well, we already got rid of time limits, about two months before everything happened. As I mentioned earlier, I had a conversation with Murtuza in person in Dubai — a casual one. My impression is his intent is to keep the two phases the same, though I’m a little skeptical of that. The other programs weren’t a mathematical problem.
I think the 30-day payout thing — if you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know I’ve mentioned that the main issue with prop at the moment is cash flow. Having a 30-day first payout window helps a lot with the actual maths of a program, because the cash flow continues — unless you have like five days without sales, in which case it’s a very big problem. One of the issues with biweekly or faster payouts is that you have to implement consistency rules in order to refill the bucket to do those payouts. A 30-day payout window kind of alleviates that. That was a recommendation I gave to AT Funded, and apparently it’s going well. I think there’s a good chance the program doesn’t change. It’s not really the time to decide that anyway. I think the company is probably coming back, unless the compliance issues are excessively problematic.
Viewer 2: And would accounts pick up where they left off, or reset to the start of their phase?
Josh: I don’t think that decision’s been made. It would depend. One of the issues with all prop firms — and especially in a scenario where the company is abruptly suspended — is that there are tons of accounts with like 1 cent of drawdown left, where someone just barely doesn’t breach. In the case of MFF, the number of those accounts is very high — we’re talking tens of thousands. So what Murtuza needs to work out is how to treat all those accounts, because the account technically wasn’t breached, but there’s like 1 cent in it. A reasonable person will say that account was dead anyway. But if you have 20,000 of them brigading you, that can be a problem. The intention is to restore, I think. But the market’s changed, and there are many arguments. I know Murtuza will try and do the right thing by people.
Viewer 2: Have you had any indication from Murtuza how aggressively MFF wants to make a return? I’ve seen recently lots of CFD firms going into the futures space or even opening their own brokerages. Is that likely — an aggressive marketing campaign with a futures firm and a brokerage added — or are they planning to take it more slowly?
Josh: I don’t think futures would be on the agenda. The brokerage thing always was in the conversation — we had licensing sessions and I think he still has that. With MetaTrader now, you kind of need to operate a broker in order to get MetaTrader, so I can say pretty confidently that a broker would be on the list. It’s a very different animal — having run a broker, I can tell you that prop and broker are not the same. There’s some crossover happening, but futures — I think there’s not more space there, and more participants makes it more likely that a similar situation to what MFF had might occur, especially with centralised markets. There’s also no one with the expertise around MFF that could do it on a whim. In terms of marketing, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be aggressive — just for the CFD side.
Viewer 2: How difficult will it be for Murtuza to reform or get a proper team in line? Onboarding for staff at the upper levels might be quite difficult.
Josh: At the upper levels it’ll be fine. It’ll be more the international staff that will be a bit more complicated. A lot of the guys who worked for MFF have been in contact about coming back — MFF was a very nice place to work. We worked really hard, but in terms of everyone who worked there, maybe with a small exception, everyone was very happy. And the experience since going elsewhere has been different — that’s the feedback I’ve gotten. So I think some of them will come back.
In terms of sheer volume, MFF always ran operations in Pakistan because Murtuza has relatives there and ER is living there. So it was a big office — around 120 people — and refilling that is no problem. It’s more getting the guys from Latin America, Poland, Nigeria — to cater to local markets — that will be a little more difficult. My policy was that I don’t hire from within prop. If someone was already working for another company, I didn’t hire them. I’d take a trading enthusiast or someone like that, bring them in, and train them on the role.
Viewer 2: Over the last few years there’s been a lot of talk about hedging groups and cheating groups coming from certain jurisdictions. Was that an issue when MFF was still around?
Josh: MFF were the first to ban Pakistan. We’d interviewed 600 people from Pakistan one-on-one, and of the 600, like three were actually traders. So we just blanket banned the country.
Viewer 2: Was there any conflict of interest with having a large Pakistani employee base while also banning that country from trading?
Josh: There wasn’t really any friction. The people we hired in Pakistan weren’t very trader-centric. There were a few, but a lot were finance guys — accounting, data, forecasting, payouts, and that kind of thing. The front-end support team was mostly the team underneath Yavuz, and we had one or two Pakistani guys there, but also people from India, the Philippines, the US, Canada, Venezuela, Greece, Poland — a pretty diverse group.
Viewer 2: Apart from getting the data sorted, how much consulting will you be doing going forward? Are you going to stay on in a consulting role after everything’s back up and running?
Josh: If Murtuza picks up the phone and calls me — which he does regularly — and asks me something, I’ll give him that advice, no charge. I don’t need to be a consultant. If it got to every 10 minutes, maybe then you’d get an invoice. My suggestions are things I’m sharing in public anyway, so anyone can use them. What I find in the space is that if you make a sustainable suggestion, most props will ignore it. But I think the vision has to be the long game.
In the next two months I’m going to be announcing my own project. It’s not prop and it’s not a competing firm. I’d say it’s prop-inspired in the sense that it identifies issues that people who participate in prop have, but it’s a peer-to-peer thing.
Viewer 2: Thank you.
Josh: No worries, good to hear you.
Data Snapshot: Clarification on the August 30 Cutoff
Yavuz: While you were doing that, Malcolm asked when the last snapshot was taken.
Josh: It was at 00:01 on the 30th of August [2023].
Yavuz: Midnight on the 30th, right?
Josh: Yeah — the day switching from the 29th to the 30th.
Q&A: Accounts in Drawdown at Shutdown
Viewer 3: Maybe you covered this before — I just jumped in. What about people that had a funded account in drawdown at the time of shutdown? What’s going to happen to those accounts? Are they going to get them back the same way, or might the company do something and give it to them at an even spot?
Josh: I actually don’t know. Murtuza has to go through everything and see what it is — there’s generosity, and there’s overextending yourself — so he has to make sure the data is right before making the right decision. I do believe he’ll do what is best, and usually it’s quite generous. I had a brief conversation with him about the accounts — everyone’s accounts, not just the funded ones — and he said that when he has more information from the data analysis, he’ll give a timeline, and inside that timeline he’ll explain exactly how it’s going to happen.
All users will also have to do the KYC again. I know that’s not ideal, but it has to happen. There’ll be more communication on that very soon. This is phase three, and I think it’s safe to say that at the very least you’ll get the account back in the status it was in. Anything better than that is a bonus, but at the very least, that’s probably where things are heading.
Q&A: The Canadian Situation
Viewer 4: I still can’t see the site, and I haven’t been able to put my email in the form. I put it in before the bulk send-out, but I never got one.
Josh: So the thing with Canada — which I briefly mentioned — is that the accounts in Canada were frozen without a formal case, like a statement of investigation. The government actually has the right to freeze funds without a real charge. We saw something similar with the trucker situation during COVID.
The Canada situation is very lawyer-heavy, so everyone from Canada will get their own set of communication directly from MFF — with instructions and everything — via email. It won’t be a mass mail-out. There’ll also be confirmation of receipt required, because it’ll have a lot of legal content in it. But the instructions will all be in there. It’s one of the unfortunate aftermaths of this, because as you know, the business was based in Canada.
Viewer 4: The emails they send — will they go to the email I had logged into MFF with?
Josh: Yeah.
Viewer 4: Okay. Do you see that being in the same one-to-two month span as all the payouts being processed, or is it too tough to say given the legal situation?
Josh: My knowledge of that is very limited because I’m not in the legal conversations. When lawyers are involved, it’s kind of need-to-know. But I can presume it’ll be pretty prompt, because from a legal perspective it’s something that must be sorted out.
Viewer 4: Thank you for all the info and all your help this whole time.
Josh: No worries, take care.
Q&A: Phase Two ETA and Chargebacks
Andrew [via message]: Is there an anticipated ETA for when the second phase begins for people with positive equity?
Josh: I don’t think so. To give certain ETAs for anything, it will require the compliance to be finished with the bank. I was told that once that’s done, they’ll be a lot sharper with the timeframes given. Right now they’re trying to hurry getting people sorted because there’s some restlessness in the space, and they want to do right by everyone — and some things are out of their control. I think in the next fortnight you’ll probably start hearing about it.
Yavuz: Someone asked what will happen to the accounts that had a chargeback.
Josh: People who charged back broke a court order, so nothing. The judge had ruled that everything must stay status quo, and people charged back anyway. The provider shouldn’t have issued the chargeback, but it is just a situation of mess.
The thing I think people understandably struggle to grasp is that MFF’s staff also didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t want this to happen. Everybody is kind of a victim in this — not to say that for empathy, but for understanding. It’s easy to point fingers because something bad happened to you, but something bad happened to the people you’re pointing fingers at as well. It puts everyone in a very precarious situation where not everyone can be happy. You can make as many people happy as you possibly can, but it won’t be everybody.
Q&A: Phase One Accounts in Drawdown and MT5
Viewer 5: What happens to accounts that were in phase one and also in drawdown at the time of shutdown? When do we get them back? And will MT5 be available for these accounts?
Josh: Yes, MT5 will be available. The timeline isn’t certain yet, and Murtuza will give more updates on that when he can. The speed in getting there is picking up now, so it’ll take a while but it’s coming.
As for what will happen to your specific account — I can’t really broad-brush that without knowing your case. What I can say is that Murtuza’s goal is to do right by everyone.
Viewer 5: Will there be any ETA for accounts that were in drawdown at the time of shutdown?
Josh: Not yet. The first thing that’s going to happen is they’ll clear the payouts first, and then they’ll start working on the accounts for everybody. The first phase of payouts started yesterday and they’ve already gotten some replies, so everything is starting to process now. They’ve just hired five or seven more people who will start next week, so things will speed up.
Viewer 5: Thank you, and I wish MFF the best of luck.
Josh: Thank you.
Closing Remarks
Josh: All right everyone, it has been a pleasure. I saw a lot of familiar names and a lot of unfamiliar names. I’ll continue doing my best to help out and get information to you. Be as polite as you can — as you may have seen, it’s a touchy issue for me. I think you should expect more coming out of MFF in the next fortnight, and some of those payments will start to go out as well. From there, hopefully everything goes smoothly and everyone’s questions will be answered. Have a great weekend, and thank you to Yavuz for co-hosting.
Yavuz: Thank you for inviting me.
Josh: If you have questions, I’m on X. Ask nicely and I’ll always answer — I try to answer everyone. When messages are aggressive, I start to spin out a bit. But if you ask nicely, I’ll happily answer. Love everyone, have a great weekend.
