Settlement, from the money side

Nothing is delivered, so money is the only thing that ever moves (Bangladesh)

A contract for difference settles in cash. No barrels arrive, no shares are registered, no currency is shipped anywhere. Everything a position does is written into one figure — which is why the whole of this site is about the two moments money genuinely travels: in, and back out.

A CFD is an agreement about the difference between two prices. When the position closes, that difference is added to or taken from the account balance in the account currency, and nothing else changes hands. So a trading balance has exactly two physical events in its life — the transfer that funded it and the transfer that empties it. Everything in between is bookkeeping against a moving number.

Three consequences for funding

What cash settlement changes about your money

One currency, whatever you trade

A position on any instrument settles into the account currency. You never end up holding something you then have to convert or sell — the conversion, where one is needed, has already been applied to the figure.

Where conversions happen

The balance moves with no transfer

An open position changes what the account is worth minute by minute. Nothing has left and nothing has arrived — this is the difference between balance and equity, and it is the most common reason people think a transfer went missing.

The two figures side by side

Part of it stops being available

Opening a position holds a portion of the balance in place as margin. That portion is not available for anything else while the position is open, even though it is still displayed in the balance.

What that looks like on the screen

Reading a balance that is doing three things at once

What you see	What to check	Next step
Balance and equity showing different numbers	Whether any position is open	The gap is the running result of open positions. It becomes balance only when they close.
Free margin far below balance	The margin held by open positions	What a new position can use is the free part, not the displayed one. Work out the free part
A closed position that changed the balance by an unexpected amount	Whether the instrument settles in a different currency	The result was converted into the account currency before it was written in
A balance shrinking overnight with nothing done	Whether positions were held past the day's close	Holding a position overnight can carry a swap. It is a trading cost, not a transfer

Why "nothing is delivered" is not a technicality

It removes an entire category of question that people arrive with. There is no asset sitting somewhere in your name, no separate holding to fund, and no second balance to check. A credited deposit and the result of every position live in the same single figure, in the same single currency.

It also keeps the arithmetic small. Because the whole account is one figure in one currency, everything that happens to a deposit is addition and subtraction on that one figure: what was credited, minus what positions are holding, plus or minus what they settled at. Nothing is stored anywhere else. The states a request passes through.

Where the costs of holding sit

Three places, and only one of them touches a transfer. Inside the price: the spread, the gap between the buying and the selling price. Overnight: a swap on positions kept past the close, which some instruments and some account types handle differently. On a cashier screen: the stated cost of the option chosen for a transfer, shown before you confirm.

What is not a cost: holding an account with money in it. There is no monthly charge for that, and a balance does not decay because it was left alone. It moves only when a position moves it. What the account type changes.

The part cash settlement makes sharper, not softer

Because a position is an agreement about a difference and not a purchase, leverage can make the difference larger than the money that was set aside for it. CFDs are complex instruments and trading them is risky; a loss is written into the balance in exactly the same way a gain is, and it is not limited by the amount a position appeared to require.

This site does not say what to trade, in which direction, or in what size. It has no view on any instrument and no access to any account.

Questions about settlement and the balance

If nothing is delivered, what am I actually holding?

An open agreement about a price difference, and a balance in one currency. When the agreement closes, the difference is written into that balance.

Why can a new position not use the whole balance?

Part of the balance is held as margin for whatever is already open. What a further position can draw on is the free part, not the figure displayed as balance.

Do I need to convert a result before taking it out?

No. Results settle into the account currency automatically, whatever the instrument was priced in.

Why did the balance move overnight with no action from me?

Either an open position moved with the market, or a position held past the close carried a swap. Neither is a transfer.

Is a CFD on a currency the same as sending money abroad?

No. One is a position that settles in cash into your balance; the other is a transfer that physically moves funds. The two crossings covers the transfer side.

Does closing every position put the whole balance back in play?

It releases the margin they were holding. What remains available is then the balance minus anything already requested.

Are crypto instruments any different for settlement?

They settle in cash into the account currency like the rest. The instrument page covers them as instruments; they are not a way to move money in or out.

Where is the spread charged from?

It is inside the price rather than a separate line: a position starts at a small distance from where it would close. It never appears on a cashier screen.

The two moments money moves

Moment one: in

What the screen states before you confirm.

The way in

Moment two: out

Four states, two clocks, one arithmetic check.

Every funding question

Everything in between

Why the figure moves without either of them.

The two prices

Balance, equity and free margin sit on one screen.

They can be watched on a free demo before any money is transferred at all. The button opens the official exness.com sign-up through a partner link.

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