About Cebu Fees

Who runs this desk

Cebu Fees is run by a small editorial desk that writes about gold (XAU/USD) trading for readers in the Philippines. The desk is not a broker, not a bank and not a licensed financial adviser, and it does not hold client money or open accounts.

The material here is educational writing about how gold CFDs work, how costs are built, and what a Philippine resident should check before opening an account. It is not personal advice, and no page on this site is an offer to trade.

How the desk is paid

Affiliate links are the only revenue on this site. When a reader opens a broker account through a link here, the desk may receive a payment from that broker, and the reader's trading relationship is with the broker, not with Cebu Fees.

Payment never buys a rating and never hides a weakness. A broker that pays does not get a better page than one that does not, and a weakness we find is written down in the same place regardless of any commercial arrangement.

The test a number has to pass before it appears on a page

A number is published here only if it is either given to us as a fixed fact or can be recalculated from facts we are allowed to state. The reference price of 4275.0, the contract size of 100 oz per standard lot, and the pip of 0.01 are fixed for the page. The margin figure of about $85.50 for a 0.10-lot gold position is shown as a worked example at the applicable leverage cap, so a reader can see the inputs. Anything that depends on the account, the entity or the market at the moment of the trade is not printed as a number.

The editorial standard treats a missing number as a sentence that must explain its parts. For costs, that means naming what the cost consists of and what it depends on, never calling a spread or commission low, tight or competitive. For leverage, the page states that the figure is a cap, not a setting to aim at, and it does not print any ratio other than the one that applies to the entity serving the Philippines. For funding, only GCash and bank transfer are named, because those are the rails we can confirm for this audience. A writer who wants to add a figure must show the source line to the second reader.

The same test applies to the regulator sentence. FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, not by the SEC of the Philippines, and that sentence is reproduced exactly because it is a fixed caveat, not a variable claim. When a page needs to say what protection a reader does or does not get, it points to that caveat rather than inventing a comparison. The result is a page that is shorter on numbers than a marketing sheet but longer on the arithmetic a reader can actually check with a calculator and the reference price.

How this desk is staffed and how a decision gets made

Cebu Fees is run by a small editorial desk with a single rule: every published figure must be traceable to a document or a calculation the reader can repeat. Decisions about what goes on the page are made in a weekly review where the writer who drafted the section, a second reader who checks the numbers, and the editor who owns the site sign off together. No single person can publish a number alone. For a gold page, that means the reference price, the pip value of 0.01, and the margin example at the applicable leverage cap are all checked against the same worked sheet before anything goes live.

The desk decides what to cover by looking at what Philippine readers actually ask when they fund an account with GCash or a bank transfer and then try to size a XAU/USD trade. We do not chase product launches or bonus offers. A topic earns a page when it changes the arithmetic a reader has to do: lot size, pip value, margin, or the difference between the FxPro entity that serves the Philippines and the local regulator. If a topic does not change a number or a risk warning, it waits. That is why the site spends space on margin at the cap rather than on promotional copy.

Every decision is recorded with the facts it rests on, so a later writer can see why a sentence says what it says. When the desk cannot source a figure, the page says what the cost or requirement depends on instead of printing a number. That is a deliberate choice, not an omission: the regulator caveat for the Philippines is fixed and quotable, while spreads, swaps and minimum deposits move with the entity and the account, so they are described by their components. The editor holds the final call on whether a paragraph meets that bar, and the second reader can send it back.

What the desk checks before it calls a gold position sized correctly

A gold position is sized correctly when the margin it requires at the applicable cap is a number the reader can see and afford, not when the lot is as large as the platform allows. For XAU/USD, one standard lot is 100 oz and one pip is 0.01, so the arithmetic starts from the reference price of 4275.0 and the contract size. At the cap that applies to the entity serving the Philippines, a 0.10-lot position needs about $85.50 margin. The desk checks that a page shows that worked figure and labels the cap as a cap, not as a target.

The desk also checks that the page does not smuggle in a second leverage ratio or a cost number it cannot support. Leverage is described only as the cap for this country, because a higher ratio changes the margin requirement and therefore the risk, and printing one without the entity context would mislead. Costs are described by their components and what they depend on, never as a spread figure or a commission. Funding is named only as GCash or bank transfer. If a draft fails any of these, it goes back to the writer before the editor sees it.

Finally, the desk checks the regulator sentence is present and exact: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, not by the SEC of the Philippines. That caveat sits next to any discussion of margin or leverage because a Philippine reader needs to know which entity holds the account and which regulator does not. The check is not decorative. A page that sizes a gold trade in dollars and pesos without that sentence would leave the reader with a false sense of who stands behind the position when the market moves against it.

What the desk will not do

The desk does not manage accounts, does not place trades and does not recover funds. It cannot solve a broker account problem, and it does not give personal advice on whether to buy or sell gold.

For the regulatory position, rely on this exact fact: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC - not by the SEC of the Philippines. Readers should confirm the current entity and its licence before funding any account.

How to dispute a figure or a sentence published here

Send the challenge to the desk with the sentence you dispute and the source you are relying on, and it will be logged and answered by the second reader who checks numbers. A dispute about a fixed fact, such as the 100 oz contract size, the 0.01 pip or the FCA and CySEC caveat, is settled by pointing to the document. A dispute about the worked margin of about $85.50 is settled by redoing the calculation at the applicable cap in front of you. If we are wrong, the page is corrected and the correction is dated; if we are right, you get the arithmetic that shows why.

Challenges about things we deliberately do not print, such as a spread, a swap or a minimum deposit, are answered by explaining the editorial standard rather than by producing a number. The answer will say what that cost consists of and what it depends on, and it will not call any cost low or competitive. That is not evasion; it is the same rule that kept the number off the page in the first place. If you have a document from the entity serving the Philippines that fixes such a figure for your account, send it, and the desk will consider whether it changes what can be said for readers generally.

The fastest route is to quote the heading and the paragraph, because every section is versioned and the desk can find the exact text you mean. Challenges that identify a real error are treated as the most valuable thing a reader can send, and they are reviewed before any new writing is scheduled. The desk does not remove a correction quietly; the corrected sentence stands with the reason it changed. That habit is the point of the whole standard: a page about gold in the Philippines is only useful if a reader can push back on it and get a straight answer.

Where the money for this site comes from and where it stops

Cebu Fees is funded by the commercial side of the desk, and that funding pays for the writing, the number checks and the hosting. It does not buy a sentence. A partner or advertiser cannot insert a spread figure, a bonus, a minimum deposit or a leverage ratio into a page, because those are exactly the items the editorial standard keeps out unless they are fixed facts. The funding relationship is disclosed on the page so a reader can weigh it. The practical effect is that the site can afford to say a cost depends on the entity and the account instead of printing a number that would please a broker.

Funding does influence which topics get written first, and we say so plainly. If more readers ask about margin on a 0.10-lot gold position at the applicable cap, that question moves up the queue ahead of a general explainer. What funding does not influence is the answer: the worked margin figure of about $85.50, the 100 oz contract size and the 0.01 pip are the same whether or not anyone pays us. The editor, not the funder, signs off the final text, and the second reader who checks the arithmetic has no commercial target to hit.

The line is easiest to see in what is absent. There is no page praising a spread, no table of swap rates, no minimum deposit figure and no second leverage ratio anywhere on the site, because those are the places where money would most like to speak. Instead the site spends its budget on the parts a Philippine reader cannot get elsewhere: the exact regulator caveat, the funding rails of GCash and bank transfer, and the arithmetic of a gold position in US dollars translated into the peso amounts a reader actually holds. That is the trade we have made.

Why the peso amount matters as much as the dollar figure

The peso amount matters because a Philippine reader funds with GCash or a bank transfer in pesos and carries the risk in pesos, even though XAU/USD is quoted in dollars. A margin requirement of about $85.50 at the applicable cap is only meaningful once the reader sees it against the balance they can actually move through those rails. The desk therefore treats the dollar arithmetic and the peso translation as one check, not two. A page that shows the dollar margin but never connects it to local funding leaves the reader to guess at the exchange rate and the transfer cost on their own.

The desk does not print a peso figure for margin, because the exchange rate at the moment of funding is not a fixed fact we can state. Instead the page says what the peso amount depends on: the dollar margin at the cap, the rate the reader gets when moving funds through GCash or a bank transfer, and any cost the rail itself applies. That is the honest form of the answer. It lets a reader plug in the rate they are actually offered rather than a rate we invented. The same logic applies to any profit or loss on the position, which is denominated in dollars and converted back.

The check is whether a reader can act on the page without a second document. If the page gives the contract size, the pip, the reference price, the worked margin at the cap and the local funding rails, the reader can size a 0.10-lot gold position and know roughly what it takes from a peso balance. If any of those is missing, the page is not finished. That is why the desk keeps the peso framing light but present: enough to connect the dollar arithmetic to GCash and bank transfer, without pretending to a rate it cannot fix.