FundingPips Invited Traders into PRIME; The T&Cs Made It Mandatory

FundingPips launched a new account tier this spring called PRIME, built for funded traders, the firm says, who have outgrown its standard Master account. Instead of taking a payout and carrying on, a trader's profit from the Master account becomes the starting balance of a much larger PRIME account, and the Master account closes. The firm describes it as a product for "a selective group of exceptional traders," and the pool so far has not exceeded 100 people. However, several of them were moved into it without a real choice, despite the firm's CEO, Khaled Ayesh, posting on X in early June that the account “is and will remain optional.”

FundingPips disputes that the mechanism is a means to defer payouts and preserve cash flow: “There is no such thing as replacing a payout. Nothing is replaced".

London's trading industry is coming home!

The "Invitation"

According to the firm, there are two ways to join PRIME. One involves an opt-in after a funded trader completes three consecutive payouts on the same account. The operative word is “consecutive” – someone could have 50 payouts in total, but that won’t make them eligible.

The second way is what the firm calls an "invitation," a misnomer that implies choice, yet anyone invited was practically transitioned unilaterally. The criteria here are less clear. According to the firm, it involves "exceptional" traders with over US$50,000 in total payouts and “extremely low spend.”

In the opt-in conversion, the payout from the previous account, which is permanently closed, serves as the starting balance for PRIME, multiplied by 12.5. For example, a US$10,000 profit translates into a US$125,000 PRIME account balance.

When asked about the mechanics of the mandatory transition, the firm notes, “The reward becomes the maximum loss limit of the PRIME Account, giving the trader capital to work with alongside the risk multiplier we provide for market exposure.” Indeed, the account's maximum loss limit is set at 8% – in the above example, that percentage would amount to US$10,000, the exact amount of the payout.

So, in either case, the funded trader receives a PRIME account in place of a payout.

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Now, here the story becomes a bit convoluted, so we will simplify it as best as we can.

“When the programme launched,” says a FundingPips spokesperson, “we invited a group of profitable traders from Gold and Diamond tiers to participate.” The firm frames this as a way to “collect data” on the new account. The launch appears to have been in May.

FundingPips states that, following feedback on Discord, it changed it to both mandatory and optional.

Meanwhile, the firm’s T&Cs, effective as of May 15, explicitly state that “the Company may, at its sole and absolute discretion, either directly or through one of its affiliates, elect to grant you access to the Prime Account Program. Should the Company elect to do so, such access is deemed automatically accepted by you, is mandatory, and you waive any right to refuse or contest it.”

And then there’s the post from Ayesh on June 5.

At the very least, there seemed to have been a communication lag between the prop firm and its traders.

The firm says that from PRIME's 100-trader pool, roughly 30% opted for it on their own. “It is not for everyone, just a selective group of exceptional traders who outgrew the sim master account,” the firm maintains.

Finance Magnates tracked at least 20 online complaints regarding the PRIME account across X, Trustpilot and Prop Firm Match; the majority focused on the mandatory transition alongside concerns that payouts were exchanged for PRIME's starting balance.

The specificity of the complaints suggests they cannot easily be dismissed as bot-driven attacks.The direct interaction between the firm's support team and dissatisfied users reinforces the authenticity of these reviews. Funding Pips claims, however, that several complaints were later revised to positive reviews once traders realized how good PRIME was.

The Payout Dilemma

The retail prop firm model is challenging to maintain, partly because the primary revenue source is a continuous churn of evaluation fees. A sudden drop-off in sign-ups, or a sudden uptick in profitable clients, will deplete the availability and liquidity of that stream.

In a separate development, Prague-headquartered FTMO understated its projected trader payouts by a dramatic 83% throughout 2025, from US$25 million to roughly US$46 million. The massive shortfall underscores the ongoing difficulties firms face in balancing risk and market volatility.

That is the cost side of a model some operators no longer believe adds up. Drew Niv, Chief Strategy Officer at ATFX, which recently halted its prop trading arm, noted on LinkedIn that while the prop firm market expanded rapidly because its value proposition far exceeds what retail brokers offer, that same proposition relies on unsustainable math across both qualification and payout stages. Ultimately, that has caught up with the market, driving numerous prop firms out of business.

Against this backdrop, FundingPips denies that the PRIME conversion mechanism serves to defer payouts or preserve cash flow. Maintaining that "there is no such thing as replacing a payout; nothing is replaced," the firm points to account features such as allowing traders to request rewards multiple times per day, as evidence that the product was not designed to conserve liquidity.

“On a traditional prop account or a trader’s own brokerage account, withdrawing profits and growing the account can become competing choices. With Prime, they don’t have to be,” the firm adds.

The Concern Remains

Still, choice was eliminated for the 70% of funded traders subjected to the mandatory transition, a major source of the online complaints. The firm argues that these stem from "traders being apprehensive about the unfamiliar or unaccustomed to change".

It also states that traders eventually adapt following the forced migration, with no accounts closed or departures recorded as a result.

Although some adopted a more favourable stance online post-migration, it remains independently unverified how many in that 100-trader cohort shifted their view, or if any ultimately parted ways because of the mandatory shift and its mechanics.