We are rolling out a change to how ASIC Retail margins are calculated for hedged positions.
Previously the margin amount was calculated off the net exposure of the account, allowing long and short positions to offset each other. Following clarification from ASIC, we are required to start charging the full margin on each side of a hedged position - that means hedging increases your margin requirement, rather than decreasing it.
To begin with, we are rolling out these changes on our demo servers only but expect to make a similar change in the live environments soon.
If you get any queries from clients on this when trading their demo accounts, you can explain how the margin calculation will take into account both sides with these incoming changes, but that we will communicate further before making changes to the live trading servers.