This commission is highly competitive, and, while the spreads are competitive, we are slightly disappointed that the company does not offer a zero-spread guarantee for major currency pairs. Nevertheless, all other trading conditions are similar to those of the Standard account. Therefore, the Core account offers direct market access trading devoid of any conflict of interest and ensures that the OANDA FX rates are some of the best in the market.

If you are a high-volume trader who does not want to pay a commission but still enjoy tight spreads, you can opt for the Premium account, which brings down the spread to 0. It has a few differences in trading and order execution conditions compared to the Standard account.

Nevertheless, the most eye-watering fact is that traders will have to cope with a vast OANDA minimum deposit requirement. The costly OANDA minimum deposit requirement and the high trading volume mandate feel absurd for an account that quotes minimum spreads starting at 0. Nevertheless, traders are provided with several unique benefits for their investment. Nonetheless, we believe that other ECN broker options in the market may offer account options with more value for your investments with their lower minimum deposit requirements while providing the same trading conditions offered by OANDA.

Although the Premium account may appear to be the top category at OANDA, the broker offers another option known as the Premium Core account. The Premium Core account is simply a combination of the Premium and Core accounts, where traders can enjoy the lowest OANDA Forex trading fees.

Spreads start at 0. All other trading conditions, order execution policies, and additional account benefits are similar to those of the Premium account. We offer a detailed evaluation of order execution policies, leverage, and other trading conditions in later sections of this OANDA FX review.

Finally, the broker also provides a SWAP-free option for Sharia-compliant trading to Islamic traders. This option is suited for those who cannot, due to their religious beliefs, pay SWAP fees. The SWAP-free account is based on the Standard account, but traders will have to factor in a higher spread, starting at 1. The real-time OANDA Forex rates may differ from those quoted in other account categories. There are certain limitations to trading conditions with this option, including access that is restricted to the MT4 terminal, account base currency support offered only in USD, and other factors related to order execution.

Nevertheless, all other trading conditions are similar to the Standard account. Is it easy and secure to register a trading account at the OANDA broker? Is OANDA a good Forex broker for FX and CFD trading?

The first hurdle that traders might face at the sign up is their geographic location as the company does not accept traders from all regions. Do not worry if you are temporarily located in a country that the company does not accept since you are allowed to sign up by choosing the country of your primary residence from the dropdown menu provided at the beginning of the registration process. This removes the uncertainty of ascertaining whether one is eligible to open an account or not, which is something that we wish other brokers would adopt as well.

Once you determine that you are eligible for a trading account by choosing your country from the drop-down list, you will be taken to the detailed account registration page. To open an account, you have to submit your details, citizenship information, tax number, residential address, employment status, and financial information. Unlike other brokers, you are not granted access to an account immediately. Instead, the broker puts your application through a manual authentication process, taking anywhere from three hours to three business days.

If you apply for an account during holidays, there can be further delays since the broker has a strict Forex market hours OANDA Forex account registration policy. In the meantime, the broker may contact you by email or phone for any clarifications and may ask you to submit documentary proof to substantiate your claims.

However, please do not mistake this with personal account verification, which is another process. Instead, the authentication process is put in place to prevent bogus sign ups. Nevertheless, once the authentication team reviews and accepts your application, they will assign you an account number and email you the login details.

You can use these login parameters to access your account dashboard, where you can make your first deposit, download your preferred trading platform, and start trading. Nevertheless, we always send in our documents and verify our trading accounts before depositing funds as it helps us avoid any verification-related issues.

Consequently, we verified our OANDA account and received our withdrawal without any issues. We would also recommend our readers always verify their OANDA account before depositing funds to avoid taking any unnecessary risks.

We had half-expected the OANDA Forex rates to be delivered through an innovative proprietary trading platform, just like we have seen with several mainstream brokers—especially those from the US. However, we could not hide our disappointment when we discovered that the broker had taken the safest route by offering the MT4 and MT5 platforms for all traders across its product portfolio. Of course, we prefer trading on MetaTrader platforms , but, at this point, OANDA should have realized that there is a niche market where a proprietary trading platform is highly sought after.

The MT4 and MT5 platforms offer direct market access trading through ECN bridges and quote some of the most competitive OANDA Forex rates. The Forex market hours OANDA time is synced with the servers located in London Equinix LD4 and New York NY4. Both the MT4 and MT5 platforms offer excellent trading conditions, and the latency of trading is one of the lowest that we have experienced so far. Furthermore, both terminals can be run on a VPS for algo or EA trading , but the broker does not offer dedicated VPS service access.

Instead, it offers VPS service through third-party service providers, which means traders must pay for the VPS, and there is no free option. Nevertheless, VPS works well for ultra-low latency trading and is quite handy for running EAs without interruptions. Traders are free to download the MetaTrader app on their desktop or access the web browser-based interface through a supported browser. In our view, MT5 is highly advanced in terms of trading tools, indicator options, MQL programming capabilities, and the varied choice of instruments.

However, MT4 does have its unique advantages, which are preferred by a large community of traders even to this day. Although both MT4 and MT5 terminals are available for Standard and Core account holders, SWAP-free account holders are only given access to the MT4 platform. To lend a bit more perspective, other leading forex brokers can offer anywhere from 1, to 10, CFDs to choose from. The broker advertises its business hours as being from Sunday 1PM EST - Friday 6PM EST but "live chat" and phone support are not available for the entire duration.

Limited availability for chat and phone support aside, OANDA's representatives were courteous and knowledgeable when they were accessible. The support website also has a good knowledge base and searchable archive that should answer most questions about the trading platforms and order types. But this experience is likely to be inadequate for both very experienced and very inexperienced investors. A series of educational videos and articles is available for new and experienced investors alike.

Minor annoyances include the fact that the images and videos use inconsistent platforms, and some information is out of date compared to current trading platform releases. Not all of the education is in a single place, and navigation can be difficult. New investors will need some patience as they try to navigate their way through the educational material.

Material for beginners is good, though poorly organized. Clients seeking to create a plan and tracking progress will find it difficult to figure out what education was completed and what should be next. The OANDA classroom, which is a series of webinars, focuses mainly on live market analysis, but also includes a lot of basic platform navigation and analysis that should help fill the educational gaps.

Much of the advanced content was geared towards using individual tools rather than investing skills. To summarize, the educational resources were adequate but weren't organized as well as they could have been.

OANDA advertises that it offers a trading analysis application, powered by Chasing Returns, which analyzes the client's trading history. OANDA does not provide tax accounting tools on the platform.

Trading is no longer a solitary task and more and more traders have come to rely on the opinions and insights of other traders. Social traders will find their experience lacking on the OANDA platform. Other than a forum, OANDA doesn't offer any social investing tools. OANDA ticks all the boxes here as they offer an impressive array of economic analysis, real-time news feeds, calendars, and advanced data analytics that are unusual to find in a retail trading platform.

The "order book" provides insights into trader sentiment and behavior. MarketPulse, Autochartist, Dow Jones news, and calendars all serve to provide the trader with a comprehensive analytical tool set. For more experienced traders, the pattern matching engines and volatility analysis will be particularly helpful.

OANDA's analysis tools allow traders to test their strategies using common coding languages and analyze the effect of economic news directly on charts. The target market for such features tend to be experienced traders who need advanced analytics and resources to deploy, test, and manage their trading strategies in real time.

It's no surprise, then, that OANDA was awarded multiple "highest customer satisfaction" awards by Investment Trends research.

One possible drawback to such a wide array of tools and research is the education and training required to fully take advantage of them. OANDA does offer education and help for most of their tools and features, but it is fragmented and difficult to locate.

In all, it's a very robust offering and an area where OANDA ranks above the industry standard, but if there is one criticism, it is that the material is scattered across OANDA's website and trading platforms. Traders should expect a learning curve as they try to find everything. OANDA Corporation is a registered Futures Commission Merchant FCM and Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer RFED with the CFTC and is a member of the NFA OANDA Europe is authorized and regulated by the FCA in the U. and clients are entitled to additional asset protection up to £85, through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme FSCS.

Additionally, it is also regulated by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada IIROC , the Australian Securities and Investment Commission ASIC , the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the International Enterprise Singapore.

Despite the impressive amount of regulatory oversight, the amount of protection for each account in the event of default is limited and may vary depending on where your account is held. For example, OANDA Europe Limited offers ESMA-mandated negative balance protection, while OANDA Asia Pacific Pte Ltd.

clients are the exception, as OANDA Corporation does not offer their accounts any such protections. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC limits the maximum leverage available to retail forex traders in the United States to More information can be found on OANDA's regulatory and financial compliance page.

OANDA does just enough to meet regulatory standards as evidenced by the lack of two-factor authentication 2FA and biometric authentication for its mobile application. Its unwillingness to offer client accounts protection above and beyond the bare minimum required by regulators is a bit perplexing given that OANDA has won several awards over the years for being at the forefront of catering to customers. One could argue that it's this stellar reputation that affords OANDA the luxury of not providing additional protection, but gambling on that may prove to be a bit shortsighted on the part of management.

That said, OANDA's efforts to position itself as a trusted broker in the online broker space deserves credit. The company has emphasized its position by saying, "We believe the retail trading industry as a whole will benefit from a more transparent approach where brokers are held accountable for making questionable statements or falsely disclosing their interests. OANDA is well known to experienced traders in the forex market.

Its proprietary platform, fxTrade , offers an excellent desktop trading experience which, when coupled with superior research and analysis features, is well suited to traders who already know what trading the retail foreign exchange market entails. The broker's stated goal is to differentiate itself with superior trade execution and transparency, and all data points to that being the case. Beyond its intuitive design, charting with the fxTrade app is balanced with features such as research from Autochartist and news headlines.

A neat feature that stood out to me was the seamless transition to the trade ticket window from within the charts. Users can quickly enter their orders from the chart, then adjust their stop-loss and limit order levels with a simple drag and drop function. Lastly, adding educational and market analysis videos would be a logical and helpful next step in the evolution of the fxTrade app. I also appreciated that the web-based and desktop versions of fxTrade are identical to each other, which makes swapping between versions simple and painless.

However, many of the integrated features in the platform will trigger a new browser window to open — even when you are on the desktop version.

Other brokers integrate such features directly into the platform, which allows you to stay focused without a distracting flurry of new windows popping into your screen. The Seer Trading Platform, for example, supports algorithmic trading system development — including back-testing and forward-testing automated trading systems. OANDA also supports trading connectivity with multiple charting platforms such as TradingView, NinjaTrader, MultiCharts, and MotiveWave.

Account management: OANDA combines several services within its online account management portal, making it easy to transfer money between accounts and access your statements. OANDA provides forex and CFD traders everything they need to successfully navigate the markets, with multiple daily articles, as well as podcasts and research tools.

One minor annoyance is that many of the research resources from the desktop and web platform open in a new browser, rather than being directly integrated within the platform. OANDA also provides fewer video updates than the leaders in this category, such as Saxo Bank and IG. Research overview: OANDA offers a broad range of research for forex traders. Finally, OANDA produces a Market Insights series with daily analysis updates.

Premium content: OANDA offers Dow Jones Select, and third-party technical analysis software is available from MotiveWave and MultiCharts. OANDA balances its decent offering of written educational material with a series of webinars conducted by its staff.

However, it lacks an extensive range of educational videos. Expanding its range of videos and further organizing its existing content would elevate OANDA's educational offering, which does not currently measure up to education leaders such as IG and AvaTrade.

Each chapter comes with several lessons, but many of the accompanying videos are just platform tutorials — not financial market education. Adding the ability to filter educational resources by experience level would benefit traders of all competencies.

The best brokers in this category have a comprehensive offering of both videos and articles. It also delivers robust market research content and an excellent mobile app. OANDA's U. brand holds regulatory status in the U. For , OANDA was again Best in Class in the Ease of Use category, thanks to its straightforward web and mobile trading apps. All in all, OANDA offers something for casual investors, while also serving sophisticated traders who prefer to connect via API or use automated trading systems on MT4.

Furthermore, unlike most brokers that offer micro contracts 1, units as the smallest trade size, OANDA allows you to trade as little as 1 unit of currency when trading forex. This makes OANDA a great option for those who want to test a trading strategy with a small deposit and not be constrained by the minimum trade size.

OANDA does rank highly for its ease-of-use factor, making its fxTrade platform and client dashboard good for beginners, especially when compared to the complex trading software available from other brokers. In addition, OANDA has a decent offering of client education, alongside excellent research. OANDA is regulated in numerous Tier-1 jurisdictions including in the U. Founded in , OANDA operates across eight global financial centers, serving clients in over countries through its entities licensed in six major regulatory jurisdictions, including the U.

The OANDA Group has multiple subsidiaries who are licensed to offer products to clients around the globe. The OANDA subsidiary with whom a client contracts depends on their country of residence. Each subsidiary provides different products via different platforms, so clients will experience OANDA differently depending on their country of residence.

For our Forex Broker Review we assessed, rated, and ranked 39 international forex brokers over a three-month time period resulting in over 50, words of published research.

Oanda is a US-based forex broker founded in It is a private company and therefore not listed on any stock exchange. Oanda operates via several entities worldwide and is regulated by top-tier authorities, such as the US Commodity Trading Futures Commission, the National Futures Association CFTC and the UK's Financial Conduct Authority FCA.

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

The services offered by Oanda's various entities differ slightly. In this review, we mainly focus on the UK one. You can open an account at Oanda if you live in Colombia. See the best alternative available in your country. Oanda offers high-quality and easy-to-use trading platforms, and its research tools are also powerful, with numerous technical indicators and a great API offer.

The account opening process is user-friendly and quick. On the downside, Oanda has a limited product portfolio, as you can trade only forex and CFDs. It is not listed on a stock exchange and doesn't have a banking background, two factors that could boost its safety qualification.

We ranked Oanda's fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers. To get things rolling, let's go over some lingo related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees and non-trading fees. In the sections below, you will find the most relevant fees of Oanda for each asset class.

For example, in the case of forex and stock index trading, spreads, commissions and financing rates are the most important fees. We also compared Oanda's fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, Pepperstone and FXCM. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of Oanda alternatives. Oanda's trading fees are low. In general, Oanda charges spread costs instead of commissions per trade.

We know it's hard to compare trading fees for forex brokers. So we compared brokers by calculating all the fees of a typical trade for selected products. A typical trade means buying the instrument, holding it for one week and then selling it. The available leverage depends on your country of residence. For example, the maximum leverage is for US customers. On the other hand, is the maximum for EU customers.

For positions held overnight, you have to pay interest. These are called financing rates. The value of the rate depends on a variety of factors, including daily rates, size of the position, chosen product, funding rates and so. These, however, change daily and some may fall outside the above ranges. At BrokerChooser, we incorporate these rates into our fee calculation. Oanda charges low forex fees , matching its closest competitors in the case of most forex pairs.

Some brokers provide pip calculators to help you assess and manage your risks. With a pip calculator, you can calculate the value of a pip in the currency you are trading. However, they provide a Spread Cost Calculator you can use to calculate your absolute spread cost annually.

At Oanda, the smallest available lot size is micro lots , which is 1, units of a given currency. This trading size is available on MetaTrader 4. There is no account or deposit fee. The withdrawal fee is rather high for bank transfers and PayPal GBP, EUR, USD only. For details, see our table on withdrawal fees here. Visit broker Oanda is deeply rooted in the North American continent.

The broker was founded in Canada and has its HQ in New York. Both US and Canadian citizens can open an account at Oanda. There is only one type of trading account at Oanda in addition to a demo and a corporate account. However, you can open up to 19 sub-accounts. These are great if you want to have different base currencies under one account. you can have a USD account with EUR and GBP subaccounts.

Oanda also provides API possibility for exchanges - it might come in handy if you'd like to develop your own platform. From start to finish, you can open an account in less than 10 minutes. Account approval, though, can take multiple days, as we were asked to send some of our verification documents in email; but it's still quick if you respond to their emails in time. You need to submit a separate form to request the removal of your account. However, you can open as many as 19 sub-accounts.

These are great if you want to have different base currencies under one main account. For example, you can have a USD account with EUR and GBP sub-accounts. Oanda offers a demo account.

Visit broker. At Oanda, you can choose from 9 base currencies, a selection that compares well to the company's closest competitors. Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your account base currency, you don't have to pay a conversion fee. A convenient way to save on currency conversion fees is opening a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank.

Digital banks offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. Opening an account only takes a few minutes on your phone.

Compare digital banks. Deposit options vary depending on your residency and your account currency. We listed the main options below. Electronic wallets supported by Oanda include PayPal UK, Canada as well as Neteller and Skrill most of Asia and other emerging markets. You can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name. For more information, visit Oanda's website. Withdrawal options and fees vary depending on your residency and your account base currency.

The main withdrawal options are the same as those for deposits. However, withdrawal via bank transfer is quite expensive in most cases. How long does it take to withdraw money from Oanda? Oanda says it can take anywhere between one and six business days, depending on the withdrawal method and your residency.

In our tests, it took one business day using a debit card. At Oanda, you can choose from two web trading platforms: Oanda's own platform or MetaTrader 4. In this review, we tested Oanda's own platform. Oanda's web trading platform is available in several languages:. Oanda's own trading platform is user-friendly and well-designed.

It is also customizable, allowing you to change the position and size of the tabs. Oanda offers two-step login , which is safer than using only a username and a password. For two-step login to work, you'll have to install the Google Authenticator app, which is a compromise that's easy to live with for the sake of security. The platform's search function is good , although its location is not very intuitive.

Only Good 'til Date GTD order time limit is available. To get a better understanding of these terms, read this overview of order types. You can't set price alerts and notifications on the web trading platform, although this function would be useful and is available at several other brokers. Oanda has clear portfolio and fee reports. Oanda clients chan use the broker's proprietary trading platform called fxTrade and MetaTrader 4, a popular trading platform among CFD and forex traders.

While both MetaTrader 4 and fxTrade are highly customizable, the former feels a bit more outdated in design than its in-house-built counterpart. Another key difference is that you can build trading bots called Expert Advisors in with MetaTrader 4. All in all, the two platforms are highly similar to each other.

Oanda publishes all maintenance times before starting work on their platform; you can check the latest info here. Oanda's mobile trading platform is available for both iOS and Android. We tested it on Android in English. The platform is available in the following languages:.

OANDA is well known to experienced traders in the forex market. Is Weekend Forex Market Hours at OANDA Supported? Rebates and Discounts with Active Trader Loyalty program OANDA also offers an Active Trader Loyalty program, for which you can choose a rebate or a commission markdown. A well-organized website with a stated goal of transparency, emphasis on client education and research, multiple user interfaces, and global regulatory oversight place OANDA in the top tier of online forex brokers. Regulations OANDA is regulated in six tier-1 jurisdictions, making it a safe broker low-risk for forex and CFDs trading regardless of which country you sign up with OANDA from.

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