Category: Broker Review

Fortrade Review 2023

Fortrade logo

For this Fortrade review, we have opened a standard account with the broker and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the real spreads and placed a total of 12 trades.
We also reached out to customer support to solve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is Fortrade?

Fortrade is a London-headquartered forex and CFD (contracts for difference) broker brand and was established in 2013.

The broker carries multiple licenses from regulators in the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Australia, Canada, and Belarus, and has operations globally.

Fortrade’s offerings include forex, indices, commodities, stocks and cryptocurrency CFDs.

Some of the highlights of Fortrade are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Cyprus, Belarus, Australia, Canada
🛡️ Is Fortrade safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.83
💳 Minimum deposit	€100
💰 Withdrawal fee	0
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, Fortrade Platform
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities, ETFs, US Treasuries, Cryptocurrenies
📉 Number of Products	303 (depends on the jurisdiction)

Fortradee.com Review Licenses and Regulations

Fortrade holds licenses from regulators in 5 countries.

The broker is regulated in United Kingdom, Cyprus, Australia, Canada, and Belarus. The UK’s FCA, Australia’s ASIC, and Canada’s IIROC are deemed as top global financial regulators.

The full list of Fortrade licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License number	Accepting clients from	Compensation scheme amount
Fortrade Ltd	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	609970	United Kingdom	£85,000
Fortrade Cyprus Ltd	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	385/20	European Union	€20,000
Fort Securities Australia Pty Ltd	Australia	Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)	493520	Australia	No compensation scheme
Fortrade Canada Limited	Canada	Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC)	BC1148613	Canada	No compensation scheme
LLC “Fort Securities BLR”	Belarus	National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB)	193075810	Global	No compensation scheme

Fortrade ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) Registration — Fortrade ASIC Registration

Is Fortrade Safe?

Yes, Fortrade is a safe broker for trading.

The broker is well-regulated with a total of 5 licenses. Additionally, the clients under the FCA and CySEC also receive a compensation scheme of £85,000 and €20,000, respectively, for the protection of their funds.

For our tests, we opened an account with Fortrade Cyprus Ltd which is regulated by Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) in Cyprus.

Fees and Commissions

Trading fees on Fortrade are built into spreads.

Spreads on all of our trades were higher than the industry average benchmark.

Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average spread.

Spreads for our trades in all asset classes remained stable with minor variations.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.5	2	2	1.83
Indices	FTSE 100	2.1	2.4	2.3	2.27
Stocks	Apple	2.6	2.6	2.6	2.6
Commodities	Gold	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5

Our testing finds that Fortrade spreads on forex, indices, stocks, and commodities CFDs are higher than the industry average.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.83	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	2.27	1.65
Stocks	Apple	2.6	1.75
Commodities	Gold	4.5	3.53

Other Fees

Fortrade does not charge any deposit and withdrawal fees.

The broker also charges a $10 monthly inactivity fee after a dormancy period of180 days. There is no maintenance fee.

Account Types

Fortrade offers only one account type.

	Fortrade Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4, Fortrade Platform
Account Currency	USD, GBP, EUR, TRY
Minimum deposit	€100
Commission	None
Order execution	Instant Execution
Spread	From 0.02

Fortrade also offers a swap-free Islamic account.

Account Opening

Our overall experience of opening a new account with Fortrade was smooth and fast.

We opened a Fortrade Account for our tests under the Cyprus-regulated entity.

The process of registration of a new Fortrade account:

Enter first name, last name, email, and mobile number on the initial registration page.
Enter the country of residence, account currency, password, date of birth, and address.
Provide details like country of citizenship, place of birth, employment status, the reason for trading, annual income, source of funds, and a few other fields.
Answer a quick questionnaire on trading knowledge and experience.

We submitted the following documents to verify our Fortrade account:

Copy of national identification (both front and back)
Copy of our bank statement

The registration process took around 6 minutes. Our account was verified on the same day, in fact, it was done in 10 minutes.
Our account was registered on April 9, 2023, and approved on the same day.
Our overall account opening experience was smooth and without any issues from registration to verification.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Deposits on Fortrade are easy and fast, but withdrawal requests took more time than usual to complete.

The broker does not charge any fees for most of the deposit and withdrawal methods, with only the exception of wire transfers.

Minimum Deposit

Fortrade requires a minimum deposit of €100 or equivalent in other base currencies.

Traders only need to maintain the minimum deposit balance on their accounts.

Deposit

Fortrade supports deposits with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and popular e-wallets like Neteller, and Skrill.

We tested the deposit process on Fortrade using a credit card, Neteller, and Skrill.

Details of our fund deposits are shown in the below table.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time
Credit card	2023-04-14	2023-04-14	8 hours
Skrill	2023-04-14	2023-04-14	4 hours
Neteller	2023-04-14	2023-04-14	4 hours

Fortrade required a transaction confirmation from our side when you made the deposit using Skrill.
PayPal funding option wasn’t available as the broker don’t provide a “continue” button to proceed with the transaction.

Fortrade Deposit Methods — Fortrade Deposit Page

Withdrawal

Fortrade allows withdrawals with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and online wallets like Neteller and Skrill, same as deposits.

Overall, our experience with the Fortrade withdrawal process was okay, but the process took longer than usual.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time
Credit card	2023-04-14	2023-04-20	2023-04-21	6 working day
Neteller	2023-04-14	2023-04-20	2023-04-20	5 working day
Skrill	2023-04-14	2023-04-20	2023-04-20	5 working day

For withdrawals, we requested €3,000 to credit card, €1,950 to Skrill, and €50 to Neteller. The broker, however, transferred €3,000 to credit card, €1020.78 to Skrill, and €900 to Neteller.

Markets and Products

Fortrade offers CFDs trading services with forex, indices, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrency instruments.

The complete list of Fortrade offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	54
Indices	17
Stocks	200
Commodities	25
ETFs	3
US Treasuries	3
Cryptocurrencies	4

The markets and the number of offered instruments will depend on the account jurisdiction.

Cryptocurrency CFDs are only available under the ASIC and CySEC-regulated entities.

Trading Conditions

Trading conditions on Fortrade are decent. The broker allows hedging and scalping strategies but traders cannot change leverage levels.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	No

Changing of leverage on Fortrade depends on market conditions. Though it is closed now, it might be opened in the future.

Leverage

Leverages offered by the various entities of Fortrade are detailed below:

Markets	Fortrade Ltd	Fortrade Cyprus Ltd	Fort Securities Australia Pty Ltd	Fortrade Canada Limited	LLC “Fort Securities BLR”
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	30:1	34.4:1	100:1
Non-Major Currency Pairs	20:1	20:1	20:1	34.4:1	100:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	20:1	38:1	100:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1	10:1	10:1	38:1	100:1
Indices	5:1	5:1	20:1	18:1	100:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	5:1	6:1	5:1
Cryptocurrencies	NA	2:1	5:1	NA	NA

Trading Platform

Fortrade offers trading services on its proprietary platform and also on industry-standard MetaTrader 4, which is developed by MetaQuotes Software.

We executed all our trades on the MetaTrader 4 trading platform.

Research and Tools

Fortrade offers decent market research and analysis tools.

Tools offered by the broker include:

Good charting tools
Economic calendar
Signals using Trading Central
Market analysis

Education

Fortrade offers excellent educational resources to beginner traders.

The broker’s educational materials only include:

Webinars
eBooks
Tutorial videos
Courses for both beginner and advanced traders
Glossary
Demo account

Fortrade Educational Material — Fortrade Educational Resource

Customer Service

Fortrade offers excellent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

Live chat
email
Phone

The support staff is available only on weekdays.

Our experience with Fortrade customer support was excellent.
The support staff on both live chat and email was prompt with the response and provided accurate and detailed answers.

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Asked if Fortrade require any docs after the trader submitting a withdrawal request	1 minute	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked several questions about their trading account, spread, and commissions	1 hour	Clear and very detailed

A Fortrade account service manager contacted us once our trading account was opened successfully. We asked several questions about Fortrade in general and questions about trading to the service manager.
The service of the account service manager is better than the broker’s Live Chat as the Live Chat support staff has limited access to customer accounts. When we asked some trading account questions to Fortrade Live Chat support staff, the team said they will ask our account service manager to contact us and answer our questions.
We recommend traders contact the account service manager rather than Live Chat.

The broker also has a detailed FAQ section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with Fortrade was positive.

The spreads charged by the broker are on the higher side, but the trade execution speed was fast.

Our account opening experience was smooth and the broker does not charge fees for deposits and withdrawals. However, we are a bit disappointed with the speed of the withdrawals.

The customer support was also excellent, especially the account service manager.

We recommend Fortrade to forex traders who run EA and other trading strategies.

We recommend Fortrade for traders who are

Experienced traders
Beginners
Run Scalping
Hedging
Trading through MT4

Tickmill might not be a fit if you are

Real Stock / Futures Trading
Commission based trading
Looking for advanced instrument range

Tags Fortrade review

Broker Review

ICM Capital Review 2023

For this ICM Capital review, we opened a live account and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to discover the actual spreads and placed 12 trades in total.
We reached out to the broker’s customer support team to resolve the challenges we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to determine whether the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is ICM Capital

ICM Capital is a global Forex and CFDs broker established in 2009 with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom.

The broker is licensed in the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Malaysia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Mauritius.

ICM Capital offers over 140 tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks and commodities categories, which is not much compared to the industry leaders.

Here’s a summary of ICM Capital’s main features:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Cyprus, Malaysia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Mauritius
🛡️ Is ICM Capital safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.4
💳 Minimum deposit	US$200
💰 Withdrawal fee	$0 charges once per calendar month
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities
📉 Number of Products	149

Licenses and Regulations

ICM Capital is licensed by 5 global regulators, including the top-tier UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), and Malaysia’s Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA).

The broker is also regulated in St Vincent and the Grenadines and by Mauritius Financial Services Commission (FSC).

Here’s a full list of the licenses held by ICM Capital’s subsidiaries:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting Clients From	Compensation Scheme Amount
ICM Capital Limited	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	520965	United Kingdom	£85,000
ICM Capital EU	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	367/18	EU	€20,000
ICM Trader Ltd	Malaysia	Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA)	MB/18/0029	Globally many countries	No compensation scheme
ICM Capital VC	St Vincent and the Grenadines	Financial Services Authority (FSA)	23683 IBC 2016	Globally many countries	No compensation scheme
ICM Capital (Mauritius) Limited	Mauritius	Financial Services Commission (FSC)	C118023357	Globally many countries	No compensation scheme

ICM Capital FCA License

Is ICM Capital Safe

Yes, ICM Capital is safe to trade. The broker is the top-tier FCA (UK Financial Conduct Authority) regulated, which has strict rules and enforcement procedures.

The UK’s FCA guarantees investors’ deposit compensation of up to £85,000 if the broker goes bankrupt.

The broker is also licensed by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), which offers deposit compensation of up to €20,000 to eligible clients if the broker becomes insolvent.

We had a smooth experience when trading with ICM Capital.

For this review, we opened an MT4 ICM Direct account with ICM Capital Limited, regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

We recommend that you open your account with the UK or Cyprus entity if either is available to you.

Fees and Commissions

ICM Capital charges low fees for trading the main assets on offer. The fees charged for trading Forex pairs, indices, stocks, and commodities were lower than industry averages.

None of the broker’s average fees for the instruments tested was above industry benchmarks, which was impressive.

Spread Charged in our Trades

For our tests, we traded the most popular instrument in each segment. We placed 3 trades per instrument to get an accurate estimate of the average spread. We tested the MT4 ICM Direct Account, which charges a spread on all instruments.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.4	1.4	1.4	1.4
Indices	FTSE 100	0.9	0.9	0.9	0.9
Stocks	Apple	0.615	0.615	0.62	0.62
Commodities	Gold	3.4	3.3	3.3	3.33

We executed all our trades via the MetaTrader 4 mobile app on our iPhone.

Comparing the spreads charged in our trades to the industry averages showed that the broker’s spreads on all instruments were much lower than industry benchmarks.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. Spread Charged	Industry Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.40	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	0.90	1.65
Stocks	Apple	0.62	1.75
Commodities	Gold	3.33	3.53

Other fees

ICM Capital does not charge any other non-trading fees such as deposit and withdrawal fees or account inactivity fees.

Account Types

ICM Capital offers 2 account types with slight differences. These are the ICM Direct Account and the ICM Zero Account (spread from zero).

The differences are outlined below:

	ICM Direct	ICM Zero Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4	MetaTrader 4
Account Currency	USD/ EUR/ GBP/ SGD	USD/ EUR/ GBP/ SGD
Minimum Deposit	$/€/£ 200	$/€/£ 200
Commission	Zero	$7/Round lot for FX and Metals only – No commission is charged on all other products
Order Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 1.3	From 0
Note

ICM Capital offers swap-free Islamic Accounts to clients of the Muslim faith only. Such accounts do not attract a swap fee or rollover interest for positions held overnight in line with Sharia Law.

For our tests, we chose to open an MT4 ICM Direct Account.

ICM Capital Login

ICM Capital account opening was quick and straightforward. We went through the entire process and completed it online.

Here are the 5 steps to opening an ICM Capital account:

Enter your full names, email, password, phone number, country and preferred language.
Provide your date of birth, home address, nationality, passport number and clarify if you are a US citizen.
Answer questions regarding your trading experience if you have ever traded forex and futures including your years of experience and transactions made in the last two years.
Confirm if you have ever worked in the financial services sector and choose your trading platform, account type and currency.
Lastly, provide details about your employment status, annual income, net worth, liquid assets, and expected deposit in USD.

ICM Capital Account Opening

The registration process took 8 minutes only, and our account was approved in 3 working days.
We opened the account on 9 April 2023, and it was approved on 13 April 2023.
We provided front and back pictures of our ID to verify our identity and a utility bill to confirm our home address.
We opened an MT4 ICM Direct account with ICM Capital Limited, which is regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for this test.

Deposit and Withdrawal

ICM Capital offers fast deposits and withdrawals. Traders can deposit and withdraw from their accounts via bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill, Neteller, and PayPal.

The broker charges different fees for each deposit method but does not charge fees on withdrawals, which is not very common in the industry.

ICM Capital Deposit and Withdrawal

ICM Capital Minimum Deposit

ICM Capital has a minimum deposit requirement of US$200 or its equivalent on all account types.

ICM Deposit

ICM Capital’s clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts via bank transfers, debit and credit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill, PayPal, and Neteller.

Credit/debit card deposits of $200 and above do not attract charges, which is the minimum amount you can deposit using this method.

Bank Transfers, Skrill, Neteller, and PayPal deposits above USD 500 or its equivalent also do not attract charges.

Skrill deposits below USD 500 attract a transaction fee of $0.32, a receive money fee of 1.9%, and a country surcharge fee of 1%.

Neteller deposits below USD 500 attract a 2.5% fee, or a minimum $1 fee, combined with a $0.29 transaction fee and a country surcharge fee of $1.

PayPal deposits below USD 500 have a transaction fee of 3.75% combined with a fixed currency fee of GBP 0.20/ EUR 0.35/ USD 0.30.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Skrill	29 April 2023	29 April 2023	40 mins	€0.00
Neteller	29 April 2023	29 April 2023	10 mins	€0.00
PayPal	29 April 2023	29 April 2023	30 mins	€0.00

The broker processed our deposits quickly and with zero fees because we deposited amounts above the levels that attract fees. We did not test the bank wire and credit card options.

Our Credit card transaction was rejected, but ICM Capital advised us to contact our bank because the broker did not reject the transaction.

ICM Withdrawal

ICM Capital allows its clients to make withdrawals via the same payment methods available for deposits making it easy for investors to access their funds.

ICM Capital does not charge a fee on withdrawals.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funds Released Date	Funds Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Skrill	29 April 2023	30 April 2023	30 April 2023	1 working day	zero
PayPal	29 April 2023	30 April 2023	30 April 2023	1 working day	zero
Neteller	29 April 2023	30 April 2023	30 April 2023	1 working day	zero

We did not face any challenges when withdrawing our funds.

Markets and Products

ICM Capital offers various tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, and commodities markets.

Here’s the complete list of ICM Capital’s product offering:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	34
Indices	17
Stocks	93
Commodities	5
Cryptocurrencies	0

The broker offers a decent number of tradable instruments but is way below industry leaders who offer thousands of products.

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at ICM Capital are great. Traders can execute most trading strategies as the broker allows high-risk strategies such as hedging and scalping.

ICM Capital also allows traders to run automated strategies powered by Expert Advisors (EAs).

There are no time limits for how long traders can keep their hedging positions open.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	Yes*

*Traders can request to change leverage by sending an email to their customer support.

Leverage

ICM Capital offers its clients various leverage levels depending on the entity under which their account is registered. For non-EU entities, ICM Capital offers high leverage up to 500:1 and 2000:1.

Traders are allowed to change their account’s leverage levels after registration.

The table below shows the different leverage levels available to clients:

Markets	ICM Capital Limited	ICM Capital EU	ICM Trader Ltd	ICM Capital VC	ICM Capital (Mauritius) Limited
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	500:1	500:1	2000:1
Non-major Currency Pairs	20:1	20:1	100:1	400:1	500:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	100:1	100:1	500:1
Other Commodities (except gold)	10:1	10:1	100:1	50:1	200:1
Indices	5:1	5:1	100:1	200:1	2000:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	10:1	20:1	10:1
Cryptocurrencies	N/A	2:1	2:1	5:1	100:1

Bonus

ICM Capital offers a 10% deposit bonus to its clients up to a maximum of $1,000. Traders should deposit a minimum of $2,000 to qualify for the promotion.

Traders can only withdraw the bonus after trading a specific number of lots depending on the bonus amount.*

*Credit bonus / 5 = no of lots traded.

ICM Trading Platform

ICM Capital has a proprietary platform known as ICM Direct, which uses ECN technology to provide customers with direct market access, with liquidity from major Tier 1 banks and top liquidity providers. The platform also offers low latency bridging with the MetaTrader 4 platform.

The broker also offers the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform. Clients can access the platform via desktop, Mac and mobile applications.

ICM Capital MT4

ICM Capital MT4 Trading Platform

The MT4 platform was our preferred choice because of its advanced functions, including 2,000 free custom indicators combined with 30 in-built indicators. The platform also has 24 inbuilt analytical objects used to predict future price movements.

We found the MetaTrader 4 platform to be best suited to all types of traders including manual traders and those who use automated strategies.

Research and Tools

ICM Capital provides market research via its partnership with Trading Central giving its clients access to live technical analysis that provides real-time trade opportunities.

Traders also have access to short market news pieces that summarise the price action of different assets. The pieces are short and could be more detailed.

The broker provides an economic calendar on its website under the ‘Trading tools’ tab but does not provide historical data. Traders can track various economic releases and plan their trading activities accordingly.

ICM Capital Trading Tools

The broker’s research offering was quite underwhelming.

Education

ICM Capital offers several learning resources to its clients. The broker has an ‘Introduction to Forex’ course covering the basics of Forex trading, including how the financial markets work.

The course is found in the resources section of its website, but it could have been more detailed.

The broker also provides a trading glossary with definitions of key trading terms. The list could have covered more topics.

ICM Capital also has a section on trading rules that delves into the details of actual trading, including how to calculate profits and losses, contract sizes, and pip values, among others. We found this section very useful.

ICM Capital Educational Material — ICM Capital Education Centre

Customer Service

ICM Capital’s customer service team was helpful and gave us detailed and accurate answers to our questions. We first contacted the team via live chat and asked them whether they charge any deposit and withdrawal fees.

We received a fast response from the agent, saying that there are no charges for credit card deposits over 200 USD or equivalent in other currencies, which is also the minimum deposit. For Bank Transfer, Skrill. Neteller and PayPal, there are no charges for deposits over 500 USD or their equivalent.

ICM Capital Customer Support

You can also reach ICM Capital’s customer service team via email. We sent the team an email asking several general questions, including the minimum deposit, whether they charge any deposit and withdrawal fees, the licenses that ICM Capital holds, and whether they allow hedging, scalping and change of leverage.

We got a detailed response in one working day, clarifying that the minimum deposit for both ICM Direct & ICM Zero is 200 USD or equivalent in other currencies.

ICM Capital does not charge any fees on deposits and withdrawals. However, the broker waives the transfer fees for any Credit/Debit card deposit over USD 200.00 and deposits over USD 500 for other payment methods.

Here are the results of our test below:

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live chat	We asked if they charge any deposit and withdrawal fees	1 minute	It was direct, fast and accurate.
Live Chat	We asked why our debit card deposit was declined?	2 minutes	They asked for clarification, the gave us an answer
Email	We asked several general questions, including what’s the minimum deposit, do they charge deposit and withdrawal fees, the licenses that ICM Capital holds, whether they allow hedging, scalping and change of leverage	1 working day	It was direct and detailed.

Conclusion

Overall, we had a smooth experience with ICM Capital from the account opening, to the deposit and trading processes.

Both the live chat and email support replies were fast and came with complete answers. We recommend traders use both methods to contact the broker’s team.

We deposited over 500 EUR for each of the tested payment methods, so there were no charges on our deposits. ICMCapital review found fees are normally passed on for deposits below EUR 500. Our debit card deposit was declined which we didn’t expect, and their support team suggested we contact our bank to investigate as their team didn’t reject our debit card deposit.

All our deposits weren’t instant; it took approximately 40 min for ICM Capital to credit all our deposits into our trading account. Withdrawals via Neteller, Paypal and Skrill, were fast. It took us less than 1 working day to receive all the withdrawn funds.

Tradable instruments were limited compared to the leading brokers. ICM Capital offers most of the popular instruments but only offers the MT4 trading platform.

We also recommend ICM Capital to all traders, from beginners to advanced traders.

We recommend ICM Capital for traders who are

Experienced traders
Beginners
Run Scalping
Hedging
EAs trading
Trading through MT4

ICM Capital might not be a fit if you are

Real Stock / Futures Trading
Looking for wide instrument range
Prefer other platforms rather than MT4

Broker Review

Amana Capital Review 2023

Post author By George Rossi
Post date April 10, 2022
No Comments on Amana Capital Review 2023

Amana Capital logo

For this Amana Capital review, we have opened a standard account with the broker and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the real spreads and placed a total of 12 trades.
We also reached out to customer support to solve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is Amana Capital?

Amana Capital is well-known forex and contracts for difference (CFDs) broker with offices in Dubai, London, Limassol, and Beirut.

The broker was founded in 2010 and operates globally. It is regulated in countries like the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, Malaysia, and Mauritius.

The offerings of Amana Capital include trading with forex, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and shares CFDs.

Some of the highlights of Amana Capital are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Cyprus, UAE, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritius
🛡️ Is Amana Capital safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.43
💳 Minimum deposit	US$50
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0 (with many exceptions)
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	392 (depends on the jurisdiction)

Is Amana Capital Regulated

Amana Capital holds licenses from 6 regulators.

The broker is regulated in the UK, the UAE, Cyprus, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Mauritius. The UK’s FCA and the UAE’s DFSA are considered as two of the top global financial regulators.

The full list of Amana Capital licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License number	Accepting clients from	Compensation scheme amount
Amana Financial Services UK Limited	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	605070	United Kingdom, Global	£85,000
Amana Financial Services (Dubai) Limited	United Arab Emirates	Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA)	F003269	Middle East	No compensation scheme
Amana Capital Ltd	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	155/11	European Union	€20,000
Amana Capital SAL	Lebanon	Lebanese Capital Markets Authority (CMA)	26	NA	No compensation scheme
AFS Global	Malaysia	Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA)	MB/18/0025	Global	No compensation scheme
ACG International Limited	Mauritius	Financial Services Commission – Mauritius (FSC)	C118023192	Global	No compensation scheme

Amana Capital is not accepting accounts through Amana Capital SAL anymore due to the banking crisis in Lebanon and the very tough rules of the central bank of Lebanon.

Amana Capital DFSA (Dubai Financial Services Authority) Registration — **Amana Capital** DFSA License

Is Amana Capital Safe?

Yes, Amana Capital is a safe broker.

The broker is well-regulated with a total of 6 licenses. It is also overseen by the UK’s FCA and the UAE’s DFSA, two well-reputed financial market regulators.

The FCA and the CySEC also offer compensation schemes of £85,000 and €20,000, respectively, to protect clients’ funds.

Amana Capital UK

For our tests, we opened an MT5 Amana Classic account with Amana Financial Services UK Limited, which is regulated by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK.
We recommend you open an account with the UK or the UAE unit if their services are available in your jurisdiction.

Fees and Commissions

Amana Capital’s trading fees are mostly built into spreads. The broker charges commission on share CFDs trading and for all asset classes on its top-tier accounts.

Spreads for forex and stocks on our trades were much below the average industry benchmark.

Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average spread.

Our test is based on Amana Capital’s Amana Classic account. Spreads for our trades remained stable with minor deflections for all asset classes.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.45	1.45	1.4	1.43
Indices	FTSE 100	1.8	1.8	1.8	1.8
Stocks	Apple	0.45	0.4	0.4	0.42
Commodities	Gold	4.55	4.15	4.35	4.35

Our testing finds that spreads on forex and share CFDs are lower than the industry average. Spreads on indices and commodities are, however, on the higher side.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.43	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	1.8	1.65
Stocks	Apple	0.42	1.75
Commodities	Gold	4.35	3.53

Other Fees

Amana Capital charges deposit and withdrawal fees on most of the methods. It does not have any account maintenance or inactivity fees.

Withdrawal and deposit fees on Amana Capital are detailed below:

	Deposit fee	Withdrawal fee
Wire Transfer	£6	None
Amana Prepaid Cards	$3	1.5%
Credit/debit card (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro)	1.5%	None
Debit Card (Union Pay)	None	0.5%
Neteller	3.9% + $0.29	2% Capped at $30
Skrill	3.9% + $0.29	1%
E Pay	None	None
Perfect Money, Payeer, AdvCash	5%	None
WebMoney	2.8%	2.8%
Moneta	4.95%	4.9%
Qiwi	6.5%	2%
Fast Bank Transfer	2.5% or €1 or €2	None
FasaPay	Free	0.5% capped at $5

Account Types

Amana Capital offers four account types: Amana Classic, Amana Active, Shares Account, and Amana Elite.

Amana Active account is eligible to clients with a minimum funding of $25,000 and $100 million of volume per calendar month.

Details of all Amana Capital accounts are:

	Amana Classic	Amana Active	Shares Account	Amana Elite
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 5
Account Currency	USD, GBP, EUR	USD, GBP, EUR	USD, EUR	USD, GBP, EUR
Minimum deposit	$50	$25,000	NA	$250,000
Commission	0 Commission on FX，0 Commission on Cash CFDs，$10 / lot on Futures CFDs，0.02$ / Share on Share CFDs (min 15$/tx)	$30 per 1M on FX, $0 on Cash CFDs, $5 per lot on Future CFDs	0.02$ / Share ($15 minimum/transaction)	Raw spread + 4 to 6 $ commission round trip
Order execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Instant Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 1.4	From 0.1	From 0	From 0

Amana Capital also offers swap-free Islamic accounts, joint accounts, and corporate accounts.

Account Opening

Our overall experience of opening a new account with Amana Capital was smooth and fast.

We opened a MetaTrader 5 Amana Classic account for our tests under the FCA-regulated entity.

The process of registration of a new Amana Capital account:

Fill the initial registration form with details like account type, first name, last name, email, mobile number, and the preferred Amana entity.
Click on the link sent to the registered email to proceed with the registration process.
Enter trading platform, base currency, nationality, passport number (optional), date of birth, address, employment type, and educational level.
Answer questionnaires on trading knowledge and experience.
Provide details on the source of funds, intended initial investment, funding method, estimated annual income, estimated net worth, TIN number.

We submitted the following documents to verify our Amana Capital account:

Copy of national identification (both front and back)
Copy of our bank statement

The registration process took around 14 minutes. Our account was verified on the same working day, within 6 hours.
Our account was registered on March 25, 2023, and approved on the same day.
Our overall account opening experience was smooth and without any issues from registration to verification.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Both deposits and withdrawals on Amana Capital are easy and fast. All our funding and withdrawal requests were completed without any issues.

However, the broker charges high deposit and withdrawal fees on most of the methods.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit on Amana Capital varies with the account types.

Amana Classic account: $50
Amana Active account: $25,000
Shares account: None
Amana Elite account: $250,000

Traders only need to maintain the minimum deposit balance on their accounts.

Deposit

Amana Capital supports deposits with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, online wallets like Neteller and Skrill, and many other popular regional methods.

The broker charges heavy fees on deposits.

The deposit methods also depend on the account jurisdiction.

We tested the deposit process on Amana Capital using a credit card, Neteller, and Skrill.

Details of our fund deposits are shown in the below table.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Credit card	2023-03-31	2023-03-31	1 hour	1.5%
Neteller	2023-03-31	2023-03-31	5 minutes	3.9% + $0.29
Skrill	2023-03-31	2023-03-31	6 minutes	3.9% + $0.29

Amana Capital Deposit Methods — Amana Capital Deposit

Amana Capital Withdrawal

Amana Capital allows withdrawals with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, online wallets like Neteller and Skrill, and many other popular regional methods, same as the deposit methods.

Though a few key withdrawal methods are free, the broker charges fees for most of the methods.

Overall, our experience with the Amana Capital withdrawal process was positive, except for the fees.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit card	2023-04-01	2023-04-01	2023-04-02	1 working day	zero
Neteller	2023-04-01	2023-04-01	2023-04-01	4 hous	2%
Skrill	2023-04-01	2023-04-01	2023-04-01	2 hours	1%

Markets and Products

Amana Capital offers CFDs trading services with forex, indices, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies instruments.

The complete list of Amana Capital’s offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	64
Indices	20
Stocks and ETFs	286
Commodities	18
Cryptocurrency	4

The markets and the number of offered instruments will depend on the account jurisdiction.

Trading Conditions

Amana Capital offers excellent trading conditions, allowing both hedging and scalping strategies. Traders can change leverage levels as well.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	Yes

Leverage

Leverages offered by Amana Capital on various asset class are standard, as per the regulatory requirements, and are detailed below:

Markets	Amana Financial Services UK Limited	Amana Capital Ltd	Amana Financial Services (Dubai) Limited	AFS Global	ACG International Limited
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	400:1	500:1	2000:1
Non-Major Currency Pairs	20:1	20:1	400:1	100:1	500:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	200:1	100:1	500:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1	10:1	50:1	100:1	200:1
Indices	5:1	5:1	200:1	100:1	2000:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	10:1	10:1	10:1
Cryptocurrencies	NA	2:1	20:1	2:1	100:1

Bonus

Amana Capital offers three promotional offers to traders under its Malaysia-regulated entity (Read about no deposit bonus Malaysia).

Bonus of $200 on deposits of $1,000

Maximum payout	$1000
Minimum deposit	$1000
Available instrument	All CFDs (excluding CFDs on shares, cryptocurrencies and cash indices), forex, precious metals, and commodity futures

Requirements for the bonus:

Deposit	Bonus	Minimum lots required
$1,000	$200	14
$2,000	$400	28
$3,000	$600	42
$4,000	$800	56
$5,000	$1,000	70

2. Rebate Bonus

Maximum payout	$1000
Minimum deposit	$1000
Available instrument	All CFDs (excluding CFDs on shares, cryptocurrencies and cash indices), forex, precious metals, and commodity futures

Details on the rebate:

Consecutive trading days	30 days (Tier 1)	60 days (Tier 2)	90+ days (Tier 3)
Rebates per lot	$1 per lot	$1.5 per lot	$2 per lot
Max cap payout	$500	$750	$1,000

Amana Capital clients are entitled to a rebate bonus once and it is applicable to all tiers.

3. 50% money back on lossing trades

Amana Capital clients are entitled to receive a 50% of their losses, up to $1,000, for the first month of trading, which starts from the date of the initial deposit.

Amana Capital Bonus — Amana Capital Promotions

Copy Trading

Amana Capital offers copy trading services with ZuluTrade, which is a third-party platform.

Trading Platform

Amana Capital offers MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms to the traders. These are industry standard third-party platforms developed by the company MetaQuotes Software.

Both these platforms are available on the web, desktop, and mobile.

We executed all our trades on MetaTrader 5 platform.

Research and Tools

Amana Capital offers some excellent market research and analysis tools.

Tools offered by the broker include:

Impressive charting tools
Market research using RiskPulse
Trading signals using Autochartist and Trade Captain
Economic calendar
Forex VPS
Newsfeed

Amana Capital Analytics Tools — Amana Capital VPS

Education

Amana Capital offers decent educational resources.

The broker’s educational materials include:

Guides on forex trading, CFDs, and cryptocurrencies
Webinars
Demo account

Customer Service

Amana Capital has excellent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

Live chat
email
Phone

The support staff is available only on weekdays.

Our experience with Amana Capital customer support was very good.
The support staff on both live chat and email was quick enough to answer our query accurately and in detail.

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Asked questions on withdrawal priority	1 minute	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked several questions on the trading account, spread, leverage, and their entities	2 hours	Clear and accurate

Amana Capital Customer Support Live Chat

The broker also has a detailed FAQ section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with Amana Capital was positive.

The broker offers attractive spreads on forex and stock CFDs with fast execution.

Account opening, deposits, and withdrawals are also smooth and fast on Amana Capital. However, we did not like the fees on deposits and withdrawals. We recommend traders to use credit cards for deposits and withdrawals as the fees with this are the lowest.

Our experience with customer support was again excellent as the responses were fast, clear, and detailed.

We recommend Amana Capital to forex traders who run EA and follow strategies like scalping and hedging.

We recommend Amana Capital for traders who are

Experienced traders
Run Scalping
Hedging
EAs trading
Trading through MT4

Amana Capital might not be a fit if you are

Real Stock / Futures Trading
Commission based trading
Prefer other platforms rather than MetaTrader

Tags Amana Capital review

Broker Review

Libertex Review 2023

Libertex logo

For this Libertex review, we have opened a standard account with the broker and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the real spreads and commissions, and placed a total of 15 trades.
We also reached out to customer support to solve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is Libertex?

Libertex is a Cyprus-headquartered forex and contracts for difference (CFDs) broker brand. It was established in 1997.

The broker operates globally with its license from Cyprus, South Africa, and Belarus. Its offerings include forex, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and stocks CFDs.

Some of the highlights of Libertex are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	Cyprus, South Africa, Belarus
🛡️ Is Libertex safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	Zero Spread
💳 Minimum deposit	€100 or $10
💰 Withdrawal fee	Depends on the withdrawal method
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, Libertex platform
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	271 (depends on the jurisdiction)

Licenses and Regulations

Libertex holds licenses 3 regulatory licenses.

The broker is regulated in Cyprus, South Africa, Belarus. Being operational for more than two decades, the broker also has a good reputation in the market.

The full list of Libertex licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License number	Accepting clients from	Compensation scheme amount
Indication Investments Ltd	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	164/12	European Union	€20,000
Libertex (pty) ltd	South Africa	Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA)	47381	South Africa	No compensation scheme
LLC Financial Company Forex Club	Belarus	National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB)	192580558	Belarus	No compensation scheme
Libertex International Company Limited	St.Vincent & the Grenadines	NA	NA	Global	NA

Libertex International Company Limited is accepting non-EU clients, but the broker told us that it does not need any license from local regulators for operations.

Libertex CySEC (Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission) Registration — Libertex CySEC License

Is Libertex Safe

Yes, Libertex is a safe broker for trading.

The broker is well-regulated with a total of 3 licenses. The clients under CySEC also receive a compensation scheme of €20,000 for the protection of their funds.

For our tests, we opened a Libertex Account with Indication Investments Ltd, which is regulated by Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) in Cyprus.

Fees and Commissions

Libertex generally charges trading fees, but there are some spreads for some instruments as well.

Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average trading fees.

Our test is based on the Libertex account. The broker only charged commissions on our traders with zero spreads.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade margin adjusted commission	1st trade trading commission	2nd trade margin adjusted commission	2nd trade trading commission	3rd trade margin adjustment commission	3rd trade trading commission
Forex	EUR/USD	€6	€0	€6	€0	€6	€0
Indices	FTSE 100	€4.66	€3	€2.33	€1.50	€2.33	€1.50
Stocks	Apple	€1.93	€1.50	€1.93	€1.50	€1.93	€1.50
Commodities	Gold	€3	€0.66	€3	€0.66	€3	€0.77
Cryptocurrency	Bitcoin	€5.52	€1.50	€5.59	€1.50	€2.26	€0.60

Markets	Instruments	Multiplier	Volume
Forex	EUR/USD	30	€2,000
Indices	FTSE 100	20	€1000 for 1st trade, €500 for 2nd and 3rd trade
Stocks	Apple	5	€500
Commodities	Gold	20	€1,000
Cryptocurrency	Bitcoin	2	€500 for 1st trade and 2nd trade €200 for 3rd trade

Other Fees

Libertex does not charge any deposit fees (only with one exception). The broker, however, charges withdrawal fees for most of the methods.

Libertex also collects a $5 monthly inactivity fee from the accounts without any trading activity for 180 days, holding a balance of less than $10,000.

Account Types

Libertex offers three types of accounts: Libertex account, MetaTrader 4 account, and MetaTrader 5 account (available only to customers outside the EU).

Details of all account types under Indication Investments Ltd (for EU clients):

	Libertex Account	MT4 Account
Trading Platforms	Libertex Platform	MetaTrader 4
Account Currency	USD, EUR, GBP, PLN, CHF	USD, EUR, GBP, PLN, CHF
Minimum deposit	€100	€100
Commission	From 0.03%	From €0.04
Order execution	Market Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 0	From 0

Details of all account types under Libertex International Company Limited (for global clients):

	Libertex Account	MT4 Account	MT5 Account (Market)	MT5 Account (Instant)
Trading Platforms	Libertex Platform	MetaTrader 4	MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 5
Account Currency	USD	USD	USD	USD
Minimum deposit	$10	$10	$10	$10
Commission	From 0%	From $0.06	From $0.07	From $0
Order execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Instant Execution
Spread	From 0.00003	From 0	From 0	From 0.6

Libertex Login

Our overall experience of opening a new account with Libertex was smooth and fast.

We opened a Libertex Account for our tests under the Cyprus-regulated entity.

The process of registration of a new Libertex account:

Enter email and password in the initial registration form.
Go to profile management and verify email and fill in details like name, date of birth, country, city, and passport.

Traders need to provide additional details and summit verification details during the first deposit.

We have to provide the following details while making the first deposit:

Enter details on the level of education, employment status, annual income level, source of wealth, and anticipated yearly investment.
Answers a few questions on trading experience and knowledge.
Enter residential address and nationality.

We submitted the following documents to verify our Libertex account:

Copy of national identification (both front and back)
Copy of our bank statement

The registration process took around 5 minutes. Our account was verified in 2 working days.
Our account was registered on April 2, 2023, and approved on April 6, 2023.
Our overall account opening experience was smooth and without any issues from registration to verification.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Deposits on Libertex are easy and fast, but we faced additional and tiresome scrutiny while making withdrawals.

The broker does not charge any fees for most of the deposit and withdrawal methods but there are some exceptions.

Deposit and withdrawals fee details on Indication Investments Ltd:

Method	Deposit Fee	Withdrawal Fee
Bank transfer	None	0.5% (Min €2, max €10)
Credit/ debit card	None	€1
Skrill	1.9%	None
Neteller	None	1%

Deposit and withdrawals fee details on Libertex International Company Limited:

Method	Deposit Fee	Withdrawal Fee
Bank transfer	None	$29
Credit/ debit card	2.5% (Min $0.5)	NA
Skrill	1.9% (Min $0.5)	1% (Min $0.5)
Neteller	4%	NA

Libertex did not charge any fee on our Skrill deposit

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit on Libertex depends on the entity under which the account is opened.

Indication Investments Ltd: €100
Libertex International Company Limited: $10.

Traders only need to invest a minimum of $10 on every investment on Libertex International Company Limited.

Deposit

Libertex supports deposits with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and popular e-wallets like Neteller and Skrill. The broker also accepts funds through other regional payment platforms like Sofort (Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria), Ideal (Netherlands), GiroPay (Germany), and a few more.

The broker mostly does not charge any fees for deposits for EU clients but charges heavy fees for non-EU clients.

The deposit methods also depend on the account jurisdiction.

We tested the deposit process on Libertex using a credit card, Neteller, Skrill, and PayPal.

Details of our fund deposits are shown in the below table.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time
Credit card	2023-04-08	2023-04-08	Instant
Skrill	2023-04-08	2023-04-08	Instant
Neteller	2023-04-08	2023-04-08	Instant
PayPal	2023-04-08	2023-04-08	Instant

Libertex mentions on its website that there is a 1.9% deposit fee on Skrill, but the broker did not charge us anything on our Skrill deposit.
After depositing €5,000, we received a notice from Libertex saying that we became a VIP client and will receive a Libertex platform trading commission discount of 30%, along with Premium support.

Libertex Deposit Methods — Libertex Deposit Page

Withdrawal

Libertex allows withdrawals with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and online wallets like Neteller and Skrill.

Though the Libertex website mentions that there are withdrawal fees for most of the deposit methods, it did not charge any fee for most of our withdrawals.
Overall, our experience with the Libertex withdrawal process was not smooth.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit card	2023-04-09	NA	NA	NA	NA
Credit card	2023-04-14	NA	NA	NA	NA
Neteller	2023-04-12	2023-04-14	2023-04-14	2 working day	1%
Skrill	2023-04-12	2023-04-14	2023-04-14	2 working day	0
PayPal	2023-04-08	2023-04-14	2023-04-14	4 working day	0
Skrill	2023-04-15	2023-04-15	2023-04-15	Instant	0

Our experience with Libertex withdrawal was not smooth with quite a bit back and forth.
After submitting the withdrawal request, Libertex requested proof of identity (selfie with ID and image of front/backside of credit card) from us. Additionally, the requirements state that the selfie with ID must be a color photo clearly showing the trader’s face, the trader’s entire arm holding the ID, and all the information from the front side of the ID.
We provided a clear photo selfie with ID but Libertex said our ID was not clear enough and we needed to take another photo to make it more visible. Finally, we received the withdrawal fund on April 14.
We submitted twice withdrawal requests with a credit card twice, but both failed. Libertex said it was due to our bank issue and we had to withdraw the rest of the fund using Skrill at last.

Libertex Markets and Products

Libertex offers CFDs trading services with forex, indices, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies instruments.

The complete list of Libertex offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	51
Indices	21
Stocks and ETFs	129
Commodities	18
Cryptocurrency	52

The markets and the number of offered instruments will depend on the account jurisdiction.

Trading Conditions

Trading conditions on Libertex are decent. The broker allows hedging and scalping strategies but traders cannot change leverage levels.

Though scalping is allowed, traders cannot open more than 1 position within a minute.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes (Traders cannot open more than 1 position in a minute)
Change Leverage	No

Leverage

Leverages offered by the various entities of Libertex are detailed below:

Markets	Indication Investments Ltd	LLC Financial Company Forex Club	Libertex International Company Limited
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	100:1	999:1
Non-Major Currency Pairs	20:1	100:1	200:1
Gold	20:1	100:1	300:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1	100:1	200:1
Indices	20:1	100:1	500:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	20:1
Cryptocurrencies	2:1	5:1	200:1

Trading Platform

Libertex offers trading services on its proprietary Libertex platform and industry-standard MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 (only for non-EU clients) platforms.

We executed all our trades on the Libertex trading platform.

Bonus

Libertex International Company Limited offers a 100% welcome bonus to all new traders. The minimum deposit amount to receive the Welcome Bonus is $100. The maximum bonus amount is $10,000.

Research and Tools

Libertex offers decent market research and analysis tools.

Tools offered by the broker include:

Good charting tools
Economic calendar
Signals
Trading automation
Newsfeed

Libertex Trading Tools — Libertex News and Signals

Education

Libertex offers poor educational resources.

The broker’s educational materials only include:

Some guides on trading
Webinars
Demo account

Libertex Educational Material — Libertex Educational Resources

Customer Service

Libertex has decent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

Live chat
email
Phone

The support staff is available only on weekdays.

Our experience with Libertex customer support was mixed.
The support staff on both live chat and email was quick enough with the response, but could not provide answers to all our queries.

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Asked about minimum deposit and withdrawal fees	1 minute	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked about the offered leverage under Belarus license	1 minute	Could not provide any answer
Email	Asked about account currencies	1 working day	Clear and direct

Libertex Forex Club

The broker also has a detailed FAQ section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with Libertex was decent.

The broker offers fast execution without any spreads. It charges a commission on trades, which is higher than the industry average. The broker charged a 0.3% margin adjustment fee on all instruments.

Account opening and deposits were smooth and fast, but withdrawals on the broker were frustrating. We had to provide identity proof and selfies with harsh requirements for withdrawals.

Our experience with customer support was mixed as some of the responses were fast, clear, and detailed, while they could not answer one. We recommend traders to contact the broker via Live chat.

On the positive side, Libertex allows traders to run hedging and scalping, but they cannot change leverage levels.

We recommend Libertex to traders who are taking long-term positions.

We recommend Libertex for traders who are

Experienced traders
Swing traders
Trading currency pairs
Using Metatrader
EA trader
Day trader
Commission based Trading

Libertex might not be a fit if you are

Beginners in trading

Tags libertex review

Broker Review

GKFX Review 2023

GKFX_logo

For this GKFX review, we have opened a standard account with the broker and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the real spreads and placed a total of 15 trades.
We also reached out to customer support to solve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is GKFX?

GKFX is a United Kingdom-headquartered forex and contracts for difference (CFDs) broker established in 2010.

The broker group runs three retail brands: GKFX, GKFX Prime, and GKFX Cambodia. It also runs the GKPro brand, which serves only professional traders.

Retail offers in the broker include contracts for differences (CFDs) trading with forex, indices, commodities, stocks, and cryptocurrencies.

GKFX is well-regulated with operating licenses from the financial regulators in the United Kingdom, Malta, the British Virgin Islands, Australia, and Cambodia.

Some of the highlights of GKFX are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Malta, British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, Australia
🛡️ Is GKFX safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	0.67
💳 Minimum deposit	US$0 or €200
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	282 (depends on the jurisdiction and account type)

Licenses and Regulations

GKFX holds licenses from regulators in 4 countries.

The broker is regulated in the UK, Malta, British Virgin Islands, and Cambodia. The UK’s FCA is considered as one of the top global financial regulators.

The full list of GKFX licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License number	Accepting clients from	Compensation scheme amount
GKFX Financial Services Ltd	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	501320	United Kingdom	£85,000
AKFX Financial Services Ltd	Malta	Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA)	C60473	European Union	€20,000
International Finance House Ltd	British Virgin Islands	B.V.I Financial Services Commission (FSC)	BVI SIBA/L/1066	Global	No compensation scheme
GKFX Cambodia Co Ltd	Cambodia	Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC)	026	Cambodia	No compensation scheme
FairMarkets Trading Pty Ltd	Australia	Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)	424122	Australia	No compensation scheme
Global Kapital Investama Berjangka	Indonesia	Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (BAPPEBTI)	824/BAPPEBTI/SI/11/2005	Indonesia	No compensation scheme

The Malta-regulated entity operates with the tradename GKFX, the British Virgin Islands entity with GKFX Prime, the Cambodian entity with GKFX Cambodia, the Australian entity operates under FairMarkets, and the Indonesian entity operates with GKInvest.

UK regulated broker GKFX Financial Services Ltd only offers services to professional and institutional clients with the tradename GKPro.

GKFX MFSA (Malta Financial Services Authority) License — GKFX MFSA License

Is GKFX Safe?

Yes, GKFX is a safe broker from a regulatory perspective.

The broker is well-regulated with a total of 4 licenses. It is also overseen by the UK’s FCA, which is a well-reputed financial market regulator and offers a compensation scheme of £85,000 to protect clients’ funds. Malta’s MFSA also offers a compensation scheme of €20,000.

For our tests, we opened an MT5 Standard account with AKFX Financial Services Ltd, which is regulated by Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) in Malta.

Fees and Commissions

Trading fees on GKFX are mostly built into spreads. The broker, however, charges commission on its higher-tier accounts with low spreads.

Spreads for forex, indices, commodities, and stocks on our trades were much below the average industry benchmark.

GKFX Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average spread.

Our test is based on GKFX’s Standard account. Spreads for our trades with forex, indices, stocks, and commodities remained stable with minor deflections for all asset classes.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.75	0.65	0.6	0.67
Indices	FTSE 100	0.85	0.85	0.8	0.83
Stocks	Apple	3.7	3.7	3.7	3.7
Commodities	Gold	2	2	2	2
Cryptocurrency	Bitcoin	38.24	25	46.61	36.62

Our testing finds that spreads on forex, indices, commodities, and cryptocurrency CFDs are lower than the industry average. Spreads on share CFDs are, however, on the higher side.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.67	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	0.83	1.65
Stocks	Apple	3.7	1.75
Commodities	Gold	2	3.53
Cryptocurrency	Bitcoin	36.62	72.81

Other Fees

GKFX does not have any prominent non-trading fees. The broker does not charge any deposit or withdrawal fees, and there are no maintenance or inactivity fees either.

Account Types

The retail account types offered by GKFX vary with each regulated entity.

Details of all account types under AKFX Financial Services Ltd (regulated in Malta) are:

	Standard Account	Premium Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5
Account Currency	USD, GBP, EUR	USD, GBP, EUR
Minimum deposit	€200	€25,000
Commission	None	€6/lot
Order execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution
Spread	From 0.6	From 0.1

Details of all account types under International Finance House Ltd (regulated in the British Virgin Islands) are:

	Standard Fixed Account	Standard Variable Account	VIP Variable Account	ECN Zero Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5
Account Currency	USD, GBP, EUR	USD, GBP, EUR	USD, GBP, EUR	USD, GBP, EUR
Minimum deposit	None	None	$5,000	None
Commission	None	None	None	$10/lot
Order execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution
Spread	From 1.8	From 1.2	From 0.6	From 0

Details of all account types under GKFX Cambodia Co Ltd (regulated in Cambodia) are:

	Standard Account	ECN Zero Account	VIP Variable Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4	MetaTrader 4	MetaTrader 4
Account Currency	USD	USD	USD
Commission	None	$15 per round lot	None
Order execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution
Spread	From 1.2	From 0	From 0.6

FairMarkets Trading Pty Ltd (Australian regulated broker) offers only one account type:

	Real Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 5
Account Currency	USD, AUD
Commission	None
Order execution	Instant Execution
Spread	From 1.2

Details of account types offered by Global Kapital Investama Berjangka (regulated in Indonesia):

	Standard Fixed Account	Silver Fixed Account	Gold Fixed Account	Platinum Fixed Account	Standard Variable Account	ECN Zero Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 5
Account Currency	USD, IDR	USD, IDR	USD, IDR	USD, IDR	USD, IDR	USD, IDR
Commission	$2 per lot	$2 per lot	$2 per lot	$2 per lot	$2 per lot	$10 per lot
Order execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution
Spread	1.6	1.2	1	0.8	From 1.2	From 0

The Indonesian entity also offers a Multilateral account for commodities trading.

Account Opening

Our overall experience of opening a new account with GKFX was smooth and fast.

We opened a MetaTrader 5 Standard account for our tests under the Malta-regulated entity.

The process of registration of a new GKFX account:

Enter personal details like the first name, last name, country of residence, phone number, email, and declaration of non-US nationality.
Prove more personal details like date of birth, place of birth, residential address, nationality, and passport number.
Provide professional and financial information: employment status, annual income, total assets, liquid assets, source of assets, expected annual deposit amount and expected trading frequency.
Answer some questionnaires on trading knowledge and experience.

We submitted the following documents to verify our GKFX account:

Copy of national identification (both front and back)
Copy of our bank statement

The registration process took around 12 minutes. Our account was verified in 1 working day.
Our account was registered on March 26, 2023, and approved on March 29, 2023.
Our overall account opening experience was smooth and without any issues from registration to verification.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Both deposits and withdrawals on GKFX are easy and fast. All our funding and withdrawal requests were completed without any issues.

The broker does not charge any fees for deposits and withdrawals.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit on GKFX varies with the account types.

For Malta-registered entity operating as GKFX:

Standard account: €200
Premium account: €25,000

For the British Virgin Islands-registered GKFX Prime:

Standard Fixed account: $0
Standard Variable account: $0
VIP Variable account: $5,000
ECN Zero account: $0

Traders only need to maintain the minimum deposit balance on their accounts.

Deposit

GKFX supports deposits with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, two online wallets, Neteller and Skrill. There are no deposit fees.

The deposit methods also depend on the account jurisdiction.

We tested the deposit process on GKFX using a credit card, Neteller, and Skrill.

Details of our fund deposits are shown in the below table.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time
Credit card	2023-04-06	2023-04-06	Instant
Neteller	2023-04-06	2023-04-06	Instant
Skrill	2023-04-06	2023-04-06	Instant

GKFX Deposit Methods — GKFX Deposits and Withdrawals

Withdrawal

GKFX allows withdrawals with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and online wallets like Neteller and Skrill. It does not charge any withdrawal fee.

Overall, our experience with the GKFX withdrawal process was positive.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time
Credit card	2023-04-06	2023-04-07	2023-04-08	2 working day
Neteller	2023-04-06	2023-04-07	2023-04-07	1 working day
Skrill	2023-04-06	2023-04-07	2023-04-07	1 working day

Markets and Products

GKFX offers CFDs trading services with forex, indices, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies instruments.

The complete list of GKFX’s offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	47
Indices	20
Stocks and ETFs	198
Commodities	14
Cryptocurrency	3

The markets and the number of offered instruments will depend on the account jurisdiction and also the type of account.

Trading Conditions

Trading conditions on GKFX are bad. The broker does not allow hedging and scalping strategies. Retail traders cannot even change leverage levels.

Only professional traders can change leverage levels.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	No
Scalping	No
Change Leverage	No (only professional clients can change leverage levels)

Leverage

Leverages offered by the various entities of GKFX are detailed below:

Markets	GKFX Financial Services Ltd	International Finance House Ltd	AKFX Financial Services Ltd	GKFX Cambodia Co Ltd	FairMarkets Trading Pty Ltd	Global Kapital Investama Berjangka
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	400:1	30:1	400:1	30:1	400:1
Non-Major Currency Pairs	20:1	400:1	30:1	400:1	20:1	400:1
Gold	20:1	200:1	20:1	400:1	20:1	400:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1	50:1	20:1	400:1	10:1	100:1
Indices	5:1	200:1	20:1	NA	20:1	100:1
Stocks	5:1	10:1	20:1	NA	NA	NA
Cryptocurrencies	NA	20:1	2:1	NA	2:1	NA

Copy Trading GKFX Prime Review

The British Virgin Islands-registered GKFX Prime offers services with two third party copy trading platforms:

Autotrade
Zulutrade

Trading Platform

GKFX offers trading services on MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms. These are industry standard third-party platforms developed by the company MetaQuotes Software.

Both these platforms are available on the web, desktop, and mobile.

GKFX MT4

We executed all our trades on MetaTrader 5 platform.

Research and Tools

GKFX offers excellent market research and analysis tools.

Tools offered by the broker include:

Good charting tools
Trading signals using Autochartist and Trading Central
Economic calendar
Forex VPS
Trading automation with Tradeworks
Market research articles and weekly videos
Newsfeed

Education

GKFX offers good educational resources.

The broker’s educational materials include:

Video tutorials for beginners and expert traders
Details guides on trading and platforms
Ebooks
Webinars
Demo account

GKFX Educational Material — GKFX Webinar

Customer Service

GKFX has good customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

Live chat
email
Phone

The support staff is available only on weekdays and takes questions in 14 languages.

Our experience with GKFX customer support was very good.
The support staff on both live chat and email was quick enough to answer our query accurately and in detail.

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Asked questions on hedging and scalping	1 minute	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked about the number of trading instruments	30 minutes	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked about releasing our withdrawal fund	8 hours	Clear and direct instructions

The broker also has a detailed FAQ section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with GKFX was decent.

The broker offers attractive spreads on forex with fast execution. Commodity spreads also remained stable.

Account opening, deposits, and withdrawals are also smooth and fast on the broker. Our experience with customer support was again excellent as the responses were fast, clear, and detailed.

On the negative side, GKFX does not allow traders to run hedging and scalping.

We recommend GKFX to forex traders who run EA.

We recommend GKFX for traders who are

Experienced traders
Beginners
EAs trading
Trading through MT4

GKFX might not be a fit if you are

Real Stock / Futures Trading
Commission based trading
Run Scalping
Hedging
Prefer other platforms rather than MetaTrader

Tags GKFX review

Broker Review

Darwinex Review 2023

For this Darwinex review, we opened a live account and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to determine the actual spreads and placed 12 trades in total.
We reached out to the broker’s customer service team to resolve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to assess if the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is Darwinex

Darwinex is a global Forex and CFDs broker founded in 2012 as Tradeslide Trading Tech, a provider of trading technologies. Two years later, the company rebranded to Darwinex, an FCA-regulated Forex and CFD broker.

The broker is licensed in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). In July 2023, Darwinex obtained Spain’s CNMV license as a part of its post-Brexit part.

Darwinex offers hundreds of instruments to traders in the following categories, Forex pairs, indices, stocks, and commodities.

The broker offers 287 tradable instruments, which is not a lot compared to some of its peers.

Here’s a summary of Darwinex’s main features:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Spain
🛡️ Is Darwinex safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	0.32
💳 Minimum deposit	US$500
💰 Withdrawal fee	1.2% for Card, 3.5€/£ for Trustly Bank Transfer, 1.2% for Skrill
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities,
📉 Number of Products	287

Licenses and Regulations

Darwinex is licensed by two global regulators: the tier-1 UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and tier-2 Spain’s Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV).

Here are the details of Darwinex’s sole UK license.

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting Clients From	Compensation Scheme Amount
Tradeslide Trading Tech Limited	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	586466	Globally many countries	£85,000
	Spain	Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV)	311	Spain	€20,000

Darwinex UK License

Is Darwinex Safe

Yes, Darwinex is safe to trade. The broker is regulated by the top-tier UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which has strict rules and enforcement procedures.

The UK’s FCA guarantees investors’ deposit compensation of up to £85,000 if the broker declares bankruptcy. The broker has gone a step further to get free supplementary insurance covering eligible clients for up to £1,000,000. Spain’s CNMV in its turn guarantees deposit compensation of €20,000 in case the client goes insolvent.

For this review, we opened an MT5 Standard CFD account and an Mt5 standard stock account with Tradeslide Trading Tech Limited, regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We deposited funds into the account, placed trades, and finally withdrew our funds.

Fees and Commissions

Darwinex charges low fees for trading most of the main instruments on offer, including Forex pairs, indices, and commodities.

However, the broker’s average spreads for trading stocks were much higher than the industry benchmark.

The broker charges low spreads because it charges a commission on all trades, making its fees much higher than other brokers.

Spread Charged in our Trades

For our tests, we traded the most popular instrument in each market. We executed 3 trades for each instrument to get an accurate estimate of the average spread. We tested Darwinex’s MT5 Standard CFD and stock accounts, which charges a spread and commission on all instruments.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.3	0.3	0.35	0.32
Indices	FTSE 100	0.7	0.7	0.7	0.70
Stocks	Apple	3.5	1.5	1.5	2.17
Commodities	Gold	1.1	1.4	1.5	1.33

We executed all our trades via the MetaTrader 5 mobile app on our iPhone.

A deeper analysis of the spreads charged in our trades revealed that most of the spreads were lower than industry averages. But the broker’s fees were higher because of the additional commissions charged on each trade.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. Spread Charged	Industry Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.32	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	0.70	1.65
Stocks	Apple	2.17	1.75
Commodities	Gold	1.33	3.53

Other fees

Darwinex does not charge other non-trading fees. However, investors pay a 1.2% annual commission on invested equity for using the broker’s copy-trading feature known as a DARWIN. Investors pay a 20% performance fee if they make money with a Darwin strategy, with strategy providers earning 15% and Darwinex taking the remaining 5%.

Darwinex Account Types

Darwinex offers only 1 account type. The account is known as the standard account and is offered on the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms.

Here are its features:

	Standard Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4 & 5
Account Currency	EUR/ GBP/ USD
Minimum Deposit	$500
Commission	2.5 USD per lot
Order Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 0
Note

Darwinex does not offer (Swap-free) Islamic Accounts.

For our tests, we opened an MT5 standard CFD account and an MT5 standard stock account with Tradeslide Trading Tech Limited, which is regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Account Opening

Darwinex account opening is fast and efficient. We completed the entire process digitally within 10 minutes.

Here are the 5 steps to opening a Darwinex account:

Select your trading platform, choose a name for your account, your account currency and deposit amount.
Enter your username, email and password and choose whether to open an individual or corporate live account.
Provide your title, full name, date of birth, nationality, country of birth, phone number and residential address, including postcode, City/Town, State/Province, and Country of Residence.
Enter your tax details, current employment status, the value of your savings and liquid investments, and how much you plan to invest.
Do you have an account with another broker and how frequently did you trade in the past 3 years?

Darwinex Account Opening

The registration process took only 10 minutes, and our trading account was approved in one working day.
We registered the account on 26 March 2023, and it was approved on 29 March 2023.
For this test, we opened the MT5 standard CFD account and an MT5 standard stock account.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Darwinex offers fast deposits and withdrawals. Traders can use bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill and Trustly to deposit and withdraw funds from their accounts.

However, Darwinex charges a 0.5% fee on Skrill deposits and is one of the few brokers that charge a fee on deposits.

Darwinex Deposit and Withdrawal Methods

Darwinex Minimum Deposit

Darwinex has a minimum deposit requirement of $/€/£ 500 on its live accounts. Traders should make the next deposits in multiples of 100, as the broker will reject other figures.

Deposit

Darwinex’s clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts via bank transfers, debit/credit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill and Trustly.

Skrill deposits attract a 0.5% fee.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee	Bank Fee
Credit Card	01 April 2023	01 April 2023	Instant	€0.00	Zero
Skrill	01 April 2023	01 April 2023	Instant	0.5%	Zero

Darwinex processes debit/credit card deposits instantly, while Trustly payments are processed in 1 day. Bank transfers may take up to 3 days to appear in your trading account.

Withdrawal

Darwinex does not charge a fee on withdrawals but passes on all associated costs to its clients. Therefore, traders end up paying varying fees on their withdrawals, which was unexpected.

Most brokers charge a fixed fee on withdrawals instead of passing on the merchant fees to their clients.

Hence, each withdrawal at Darwinex attracts a different fee based on the amount withdrawn and the percentage fees charged by the payments company.

Darwinex allows traders to make withdrawals using the same payment methods available for deposits.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funds Released Date	Funds Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee	Note
Credit card	01 April 2023	01 April 2023	03 April 2023	2 working days	1%	32.41 EUR fee was charged
Credit Card	04 April 2023	05 April 2023	06 April 2023	2 working days	3.30%	2 EUR fee was charged
Skrill	04 April 2023	05 April 2023	05 April 2023	1 working day	1%	16.41 EUR fee was charged

We did not encounter any difficulties during the withdrawal process and received our funds within a maximum of two working days.

Markets and Products

Darwinex offers a variety of tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, and commodities markets.

Here’s the complete list of Darwinex’s product offerings:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	40
Indices	10
Stocks	233
Commodities	4
Cryptocurrencies	0

The broker offers a limited number of instruments to its clients compared to the leading brokers.

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at Darwinex are good. Traders can execute most trading strategies since the broker allows high-risk strategies such as hedging and scalping.

Traders can keep their hedging positions open for as long as they want. Darwinex also allows traders to use Expert Advisors (EAs).

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	No

Traders cannot change their account’s leverage level after opening the account.

Darwinex Leverage

Darwinex clients have access to standard leverage levels in line with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) regulations regarding leverage levels offered to retail traders based in the EU.

However, professional traders can access higher trading leverage levels, but they lose out on ESMA protections.

The table below shows the different leverage levels available to clients:

Markets	Tradeslide Trading Tech Ltd
Major currency pairs	30:1
Non-major currency pairs	20:1
Gold	20:1
Other Commodities (except gold)	10:1
Indices	5:1
Stocks	5:1
Cryptocurrencies	N/A

Bonus

Darwinex does not offer a bonus program to its clients.

Trading Platform

Darwinex offers traders a proprietary FIX API trading platform developed by Darwinex Labs ( its Quant team) that is specifically used for copy trading. The API software is used for copy-trading DARWIN assets on the broker’s proprietary marketplace known as the DARWIN exchange.

Investors can use the DARWIN API to buy and sell winning strategies created by professional traders and hosted on the DARWIN exchange.

Darwinex MT4 MT5

The broker also offers the MetaTrader 4 and 5 platforms for traders who want to trade their independent strategies. The MT4 platform offers traders a wide range of analytical tools and indicators, while the MT5 has additional features that deliver a better trading experience.

Darwinex further offers tools for automated trading in the form of auxiliary libraries that can be added to the MetaTrader and DARWIN platforms. These tools include ZeroMQ to MetaTrader and Zorro to MetaTrader bridging solutions.

Darwinex Trading Platforms

Traders who prefer to copy the strategies developed by professionals will be at home on the DARWIN proprietary marketplace, while self-directed traders have to use the MT4 and MT5 platforms.

We found the MT5 platform to be great for traders who prefer to trade the popular MetaTrader platforms.

Research and Tools

Darwinex provides its clients who use its copy-trading platforms excellent research tools to sift through the over 2000 strategies (Darwins) and find the ones that fit their investor profile.

Traders can use the broker’s marketplace to research the performance rankings of each Darwin based on criteria such as the Darwinex score (D-score) to identify the best-performing strategies.

Darwinex provides little in the form of traditional market research for self-directed traders except for occasional news articles on its blog.

Darwinex Trading Tools

The broker also offers a community forum where traders can discuss trending topics and learn from each other.

Education

Darwinex offers minimal education in the form of training videos and tutorials. These are found within its proprietary trading platform.

Customer Service

Darwinex’s customer service team was helpful and gave us direct answers to our questions. However, the broker does not offer support via live chat, unlike most brokers.

Darwinex Customer Service

You can reach Darwinex’s customer service team via email. The customer service team answered our email query within 10 hours, which was okay.

Here are the results of our test below:

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live chat	N/A	N/A	N/A
Email	We asked for general information about our account (minimum deposit, available currencies, execution type) bonus offers, leverage changes, hedging and scalping	We received feedback within 10 hours.	The first reply was a link to their website containing the account information. We then asked about the minimum deposit, available currencies and order execution types and got a detailed answer.

Conclusion

In summary, we had a positive experience with Darwinex starting from the account opening to the deposit, trading and withdrawal processes.

We had to open an MT5 standard CFD account and an MT5 stock account to get access to Forex pairs and stock CFDs, which were limited in number. The broker charges low fees on Forex, indices and commodities trades, while its fees for stock trades were higher than industry averages.

Darwinex offers instant deposits and a user-friendly client portal. However, Skrill deposits attract a 0.5% fee, hence, we recommend traders use credit/debit cards to deposit.

The broker passes on the fees charged by payment processors to its clients when processing withdrawals. Therefore, card withdrawals attract a 1.2% fee, Trustly bank transfers attract a €/£3.5 fee, while Skrill withdrawals attract a 1.2% fee.

Darwinex does not offer support via live chat, which is inconvenient when one needs a quick reply to a query. The broker’s email responses were not as fast as some of its peers.

We recommend Darwinex to traders who want to copy strategies developed by other successful traders. Traders who run scalping, hedging and automated strategies will also feel at home with this broker.

We recommend Darwinex for traders who are

Experienced traders
Run Scalping
Hedging
EAs trading
Copy Trading
Trading through MT4

Darwinex might not be a fit if you are

Beginners
Real Stock / Futures Trading
Commission based trading
Looking for a wide instrument range
Prefer other platforms rather than MT4

Broker Review

RoboMarkets Review 2023

RoboMarkets Logo

For this RoboMarkets review, we have opened a standard account with the broker and deposited €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the real spreads and placed a total of 12 trades.
We also reached out to customer support to solve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is RoboMarkets

RoboMarkets is a forex and contracts for differences (CFDs) broker, headquartered in Cyprus.

The broker has multiple regional offices across the Europe and is regulated in Cyprus.

RoboMarkets is a multi-asset broker with offerings that include forex, stocks, indices, and commodities.

Some of the highlights of RoboMarkets are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	Cyprus
🛡️ Is RoboMarkets safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.68
💳 Minimum deposit	$100
💰 Withdrawal fee	Depends on the payment method
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5, R Trader, cTrader
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities
📉 Number of Products	107

Licenses and Regulations

RoboMarkets is well-established and is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission ( CySEC)

The full list of RoboMarkets licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License number	Accepting clients from	Compensation scheme amount
RoboMarkets Ltd	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	191/13	European Union	€20,000

RoboMarkets CySEC (Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission) Registration — RoboMarkets CySEC License

Is RoboMarkets Safe

Yes, RoboMarkets is a safe broker.

The broker is well-regulated and is subject to stringent compliance in Europe. The clients under the CySEC-regulated entity also receive a compensation scheme of €20,000 for the protection of their funds.

For our tests, we opened an MT5 pro account and another R Trader account with RoboMarkets Ltd, which is regulated by Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) in Cyprus

Fees and Commissions

RoboMarkets fees are usually built into spreads. But higher-tier accounts charge commission too.

Spreads on our forex trades were a bit higher than the industry average benchmark. However, spreads charged for other asset classes were significantly lower.

RoboMarkets Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average spread.

Spreads for our trades varied but remained within a reasonable bound.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.6	1.9	1.55	1.68
Indices	FTSE 100	0.75	0.75	1	0.83
Stocks	Apple	0.7	0.7	0.7	0.7
Commodities	Gold	3.2	3.05	3.1	3.12

Our testing finds that forex spreads on RoboMarkets are around the industry average or a bit higher. Spreads on indices and gold are on the lower side.
RoboMarkets charges commission on shares CFDs with zero spread.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.68	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	0.83	1.65
Stocks	Apple	0.7	1.75
Commodities	Gold	3.12	3.53

Other Fees

RoboMarkets does not charge any fee for deposits, but there are fees for most of the withdrawals.

Withdrawal fee of some of the most used withdrawal methods:

Rapid Transfer – 1%
Credit/Debit Card – 2.4%
Bank Transfer – 25 USD, 10 EUR, 20 GBP, 150 PLN, 75 CHF
WebMoney – 0.8%
Skrill – 1%
FasaPay – 0.5%
Neteller – 1.9%
PayPal – 2%

The broker does not have any inactivity or account maintenance fees.

Account Types

RoboMarkets offers five types of accounts to retail traders

	Pro Account	ProCent Account	Prime Account	ECN Account	R Trader Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, R Trader	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, R Trader	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, R Trader	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, R Trader	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, R Trader
Account Currency	USD, GBP, EUR, CHF, GOLD	USD, GBP, EUR, CHF, GOLD	USD, GBP, EUR, CHF, GOLD	USD, GBP, EUR, CHF, GOLD	USD, GBP, EUR, CHF, CZK
Minimum deposit	$100	$100	$100	$100	$100
Commission	None	None	10 / mio	20 / mio	US Stocks (Deposit from 10,000 USD) 0.02 USD per share, US Stocks 0.0045 USD per share. CFD on US stocks 0.015 USD per share, CFD on EU stocks 0.07%, Forex 15 USD per 1 million base currency, Indices variable commission
Order execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 1.3	From 1.3	From 0	From 0	From 0

Account Opening

Our overall experience of opening a new account with RoboMarkets was smooth and quick.

We opened an MT5 pro account and an R Trader account for our tests under the Cyprus-regulated entity.

The process of registration of a new RoboMarkets account:

Enter email, first name, last name, mobile number
Enter desired trading platform, account type, hedge system, currency, leverage, and affiliate code
Answer a few questions on profession and trading experience
Provide a few details on the financial situation and risk appetite

For our identity verification we have to provide the following details:

Enter name, surname, gender, and date of birth
Declare if we are politically exposed
Declare if we are a reportable entity under FATCA
Provide national id or passport number, issuing authority, and issuing date

We submitted the following documents to verify our RoboMarkets account:

Copy of national identification (both front and back)
Copy of passport

The registration process took around 23 minutes. Our account was verified on the same day.
Our account was registered on April 2, 2023, and approved on the same day.
Our overall account opening experience was smooth and without any issues from registration to verification.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Deposits and withdrawals on RoboMarkets are easy and fast.

The broker, however, charges fees on most of the withdrawal methods.

RoboMarkets Minimum Deposit

RoboMarkets has a minimum deposit requirement of $100 for all account types.

Robo Markets Deposit

RoboMarkets allows deposits using bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and several top online wallets like PayPal, Skrill, and Neteller.

We tested the deposit process on RoboMarkets using a credit card, PayPal, Skrill, and Neteller.

Details of our fund deposits are shown in the below table.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time
Credit card	2023-04-03	2023-04-03	Instant
Neteller	2023-04-03	2023-04-03	Instant
Skrill	2023-04-03	2023-04-03	Instant
PayPal	2023-04-03	2023-04-03	Instant

RoboMarkets Deposit Methods — RoboMarkets Deposit and Withdrawals

Withdrawal

RoboMarkets allows withdrawals with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and other methods that are supported for deposits.

Overall, our experience with the RoboMarkets withdrawal process was positive.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit card	2023-04-04	2023-04-04	2023-04-05	1 working days	0
Neteller	2023-04-04	2023-04-04	2023-04-04	6 hours	2%
Skrill	2023-04-04	2023-04-04	2023-04-04	3 hours	1%
PayPal	2023-04-04	2023-04-04	2023-04-04	3 hours	0.35%

Markets and Products

RoboMarkets offers CFDs trading services with forex, indices, stocks, and commodities.

The complete list of RoboMarkets offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	36
Indices	7
Stocks	53
Commodities	11

Trading Conditions

RoboMarkets offers excellent trading conditions. The broker allows hedging and scalping strategies and traders can change leverage levels as well.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	Yes

Leverage

Leverages offered by RoboMarkets are detailed below:

Markets	RoboMarkets Ltd
Major Currency Pairs	30:1
Non-Major Currency Pairs	20:1
Gold	20:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1
Indices	5:1
Stocks	5:1
Cryptocurrencies	NA

Trading Platform

RoboMarkets offers four trading platforms:

R Trader (the brokers proprietary platform)
MetaTrader 4
MetaTrader 5
cTrader

RoboMarkets MT4

MetaTrader 4 platform and MetaTrader 5 platform are developed by MetaQuotes Software and are used extensively within the trading industry.

We executed our trades on the MetaTrader 5 and R Trader trading platform.

RoboMarkets Trading Platform — RoboMarkets R Trader Platform

Bonus

RoboMarkets offers several bonus programs.

Cashback (Rebates)

Account type	All account types
Client type	Professional
Minimum trading volume	10 lots
Entity	RoboMarkets Ltd

Details of payout:

Account type	Calculation method	10 – 1,000 lots	1,000 – 3,000 lots	More than 3,000 lots
Cent, Pro, ECN	% of the company’s revenue	5%	10%	15%
Prime	% of commission	5%	7%	10%

Classic Bonus up to 120%

Account type	MetaTrader4 and MetaTrader5-based accounts (ECN, ContestFX, and CopyFX accounts do not participate in the program)
Client type	Professional
Bonus option	Client can choose the bonus amount: 25%, 50%, 100% or 120%.
Maximum payout	Up to 50,000 USD / 50,000 EUR / 325,000 CNY / 39,000 GOLD
Restrictions	“Classic bonus” bonus program is not available to the clients from Malaysia.
Entity	RoboMarkets Ltd

Up to 10% of Extra Funds

Account type	All MetaTrader4 and MetaTrader5 real accounts, including ECN, Prime, CopyFX, and affiliate accounts
Client type	Professional
Entity	RoboMarkets Ltd

Trading details:

Trading lots	1-10 lots	1-1,000 lots	More than 1,000
Payout	2.5%	10%	10%

Research and Tools

RoboMarkets offers decent tools for market research and analysis.

Tools offered by the broker include:

Impressive charting tools
Economic calendar
Currency analysis and forecasts
Trading ideas
Remote VPS servers
Newsfeed

RoboMarkets Analytics Tools — RoboMarkets Market Analysis

Education

RoboMarkets offers decent educational resources.

The broker’s educational materials only include:

Detailed courses on forex trading
Video guides
Webinars
Demo account

RoboMarkets Educational Material — RoboMarkets Forex Courses

RoboMarkets Customer Service

RoboMarkets offers excellent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

Live chat
Email
Phone

The support staff is available 24/7.

Our experience with RoboMarkets customer support was mixed.

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	We asked if our trading account is fully approved, do they charge any deposit&withdraw fees, or what are the deposit method	3 minute	Clear and accurate
Live Chat	We asked as we can see they have 4 options for depositing via card(VISA/MasterCard ‎CardPay/Connectum/BlueOrange Bank/Ecommpay), which one should we choose.	1 minute	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked if we are allowed to trade UK100 and Crypto in our trading account.	3 minute	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked if RoboMarkets allows hedging scalping and change of leverage	2 hours	Clear and accurate

The broker also has a detailed FAQ section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with RoboMarkets was positive.

The spreads charged on our forex trades were around the industry average. Order execution speed was fast. Spreads on other asset classes were mostly impressive.

RoboMarkets allows hedging and scalping. Traders can also change the leverage levels. There are also no restrictions on trading.

The broker does not charge fees for deposits, but there are withdrawal fees. The customer support was also good and most of the responses were clear and detailed.

We recommend RoboMarkets to forex traders who run EA and other trading strategies.

We recommend RoboMarkets for traders who are

Experienced traders
Run Scalping
Hedging
EAs trading
Trading through MT4 or MT5
Looking fr good tools

RoboMarkets might not be a fit if you are

Real Stock / Futures Trading
Very Beginners in Trading
Commission based trading

Tags robomarkets review

Broker Review

ThinkMarkets Review 2023

ThinkMarkets-logo

For this ThinkMarkets review, we have opened a standard account with the broker and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the real spreads and placed a total of 15 trades.
We also reached out to customer support to solve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is ThinkMarkets?

ThinkMarkets is an Australia-based forex and CFD (contract for difference) broker. It was founded in 2010 and was previously known as ThinkForex.

The broker is regulated in multiple jurisdictions, including Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Seychelles, and has operations globally.

ThinkMarkets’ offerings include trading services with forex, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and shares CFDs.

Some of the highlights of ThinkMarkets are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Australia, SA, Seychelles
🛡️ Is ThinkMarkets safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.3
💳 Minimum deposit	US$0
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5, ThinkTrader
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	1628 (depends on the jurisdiction)

Licenses and Regulations

ThinkMarkets holds 4 regulatory licenses.

The broker is licensed in Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Seychelles. Australia’s ASIC and the UK’s FCA are deemed as two reputed global financial market regulators.

The full list of ThinkMarkets’ licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License number	Accepting clients from	Compensation scheme amount
TF Global Markets (UK) Limited	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	629628	United Kingdom	£85,000
TF Global Markets (Aust) Limited	Australia	Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)	424700	Australia	No compensation scheme
TF Global Markets (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd	South Africa	Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA)	49835	South Africa	No compensation scheme
TF Global Markets Int Ltd	Seychelles	Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA)	SD060	Global	No compensation scheme

ThinkMarkets FSA (Financial Conduct Authority) Registration — ThinkMarkets FSA License Page

Is ThinkMarkets Safe?

Yes, ThinkMarkets is a safe broker.

The broker is regulated by two of the most reputed financial markets regulator, the UK’s FCA and Australia’s ASIC. The FCA also offers a compensation scheme of £85,000 to protect clients’ funds.

For our tests, we opened an MT5 Standard account with TF Global Markets (Aust) Limited, which is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in Australia.
We recommend you open an account with the UK or the Australian entity if their services are available in your jurisdiction.

ThinkMarkets Fees and Commissions

ThinkMarkets’ fees on trades depend on the account type. For Standard account, the fees are built into spreads, but the broker also charges a commission for trades on other account types with none or tight spreads.

Spreads on our forex, indices, and cryptocurrencies trades were much below the average industry benchmark.

ThinkMarkets Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average spread.

Our test is based on ThinkMarkets’ MT5 Standard account. The spreads for our trades with forex, indices, and stocks remained constant throughout, showing signs of fixed spreads.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.3	1.3	1.3	1.3
Indices	FTSE 100	0.7	0.7	0.7	0.7
Stocks	Apple	3	3	3	3
Commodities	Gold	7.8	2	2	3.93
Cryptocurrencies	Bitcoin	36.97	32.31	20.955	30.08

Our testing finds that ThinkMarkets spreads on forex, indices, and cryptocurrencies are much lower than the industry benchmark. Spreads on stocks, however, are on the higher side.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.3	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	0.7	1.65
Stocks	Apple	3	1.75
Commodities	Gold	3.93	3.53
Cryptocurrencies	Bitcoin	30.08	72.81

Other Fees

ThinkMarkets does not have any noticeable non-trading fees. The broker offers free deposits and withdrawals. Additionally, there is no account maintenance or inactivity fees.

Account Types

ThinkMarkets offers two straight-forward account types: Standard account and ThinkZero account.

Details of the two ThinkMarkets accounts are:

	Standard Account	ThinkZero Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, ThinkTrader	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, ThinkTrader
Account Currency	AUD, EUR, CHF, GBP, USD, JPY	AUD, EUR, CHF, GBP, USD, JPY
Minimum deposit	$0	$500
Commission	Nil	$3.5 per side (100,000) (No commission on CFDs)
Lot size	1.0 (100k)	1.0 (100k)
Maximum tradeable size	50 Lots	100 Lots ( 10 for XAUUSDx & XAGUSDx)
Order execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution
Spread	From 0.4	From 0

ThinkMarkets also offers swap-free Islamic accounts and joint accounts.

Account Opening

Our overall experience of opening a new account with ThinkMarkets was smooth and quick.

We opened a MetaTrader 5 Standard account for our tests under the ASIC-regulated entity.

The process of registration of a new ThinkMarkets account:

Enter trading account type (individual or corporate), country of residence, products to trade (shares or forex and CFDs), first name, last name, email, and password.
Enter the verification code sent to the provided email.
Provide personal details like phone number, date of birth, taxation country, and address.
Choose the desired trading platform.
Provide financial details like employment status, annual income, and value of savings and investments.
Answer questionnaires on trading experience.

We submitted the following documents to verify our ThinkMarkets account:

Copy of national identification (both front and back)
Copy of our bank statement

The registration process took around 6 minutes. Our account was verified in 1 working day.
Our account was registered on March 26, 2023, and approved on March 29, 2023.
Our overall account opening experience was smooth and without any issues, from registration to verification.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Both deposits and withdrawals on ThinkMarkets are easy and fast. All our funding and withdrawal requests were completed without any issues.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit on ThinkMarkets varies with the account types.

Standard account: $0
ThinkZero account: $500

Traders only need to maintain the minimum deposit balance on their accounts.

Deposit

ThinkMarkets supports deposits with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and online wallets like PayPal, Neteller, and Skrill. The broker also supports cryptocurrency deposits with Bitcoin, Ether, and Bitcoin Cash, using BitPay gateway.

The broker does not charge any fees for deposits.

Some of the deposit methods also vary with the jurisdiction.

We tested the deposit process on ThinkMarkets using a credit card and PayPal.

Details of our fund deposits are shown in the below table.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Credit card	2023-03-29	2023-03-29	Instant	zero
PayPal	2023-03-29	2023-03-29	Instant	zero

Withdrawal

ThinkMarkets allows withdrawals via bank transfer, credit/debit card, and online wallets. There are no fees for withdrawal requests, however third-party fees may apply.

ThinkMarkets allows withdrawals only to the deposit source, meaning if deposits were made using PayPal, withdrawals (along with profits) can only be made on PayPal.

Overall, our experience with the ThinkMarkets withdrawal process was positive.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit card	2023-03-30	2023-03-31	2023-03-31	1 working day	zero
PayPal	2023-03-31	2023-03-31	2023-03-31	1 hour	zero

Our first withdrawal request using PayPal, which was made on March 29, was denied. We were told to withdraw the fund to the credit card first as our first deposit was made using a credit card.

Markets and Products

ThinkMarkets offers CFDs trading services with Forex, Indices, Shares & ETFs, Futures, Commodities, and Cryptocurrencies instruments. The broker also offers Share investing in Australia.

The complete list of ThinkMarkets offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	40
Indices	22
Stocks and ETFs	1552
Commodities	10
Cryptocurrency	4

The markets and the number of offered instruments will depend on the account jurisdiction.

Trading Conditions

ThinkMarkets offers excellent trading conditions. The broker allows both hedging and scalping strategies and traders can change leverage levels too.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	Yes

Leverage

Leverages offered by ThinkMarkets on various asset class are detailed below:

Markets	TF Global Markets (UK) Limited	TF Global Markets (Aust) Limited	TF Global Markets Int Ltd	TF Global Markets (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	500:1	500:1
Non-Major Currency Pairs	20:1	20:1	500:1	500:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	400:1	400:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1	10:1	200:1	400:1
Indices	5:1	20:1	200:1	200:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	100:1	20:1
Cryptocurrencies	NA	2:1	10:1	10:1

Copy Trading

ThinkMarkets use a third-party platform for its copy trading services which is ZuluTrade.

However, as a copy trading broker its services are not available for traders under the Australian and South African entities.

Trading Platform

ThinkMarkets offers the following trading platforms:

MetaTrader 4
MetaTrader 5
ThinkTrader (ThinkMarkets’ proprietary platform)

MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 are third-party trading platforms developed by MetaQuotes Software.

All these platforms are available on the web, desktop, and mobile.

Research and Tools

ThinkMarkets offers good market research and analysis tools.

Some of the key tools offered by the broker are:

Good charting tools
Economic calendar
Forex signals through Autochrist
VPS for forex trading
Market research with Trading Central’s suite
Newsfeed

ThinkMarkets Analytics Tools — ThinkMarkets Market Research Tools

Education

ThinkMarkets offers good educational resources. Its guides cover from trading basics to details on indicators and charting patterns.

The broker also offers a trading glossary and a knowledge base. It also holds some excellent webinars and a demo account.

ThinkMarkets Educational Material — ThinkMarkets Webinars

Customer Service

ThinkMarkets has excellent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

Live chat
email
Phone

The support staff is available 24/7.

Our experience with ThinkMarkets customer support was excellent.
The support staff on live chat answered instantly, while the email response took a day. The answers were clear and accurate in both cases.

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Asked about the base currency of the Australian entity	1 minute	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked about withdrawal fee and minimum deposits	1 working day	Clear and accurate

ThinkMarkets Customer Support — ThinkMarkets Live Chat Customer Support

The broker also has a detailed FAQ section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with ThinkMarkets was good.

ThinkForex Review offers a decent number of currency pairs, with forex spreads below the average industry benchmark. Spreads remained stable for all our trades, and executions were fast. The broker also offers share trading in Australia, which is excellent.

Our experience with account opening, deposits, and withdrawals were also smooth and without any issues.

The customer support is also excellent, but we recommend you approach the support team over live chat.

We recommend ThinkMarkets to forex traders who run strategies like scalping and hedging.

We recommend ThinkMarkets for traders who are

Experienced traders
Beginners
Run Scalping
Hedging

ThinkMarkets might not be a fit if you are

Real Stock / Futures Trading
Commission based trading

Tags thinkmarkets review

Broker Review

CMC Markets Review 2023

CMC Markets logo

For this CMC Markets review, we have opened a CFD account with the broker and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the real spreads and placed a total of 12 trades.
We also reached out to customer support to solve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is CMC Markets?

CMC Markets is an UK forex broker, offering financial trading services with contracts for differences (CFDs) and spread betting.

The brokerage was founded in 1989 and is publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) under the ticker CMCX.

CMC Markets operates globally (except some restrictive countries) and is regulated in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.

It offers trading with a number of popular asset classes, including forex, indices, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies.

Some of the highlights of CMC Markets are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Germany, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, UAE
🛡️ Is CMC Markets safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	0.7
💳 Minimum deposit	US$0
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, Next Generation Platform
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, ETFs, Commodities, Treasuries, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	10063 (Depends on the jurisdiction)

Licenses and Regulations

CMC Markets holds 8 regulatory licenses from mostly the top financial market regulators. The broker is regulated in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.

CMC Markets holds two licenses from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), one as a top CFD broker and the other for spread bets.

The full list of CMC Markets licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting clients from	Compensation Scheme Amount
CMC Markets UK Plc	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	173730	United Kingdom, Global	£85,000
CMC Spreadbet plc	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	170627	United Kingdom	£85,000
CMC Markets Germany GmbH	Germany	The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin)	154814	European Union	€20,000
CMC Markets Asia Pacific Pty Ltd	Australia	Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL)	238054	Australia, Global	No compensation scheme
CMC Markets Singapore Pte. Ltd	Singapore	Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)	No./UEN 200605050E	Singapore	SG$50,000
CMC MARKETS NZ LIMITED	New Zealand	Financial Markets Authority New Zealand (FMA)	FSP41187	New Zealand	NZ$200,000
CMC Markets Canada Inc	Canada	Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC)	Registration	Canada	CD$1,000,000
CMC Markets Middle East Ltd	UAE	Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA)	F002740	UAE	No Compensation Scheme

CMC Markets FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) Registration — CMC Markets FCA License page

Is CMC Markets Safe?

Yes, CMC Markets is a safe broker.

CMC Markets is a publicly-traded company on the London Stock Exchange. It has to report its complete financials every quarter, making its operations very transparent.

The broker is regulated by most of the reputed regulators for its global operations. Many regulators like the FCA, BaFin, MAS, FMA, and IIROC also offer compensation schemes, which protect the client funds in any unforeseen circumstances.

For our tests, we opened a CFD account with CMC Markets UK Plc, which is regulated by FCA in the UK.
You can register with any of the CMC Markets entities, whichever is available in your jurisdiction, as all of them are overseen by reputed regulators.

CMC Markets Fees and Commissions

CMC Markets trading fees forex, indices, cryptocurrencies, and commodities are built into spreads. It charges fixed commissions on share CFDs.

Spreads for our trades were much below the average industry benchmark for forex and commodities.

Share CFDs commissions table:

Country	Commission	Charge currency	Minimum commission
Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain	0.1%	EUR	EUR 9
Australia	0.1%	AUD	AUD 7
Canada	2 cents per unit	CAD	CAD 10
Switzerland	0.1%	CHF	CHF 9
Denmark	0.1%	DKK	DKK 90
United Kingdom	0.1%	GBP	GBP 9
Hong Kong	0.18%	HKD	HKD 50
Japan	0.1%	JPY	JPY 1,000
Norway	0.1%	NOK	NOK 79
New Zealand	0.1%	NZD	NZD 7
Poland	0.18%	PLN	PLN 50
Sweden	0.1%	SEK	SEK 89
Singapore	0.1%	SGD, USD	SGD 10, USD 10
United States	2 cents per unit	USD	USD 10

Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average spread.

Our test is based on CMC Markets’ CFD account, and all spreads are too consistent for our trades. Spreads on forex and indices were constantly minimum charged by the broker.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.7	0.7	0.7	0.7
Indices	FTSE 100	2	2	2	2
Stocks	Apple	1	1	1	1
Commodities	Gold	3	3	3	3

Our testing finds that forex spreads much lower than the industry average. Spreads on commodities are also lower than the average benchmark, while for indices, it was higher.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.7	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	2	1.65
Stocks	Apple	1	1.75
Commodities	Gold	3	3.53

Other Fees

CMC Markets has bare minimum non-trading fees. The broker offers free deposits and withdrawals (with some exceptions), and there are no account maintenance fees.

However, CMC Markets charges £10 (amount depends on your account currency) for dormant accounts after 12 months of inactivity.

CMC Markets Australia

Additionally, there are certain costs to access market data in Australia and Hong Kong. Monthly subscription fees to view the prices for Australian and Hong Kong share CFDs are AU$20 and HK$120, respectively. However, these fees can be waived by executing two or more trades in the relevant markets.

The broker also charges fees for Guaranteed stop losses (GSLO), which gets refunded if GSLO is not triggered.

Account Types

CMC Markets three straightforward accounts: Spread betting account, CFD account, and Professional account.

Details of all CMC Markets accounts are:

	Spread betting account	CFD account	Corporate account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4	MetaTrader 4	MetaTrader 4
Account Currency	GBP, EUR	GBP, EUR, USD, AUS, CAD, NOK, NZD, PLN, SEK, SGD	GBP, EUR, USD, AUS, CAD, NOK, NZD, PLN, SEK, SGD
Minimum deposit	$0	$0	$0
Commission		From $10(Shares only)	From $10(Shares only)
Order execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 0.3	From 0.3	From 0.3

Account Opening

Our overall experience of opening a new account with CMC Markets was quick and simple.

We opened a CFD account for our tests under the FCA-regulated entity.

The process of registration of a new CMC Markets account:

Select your country (CMC Markets will open the account under its relevant entity in the jurisdiction).
Enter email and password (UK-based clients have to choose if they want to open Spread betting account or CFD trading account).
Enter the verification code sent to the email.
Provide personal details like first name, last name, country of residence, account type (individual or corporate), and account currency.
Provide additional personal details like date of birth, mobile number, nationality, passport details, and tax identification number. Declare non-US citizenship.
Enter the full residential address.
Provide employment status and industry.
Provide annual income and value of savings and investments. Also, state the reason for opening a CMC Markets account and give details of other investments.
Customize your trading platform layout.

We submitted the following documents to verify our CMC Markets account:

Copy of national identification (both front and back)
Copy of our bank statement

We also had to confirm if we are a private or non-private investor.

The registration process took around 10 minutes. Our account was verified on the same working day.
Our account was registered on October 18, 2020, and approved on the same day.
Our overall account opening experience was smooth and without any issues from registration to verification.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Both deposits and withdrawals on CMC Markets are easy and fast. All our funding and withdrawal requests were completed without any issues.

CMC Markets Minimum Deposit

CMC Markets does not have minimum deposit requirement.

Deposit

CMC Markets supports deposits with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and PayPal.

CMC Markets does not allow transactions with AMEX or Diners cards. The broker does not charge anything for deposits.

We tested the deposit process on CMC Markets using card payment and PayPal.

Details of our fund deposits are shown in the below table.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
PayPal	2023-03-16	2023-03-16	Instant	zero
PayPal	2023-03-16	2023-03-16	Instant	zero
Credit card	2023-03-16	2023-03-16	3 hours	zero

We had to provide a photo of our credit card to process the funding transaction with the card.

Withdrawal

CMC Markets allows withdrawals via credit/debit cards, bank transfers, and PayPal. Withdrawals are usually free with this broker.

However, CMC Markets charges a £15 fee for instant withdrawal with bank transfer or transfer to an international bank account.

Overall, our experience with CMC Markets’ withdrawal process was positive. The requests were smooth but took 2 working days.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
PayPal	2023-03-16	2023-03-18	2023-03-18	2 working day	zero
Credit card	2023-03-18	2023-03-22	2023-03-22	2 working day	zero

We had to provide the statement of the bank account connected to put PayPal account to process the withdrawal request.

Markets and Products

CMC Markets offers CFD trading services with forex, indices, stocks, commodities, treasuries, and cryptocurrencies instruments.

CMC Markets CFD

The broker is known for its forex and share CFDs offering and has a vast offering in both markets. It offers trading with company stocks in various global markets. Indices, commodities, and cryptocurrency offerings of CMC Trading are also impressive.

The complete list of CMC Markets offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	339
Indices	95
Stocks and ETFs	9451
Commodities	111
Treasuries	53
Cryptocurrency	14

Cryptocurrency trading is only available from 11 pm (GMT) Sunday – 9 pm (GMT) Friday.

The number of instruments offered and the markets might differ depending on your jurisdiction.

Trading Conditions

CMC Markets offers good trading conditions. It allows both hedging and scalping strategies. But only professional clients can change leverage levels.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	No

Leverage

Leverages offered by CMC Markets on various asset classes are standard, as per the regulatory requirements, and are detailed below:

Markets	CMC Markets UK Plc	CMC Markets Germany GmbH	CMC Markets Asia Pacific Pty Ltd	CMC Markets Singapore Pte. Ltd	CMC Markets NZ Limited	CMC Markets Canada Inc	CMC Markets Middle East Ltd
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	30:1	50:1	500:1	34.4:1	400:1
Non-Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	20:1	50:1	500:1	34.4:1	400:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	20:1	5:1	200:1	38:1	200:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	20:1	20:1	10:1	5:1	200:1	38:1	50:1
Indices	20:1	20:1	20:1	20:1	500:1	18:1	200:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	5:1	10:1	20:1	6:1	10:1
Cryptocurrencies	NA	2:1	2:1	NA	20:1	NA	20:1

CMC Markets Bonus

Only the Australia-registered entity of CMC Markets offers a bonus scheme to traders.

Traders can receive AU$250 as a bonus if the following conditions are satisfied :

Fund the account with a minimum initial amount of AU$1,000
Place trades on the account with a minimum aggregate turnover of US$500,000 in share CFDs (excluding US Shares) or US$2,000,000 across all CFD classes

CMC Markets Trading Platform

CMC Markets offers two trading platforms to the traders:

MetaTrader4 (Third-party platform developed by MetaQuotes Software)
Next Generation platform (Proprietary platform)

The Next Generation platform does not have backtesting capabilities.

Shares CFDs trading is only available on the Next Generation platform.

Our account was based on CMC Markets’ Next Generation trading platform.
We downloaded the mobile version of the trading platform and tried to place an order of EUR/USD. But the “Confirm” button did not work.
We provided a screenshot to the CMC Markets support team to investigate but did not receive any response. We finally operated our trades on the desktop client.

Research and Tools

CMC Markets offers excellent market research and analysis tools. The broker’s tools are useful to both beginner and advanced traders.

Some of the tools offered by CMC Markets are:

Excellent charting tools
Fundamental market data (through Morningstar reports)
Economic calendar (powered by Thomson Reuters)
Market analysis (in multiple languages)
Newsfeed
Trading ideas

Education

CMC Markets offers easy-to-understand and good quality educational resources. Its tutorials are categorized into several sections for ease of learning.

Some of the educational materials offered by the brokers are:

Text-based tutorials
Video tutorials on trading
Explainaire videos for tools
Webinars
Demo account

CMC Markets Demo Account

CMC Markets Educational Material — CMC Markets Educational Resources

Customer Service

CMC Markets has good customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

Live chat
email
Phone

The support staff is available only on weekdays.

Our experience with CMC Markets’ customer support was mixed. Most of the time, the support team was very quick in response, and answers were also direct and accurate.
However, we did not receive any response to one of our queries.

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Asked if we could use MT4 account to trade EURUSD, Gold, Apple, UK100	2 min	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked if we could use our trading account to trade on MT4 or MT5	5 hour	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked why we cannot place orders on the Next Generation app		No reply

CMC Markets provides customer support in multiple languages.

The broker also has a detailed FAQ section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with CMC Markets was smooth.

The broker offered excellent forex spreads, which were low and stable. The expectation speed was also fast.

However, deposit and withdrawal methods were limited. We also faced issues with trading on the mobile client of the broker’s own platform.

Our experience with customer support remained mixed as we did not receive any answer to one query. But the remaining replies were fast and accurate.

We recommend traders to run EA, scalping, hedging, and other trading strategies with CMC Markets

We recommend CMC Markets for traders who are

Beginners in trading
Trading Stocks
Trading currency pairs
Use Automated trading
EA trader
Scalping
Hedging
Spread Betting
Social Trading

CMC Markets might not be a fit if you are

Day trader
Trading of Real Stocks

Tags cmc markets review

Broker Review

Vantage FX Review 2023

Vantage FX_logo

For this Vantage FX review, we have opened a standard account with the broker and deposited over €5,000.
We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the real spreads and placed a total of 15 trades.
We also reached out to customer support to solve the issues we faced.
Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is Vantage FX?

Vantage FX is a forex and contract for difference (CFDs) broker, known for offering forex ECN pricing.

The broker was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

Vantage FX is regulated in the United Kingdom, Australia, Vanuatu, and The Cayman Islands. Its offerings include trading with forex, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and shares CFDs.

Some of the highlights of Vantage FX are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Australia, Vanuatu, Cayman Islands
🛡️ Is Vantage FX safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.15
💳 Minimum deposit	US$200
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0 (with some exceptions)
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5, V Social
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	310 (depends on the jurisdiction)

Licenses and Regulations

Vantage FX holds 4 regulatory licenses.

The broker is regulated by Australia’s ASIC and the UK’s FCA, both regarded as reputed financial regulators. The other two licenses are from the regulators in Vanuatu and The Cayman Islands.

The full list of Vantage FX licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License number	Accepting clients from	Compensation scheme amount
Vantage International Group Limited	The Cayman Islands	Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA)	1383491	Global	No compensation scheme
Vantage Services Limited	Vanuatu	Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC)	700271	Global	No compensation scheme
Vantage Global Prime Pty Ltd	Australia	Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)	428901	Australia	No compensation scheme
Vantage Global Prime LLP	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	590299	United Kingdom, Global	£85,000

Apart from the Vantage FX brand, the group also runs another forex and CFDs broker brand, Moneta Markets. This review is only for the Vantage FX brand.

Vantage FX VFSC (Vanuatu Financial Services Commission) Registration — Vantage FX VFSC License Page

Is Vantage FX Safe?

Yes, Vantage FX is a safe broker.

For our tests, an MT5 Standard STP account with Vantage Services Limited, which is regulated by Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC).
We recommend you open an account with the UK or the Australian entity if their services are available in your jurisdiction.

Fees and Commissions

Vantage FX fees depend on the account type. Its fees are built into spreads for the Standard STP account. For Raw and Pro ECN accounts, the broker charges commission along with zero spreads or low spreads.

Spreads for our trades were much below the average industry benchmark for all asset classes we traded.

Raw ECN account commissions table:

Trading Account Currency	Commission per 0.01 LOTS (1000 base currency)	Commission per 1 LOT (100,000 base currency)
AUD	AUD $0.03 (round turn $0.06)	AUD $3 (round turn $6)
USD	USD $0.03 (round turn $0.06)	USD $3 (round turn $6)
GBP	GBP £0.02 (round turn £0.04)	GBP £2 (round turn £4)
EUR	EUR €0.025 (round turn €0.05)	EUR €2.5 (round turn €5)
SGD	SGD $0.035 (round turn $0.07)	SGD $3.50 (round turn $7)
JPY	JPY ¥2.75 (round turn ¥5.50)	JPY ¥275 (round turn ¥ 550)
NZD	NZD $0.0325 (round turn $0.065)	NZD $3.25 (round turn $6.50
CAD	CAD $0.03 (round turn $0.06)	CAD $3 (round turn $6)

Pro ECN account commission charges:

Trading Account Currency	Commission per 0.01 LOTS (1000 base currency)	Commission per 1 LOT (100,000 base currency)
AUD	AUD $0.02 (round turn $0.04)	AUD $2 (round turn $4)
USD	USD $0.0175 (round turn $0.035)	USD $1.75 (round turn $3.5)
GBP	GBP £0.0125 (round turn £0.025)	GBP £1.25 (round turn £2.5)
EUR	EUR €0.015 (round turn €0.03)	EUR €1.5 (round turn €3)
CAD	CAD $0.02 (round turn $0.04)	CAD $2 (round turn $4)
JPY	JPY ¥1.75 (Round turn ¥3.50)	JPY ¥175 (Round turn ¥350)

Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average spread.

Our test is based on Vantage FX’s Standard STP account. The spreads for our trades fluctuated but remained much lower than the average industry benchmark for all asset classes.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.15	1.1	1.2	1.15
Indices	FTSE 100	1.05	0.8	0.8	0.88
Stocks	Apple	1	1.5	1	1.17
Commodities	Gold	2.85	2.25	2.15	2.42
Cryptocurrencies	Bitcoin	18.1	18.1	22.89	19.70

Our testing finds that forex spreads much lower than the industry average. Spreads on commodities are also lower than the average benchmark, while for indices, it was higher.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.15	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	0.88	1.65
Stocks	Apple	1.17	1.75
Commodities	Gold	2.42	3.53
Cryptocurrencies	Bitcoin	19.70	72.81

Other Fees

Vantage FX does not have any prominent non-trading fees. The broker offers free deposits and does not have any account maintenance or inactivity fees.

Though withdrawal is free, the broker charges 20 units of the base currency for processing international bank transfers.

Account Types

Vantage FX offers three types of accounts: Raw ECN account, Standard STP account, and Pro ECN account.

Details of all Vantage FX accounts are:

	Raw ECN Account	Standard STP Account	Pro ECN Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5	MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5
Account Currency	AUD, USD, GBP, EUR, SGD, CAD, NZD, JPY, HKD	AUD, USD, GBP, EUR, SGD, CAD, NZD, JPY, HKD	AUD, USD, GBP, EUR, SGD, CAD, NZD, JPY, HKD
Minimum deposit	$500	$200	$20,000
Commission	$3 commissions per standard lot	Nil	$2 commission per standard FX lot
Order execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 0	From 1.4	From 0

Vantage FX also offers swap-free Islamic accounts and corporate accounts.

Account Opening

Our overall experience of opening a new account with Vantage FX was smooth and fast.

We opened a Standard STP MetaTrader 5 account for our tests under the Vanuatu-regulated entity.

The process of registration of a new Vantage FX account:

Enter first name, last name, country, phone, email, and account type (individual, company, or professional).
Provide personal details like date of birth, place of birth, and identification (type and number).
Enter national insurance number, address, taxation country, and declare non-US citizenship.
Provide employment and financial details like employment status, occupation, employment sector, annual income, and estimated size of the investment portfolio.
Provide details on trading knowledge and experience.
Configure the trading account: choose the trading platform, account type, and account currency.

We submitted the following documents to verify our Vantage FX account:

Copy of national identification (both front and back)
Copy of our bank statement

The registration process took around 7 minutes. Our account was verified on the same working day, in fact, it was verified within 2 hours.
Our account was registered on March 24, 2023, and approved on the same day.
Our overall account opening experience was smooth and without any issues from registration to verification.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Both deposits and withdrawals on Vantage FX are easy and fast. All our funding and withdrawal requests were completed without any issues.

Vantage FX Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit on Vantage FX varies with the account type.

Standard STP Account: $200
Raw ECN Account: $500
Pro ECN Account: $20,000

Traders only need to maintain the minimum deposit balance on their accounts.

Deposit

Vantage FX supports deposits with bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and several top online wallets like PayPal, Neteller, and Skrill. The brand also supports broker-to-broker transfer and cryptocurrency deposits with Bitcoin and Tether.

Though deposits are mostly free, China Union Pay transfers might attract a fee of 1.30% to 2.50%.

The deposit methods also depend on the account jurisdiction.

We tested the deposit process on Vantage FX using a credit card, Neteller, and Skrill.

Details of our fund deposits are shown in the below table.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Credit card	2023-03-24	2023-03-24	Instant	zero
Neteller	2023-03-24	2023-03-24	Instant	zero
Skrill	2023-03-24	2023-03-24	Instant	zero

Vantage FX Deposit Methods — Vantage FX Deposit and Withdrawal

Withdrawal

Vantage FX allows withdrawals via bank transfer, credit/debit card, and online wallets, mostly similar to deposit methods.

Withdrawals are mostly free. For international bank transfers, the broker will charge 20 units of the account base currency, let it be USD, EUR, or AUD.

Overall, our experience with the Vantage FX withdrawal process was positive. However, the broker charged a 1% fee for our Skrill withdrawal, so we do not recommend you using that method.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit card	2023-03-24	2023-03-25	2023-03-26	2 working day	zero
Neteller	2023-03-25	2023-03-26	2023-03-26	1 working day	zero
Skrill	2023-03-26	2023-03-26	2023-03-26	Few hours	1%

Markets and Products

Vantage FX offers CFD trading services with forex, indices, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrency instruments.

The complete list of Vantage FX offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	44
Indices	16
Stocks and ETFs	226
Commodities	19
Cryptocurrency	5

The markets and the number of offered instruments will depend on the account jurisdiction.

Trading Conditions

Vantage FX offers excellent trading conditions. It allows both hedging and scalping strategies and traders can change leverage levels too.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	Yes

Vantage FX Leverage

Leverages offered by Vantage Forex on various asset class are standard, as per the regulatory requirements, with high leverage for Vantage FX International, leverage detailed below:

Markets	Vantage Global Prime LLP	Vantage Global Prime Pty Ltd	Vantage Services Limited	Vantage International Group Limited
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	500:1	500:1
Non-Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	500:1	500:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	500:1	500:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	20:1	20:1	200:1	200:1
Indices	20:1	20:1	200:1	200:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	200:1	200:1
Cryptocurrencies	NA	2:1	500:1	500:1

Bonus

Vantage FX’s Vanuatu and The Cayman Islands-registered entities offer several promotional schemes to both new and existing global traders.

The 50% deposit bonus promotion under Vantage Services Limited (Vanuatu):

Account types	MT4 STP, MT4 ECN and MT5 accounts
Maximum payout	Up to $250 bonus credits
Minimum deposit	$200 and up to $500
Entity	Vantage Services Limited
Requirement	A minimum $100 balance is needed for eligibility

The 10% rebate program under Vantage Global Limited (The Cayman Islands):

Account types	MT4 STP accounts
Maximum payout	$20,000
Minimum deposit	$1,000 and up to $20,000
Entity	Vantage Global Limited
Requirement	A minimum $100 balance is needed for eligibility

The broker also offers rebates on trading fees to active traders (with an account balance of at least $10,000).

Active Traders promotion structure for new traders:

Minimum Deposit	Rebate amount per 1 standard FX lot	Rebate amount
$10,000	$2	$1,000
$30,000	$4	$3,000
$100,000	$6	$10,000
$300,000	$8	$30,000

Active Traders promotion structure for existing traders:

Minimum Deposit	Rebate amount per 1 standard FX lot	Rebate amount
$10,000	$2	30% redeposit bonus
$30,000	$4	30% redeposit bonus
$100,000	$6	30% redeposit bonus
$300,000	$8	30% redeposit bonus

Vantage FX also runs a referral program, offering $150 for each referral and an additional $100 to the new client joined with the referral link.

Copy Trading

Vantage FX provides its copy trading platform with three third-party service providers and one proprietary app:

ZuluTrade
MyFXBook Autotrade
DupliTrade
V Social

Trading Platform

Vantage FX offers MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms to the traders. These are industry standard third-party platforms developed by the company MetaQuotes Software.

Both these platforms are available on the web, desktop, and mobile.

Research and Tools

Vantage FX offers some excellent market research and analysis tools. Most of the tools, however, can only be unlocked after depositing over $1,000.

Tools offered by Vantage FX are:

Good charting tools
Macroeconomic fundamental data
Economic calendar
Trading Ideas
Forex VPS
Forex Sentiment Indicator
Newsfeed (Including an AI-driven market news coverage)

Education

Vantage Trading offers some good quality educational resources. It offers tutorials on forex trading, as well as guides on trading platforms.

Tutorials on forex trading
Details manuals and video guides on MetaTrader platforms
Demo account

Vantage FX Demo Account

Vantage FX Educational Material — Vantage FX Video Tutorials

Customer Service

Vantage FX has decent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

Live chat
email
Phone

The support staff is available only on weekdays.

Our experience with Vantage FX customer support was mostly positive.
The support staff on live chat was quick enough to answer our query accurately. However, we received an indirect response on another issue raised by email.

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Asked if Vantage FX change any deposit or withdrawal fee	10 seconds	Clear and accurate
Email	Asked about the regulated entity of Cypriot traders	15 minutes	Indirect answer

The broker also has a detailed FAQ section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with Vantage FX was positive.

The forex broker offers a good number of currency pairs, with forex spreads below the average industry benchmark.

Account opening, deposits, and withdrawals are also smooth and fast on Vantage FX.

Our experience with customer support, however, remained mixed as an email response we received provided us with an indirect answer.

We recommend Vantage FX to forex traders who follow strategies like scalping and hedging.

We recommend Vantage FX for traders who are

Experienced traders
Beginners
Run Scalping
Hedging
EAs trading
Trading through MT4
Looking for good tools

Vantage FX might not be a fit if you are

Real Stock / Futures Trading
Commission based trading
Prefer other platforms rather than MetaTrader

Tags vantage fx review