Category: Broker Review

For this ActivTrades review, we opened a live account and deposited over €5,000.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to identify the actual spreads and placed a total of 12 trades.

We reached out to the broker’s customer support team to resolve the challenges we faced.

Finally, we withdrew our funds to evaluate whether the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is ActivTrades

ActivTrades is a global Forex and CFDs broker founded in 2001 with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom.

The broker is licensed in the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, and the Bahamas.

ActivTrades offers almost a thousand tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks and commodities segments.

The broker offers a substantial number of tradable instruments as compared to industry leaders.

Here’s a summary of Activtrades’ main features:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Bahamas, Luxembourg
🛡️ Is ActivTrades safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	0.57
💳 Minimum deposit	US$ 500
💰 Withdrawal fee	Bank Wire: $12.50; others are free
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5, ActivTrader
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities
📉 Number of Products	999

Licenses and Regulations

ActivTrades is licensed by 3 global regulators, including the top-tier UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB), and Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF).

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

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting Clients From	Compensation Scheme Amount
ActivTrades Plc	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	434413	United Kingdom	£85,000
ActivTrades Corp	Bahamas	Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB)	199667 B	Globally many countries	No compensation scheme
ActivTrades Europe SA	Luxembourg	Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF)	B232167	EU	€20,000
ActivTrades Plc*	UAE	Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA)	F003511	UAE	No compensation scheme

*ActivTrades Plc UAE license was recently revoked, leaving the broker with 3 global licenses.

Is ActivTrades Safe

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

The UK’s FCA guarantees investors’ deposit compensation of up to £85,000 if the broker declares bankruptcy. The broker also offers supplementary insurance up to $1,000,000 for qualified clients.

The broker is also licensed by Luxembourg’s CSSF and the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB).

We had a smooth experience when trading with ActivTrades.

For this review, we opened an MT5 Individual account with ActivTrades Europe SA, regulated by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg.

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

Fees and Commissions

ActivTrades charges low, average and high fees for trading the main assets on offer. The fees charged for trading Forex pairs, and stocks, are lower than industry benchmarks.

The broker charges average fees for trading commodities such as gold.

However, the average fees charged on indices such as the FTSE 100 are much higher than industry averages.

The two accounts offered by ActivTrades charge a spread on trades with zero commission.

Spread Charged in our Trades

For our tests, we traded the most popular instrument in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to arrive at an accurate estimate of the average spread. We tested the MT5 Individual Account, which charges a spread on all instruments.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.6	0.55	0.55	0.57
Indices	FTSE 100	3.17	3.11	2.67	2.98
Stocks	Apple	1	1.5	1	1.17
Commodities	Gold	3.6	3.5	3.6	3.57

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

A closer look at the spreads charged in our trades shows that they were mixed. The spreads on Forex, stocks and commodities trades were lower than industry averages. However, the spreads charged on indices were much higher than industry averages, as shown below.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. Spread Charged	Industry Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.57	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	2.98	1.65
Stocks	Apple	1.17	1.75
Commodities	Gold	3.57	3.53

Other fees

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

Account Types

ActivTrades offers 2 account types with slight differences. These are the Individual Account and the Islamic Account.

The differences are outlined below:

	Individual Account	Islamic Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4 & 5, ActivTrader	MetaTrader 4 & 5
Account Currency	EUR/ USD/ CHF	EUR/ USD/ CHF
Minimum Deposit	$1,000	$500
Commission	Zero	Zero
Order Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 0.5	From 0.5
Note

ActivTrades offers swap-free Islamic Accounts to Muslim clients only. Such accounts do not attract a swap fee for positions held overnight in line with Sharia Law.

For our tests, we chose to open the Individual MT5 Account.

Account Opening

ActivTrades account opening was quick and smooth. We went through the entire process and completed it digitally.

Here are the 5 steps to opening an ActivTrades account:

1. Enter your country of residence, title, given name, last name, email, password, and phone number.
2. Provide your date of birth, nationality, tax identification number, residential address, time at current address
3. Enter your trading experience based on how long you have traded contracts for difference (CFDs).
4. Provide your employment status, employer, industry, job title, annual income, the value of savings, intended deposits over the next 6 months, source of funds, and trading preferences.
5. Lastly, choose your trading platform and your account currency.

The registration process took 6 minutes only, and our account was approved in 1 working day.

We opened the account on 26 February 2023, and it was approved on 28 February 2023.

We provided a copy of our ID and a bank statement to verify our account.

For this test, we opened an MT5 Individual account with ActivTrades Europe SA, regulated by Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF).

Deposit and Withdrawal

ActivTrades offers free and 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, PayPal, and Neteller.

ActivTrades Minimum Deposit

ActivTrades has a minimum deposit requirement of US$500 on its Islamic accounts. The Standard account requires a minimum deposit of US$1,000.

Deposit

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

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Credit Card	5 March 2023	5 March 2023	30 minutes	€0.00
Skrill	5 March 2023	5 March 2023	1 hour	€0.00
Neteller	5 March 20232	5 March 2023	Instant	€0.00
PayPal	5 March 2023	5 March 2023	1 hour	€0.00

The broker processed our deposits quickly and with zero fees. We did not test the bank wire option.

Withdrawal

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

ActivTrades does not charge a fee on withdrawals.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funds Released Date	Funds Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit card	06 March 2023	06 March 2023	07 March 2023	1 working day	zero
Neteller	06 March 2023	06 March 2023	06 March 2023	4 hours	zero
Skrill	06 March 2023	06 March 2023	07 March 2023	1 working day	zero
PayPal	06 March 2023	06 March 2023	06 March 2023	half working day	zero

We did not face any challenges when withdrawing our funds.

Markets and Products

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

Here’s the complete list of ActivTrades’ product offering:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	48
Indices	35
Stocks	898
Commodities	18
Cryptocurrencies	N/A

The broker’s collection of stock CFDs is quite impressive, placing it among the top brokers who offer a wide variety of tradable instruments.

Trading Conditions

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

ActivTrades 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

Leverage

ActivTrades offers its clients various leverage levels depending on the entity under which their account is registered.

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

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

Markets	ActivTrades Plc UK	ActivTrades Europe SA	ActivTrades Corp
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	200:1
Non-major Currency Pairs	20:1	20:1	200:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	200:1
Other Commodities (except gold)	10:1	10:1	200:1
Indices	5:1	20:1	200:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	25:1
Cryptocurrencies	N/A	N/A	N/A

Bonus

ActivTrades does not offer bonuses to its clients.

Trading Platform

ActivTrades has a proprietary platform known as ActivTrader. We found the platform easy to use with an intuitive design. However, the platform does not support automated trading and is only available as a web trader.

The broker also offers the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platforms. Clients can access the two platforms via the desktop and mobile MT4 and MT5 applications.

ActivTrades MetaTrader 5

The broker’s SmartTools suite offered via the MT4 platform consist of seven unique add-ons that transform the MT4 platform into a superior platform. Retail individual traders should use this tool to get an edge in the markets.

ActivTrader

ActivTrades MetaTrader 4

The MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform offers a suite of Smart Tools that drastically improves its functionality. Traders can also access third-party plugins that support automated trading, unlike with the proprietary ActivTrader platform. However, the MT4 platform does not have all the instruments offered by the broker.

We found the ActivTrader platform to be best suited to manual traders, while traders who use automated strategies might prefer the MetaTrader 4 & 5 platforms, which are a better fit.

Research and Tools

ActivTrades provides market research via the Smart Tools suite found on the MetaTrader platforms, which provides high-quality trading insights from analysts, pattern recognition indicators and much more.

Traders also have access to short market analysis pieces published by the broker’s in-house analysts, which could be more detailed and specific. The ideas lack the depth and research quality offered by top brokers.

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

The broker’s research offering was a bit underwhelming.

Education

Activ Trades Review found several learning resources to its clients. The broker provides one-to-one lessons to new traders that are quite helpful. This is a unique service that most brokers do not offer.

Traders have access to a video library with tutorials about how to use the MT4 platform and general educational videos.

The broker also hosts educational webinars to discuss advanced trading topics, which are recorded and available on the website. The broker used to host in-person seminars before the coronavirus pandemic struck.

ActivTrades Demo Account

Traders also have access to a demo account where they can practice trading and test their strategies.

Customer Service

ActivTrades’ customer service team was accommodating and gave us direct and accurate answers to our questions. We first contacted the team via live chat and asked them to approve our request to add extra instruments to our account.

We received a fast response from the agent, saying that they will approve the request soon and that the UK100 was closed from CET 2:00 – 22:00 on that day.

You can also reach the ActivTrades customer service team via email. We sent the team an email asking whether they allow scalping and hedging strategies and how long they would take to process our withdrawals.

We got a response two working days later saying that they allow both scalping and hedging strategies. Also, withdrawal requests made before 12:30 PM UK time are processed on the same day, but one cannot withdraw intraday profits until the next business day.

Here are the results of our test below:

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live chat	We asked if they can approve our request of adding shares instrument in our trading account and to confirm if UK100 is not able to trade	2 minutes.	It was direct, fast and accurate.
Email	We asked if they allow scalping and hedging and how long time the withdrawal will be proceed	2 working days	It was direct and accurate.

Conclusion

Overall, we had a smooth experience with ActivTrades. However, we could not trade shortly after our initial deposit, but the issue was resolved quickly after contacting the support team.

We tested four deposit methods, all of which did not attract charges, but only the Neteller deposits were instant. The rest took a maximum of 1 hour to be credited to our account.

To trade Apple Inc CFDs, we had to request the broker to add stock instruments to our account, for which the broker charges a Market Data fee of 1 EUR/month.

The withdrawal process was seamless as the client only needs to indicate the amount they want to withdraw. The broker’s systems will automatically distribute the corresponding amounts via the different payment methods used.

We got fast responses to our queries via the live chat function, while email queries are answered within 1 working day, and traders should be aware of the same. We recommend traders use the live chat function to contact the broker.

We also recommend ActivTrades to all traders, from beginners to advanced traders.

We recommend  ActivTrades for traders who

• Experienced traders
• Beginners
• Run Scalping
• Hedging
• Use automated trading strategies
• Trading through MT4/MT5 platform

ActivTrades might not be a fit if you are

• Real Stock / Futures Trading
• Commission based trading

---

For this Tickmill review, we opened a live account and deposited over US$ 8,000.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to identify the average spread and placed 12 trades in total.

We contacted the broker’s customer support to resolve the challenges we faced.

Finally, we withdrew all our funds to discover if there are any issues with withdrawals.

What is Tickmill

Tickmill is a global Forex and CFDs broker, founded in 2014.

The broker is headquartered in London but is licensed by regulators in the UK, Cyprus, South Africa, Seychelles, and Labuan (Malaysia).

Tickmill has offices in each of the countries where it is regulated.

Some of Tickmill’s key features are listed below:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Cyprus, South Africa, Seychelles, Labuan
🛡️ Is Tickmill safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.63
💳 Minimum deposit	US$100
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0
🖥️ Trading Platform	MetaTrader 4
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Commodity, Indices & Bonds
📉 Number of Products	85

Licenses and Regulations

Tickmill is licensed by 5 global regulators including the top-tier UK’s FCA, the CySEC, FSCA, Labuan FSA & South Africa’s FSA.

Here’s a full list of the licenses, which are held by Tickmill’s subsidiaries:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Compensation Scheme Amount	Accepting clients from
Tickmill UK Ltd	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	717270	£85,000	Globally many countries
Tickmill Europe Ltd	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	278/15	€20,000	Globally many countries
Tickmill South Africa (Pty) Ltd	South Africa	Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA)	49464	No protection	South Africa
Tickmill Ltd	Seychelles	Financial Services Authority of Seychelles (FSA)	SD008	No protection	Globally many countries
Tickmill Asia Ltd	Malaysia	Financial Services Authority of Labuan (Labuan FSA)	MB/18/0028	No protection	Globally many countries

Is Tickmill Safe

Yes, Tickmill is safe to trade. Tickmill’s regulation by the FCA and CySEC means that traders registered under the two entities are entitled to deposit compensation schemes of up to £85,000 and €20,000 respectively.

We did not encounter any major issues when trading and making withdrawals with Tickmill.

For this review, we opened an account under Tickmill UK Ltd which is regulated by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for our tests where we deposited money, placed trades, and withdrew our funds.

We recommend that you register your account with the UK entity, if it’s available to you, as we consider FCA regulation as the best since it provides compensation of up to £85,000 if the broker goes bankrupt.

Fees and Commissions

Tickmill charges low fees for stock index trades, while forex and commodities fees are average to high.

Spread Charged in our Trades

In our tests, we chose the popular instrument in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a complete picture of the average spread. We tested the Classic Account which only charges a spread without commissions. Overall, the spread is stable as shown in the table below.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.6	1.6	1.7	1.63
Indices	FTSE 100	1	1	1	1.00
Commodities	Gold	2.4	2.6	6.4	3.80

We traded through MT4 on our iPhone which we video recorded the trades. You see this them here.

Comparing the spreads charged in our trades to industry benchmarks, we found the spread on stock indices to be quite low, but the spreads on Forex and commodities were in-line with industry averages or higher.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. Spread Charged	Industry Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.63	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	1.00	1.65
Commodities	Gold	3.80	3.53

Other fees

Tickmill does not charge non-trading fees such as account inactivity fees as well as deposit & withdrawal fees.

Tickmill Account types

Tickmill offers 3 account types, that is, the Pro, Classic, and VIP accounts. See the differences below:

	Pro	Classic	VIP
Minimum Deposit	$100	$100	$50,000
Minimum Balance	$0	$0	$50,000
Spreads from	0.0 pips	1.6 pips	0.0 pips
Commissions	2 per side per 100,000 traded	Zero Commissions	1 per side per 100,000 traded

Tickmill also offers swap-free forex accounts. The main difference with Islamic accounts is that instead of daily swap rates, there is an administration fee charged if you hold for more than 3 nights.

For our tests, we chose to open a Classic Account.

Account Opening

Tickmill account opening is fast and straightforward. We opened an account to test the entire process, which was fully digital.

Here are the 5 steps to opening a Tickmill account:

1. Enter your country of residence, preferred communication language, client type, your name, email, and phone number.
2. Enter your address including country of residence, state, city, street name, house number and ZIP code.
3. Answer a few questions about your nationality employment and financial status
4. Choose and confirm your password.
5. Verify your ID and residency using either a National ID or Passport and a bank statement.

The registration process took about 20 minutes and our account was approved in 1 day, which was impressive.

We registered our account on 29 January 2023 and it was verified on 30 January 2023. Our account was approved the next day after submitting all the necessary documents.

Unlike other brokers, Tickmill allows you to choose the entity under which you want to open an account giving you the option to choose the UK entity, which we did.

We video recorded our account opening process. See the video below

Tickmill account opening

Deposit and Withdrawal

Tickmill offers free and fast deposits and withdrawals. There are various options for funding your account, including bank wires, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill and Neteller.

Minimum Deposit

Tickmill’s minimum deposit is $100 for bank transfers, credit/debit cards, Skrill and Neteller. However, the VIP account has a $50,000 minimum deposit.

Deposit

Tickmill clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts using debit/credit cards, bank transfers, and e-wallets such as Skrill, and Neteller.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Skrill	2023-01-30	2023-02-01	1 working day	zero
Credit card	2023-02-01	2023-02-01	Instant	zero
Skrill	2023-02-01	2023-02-01	Instant	zero
Bank Transfer	2023-02-01	2023-02-02	1 working day	*US$25
Neteller	2023-02 08	2023-02-08	Instant	zero
Neteller	2023-02-13	2023-02-13	Instant	zero

All the deposit methods offered by Tickmill are instant and free, except for bank transfers, which take 1 working day and usually incur a $25 fee charged by the bank.

Withdrawal

Tickmill processes client withdrawals quite fast with zero charges on each withdrawal.

We withdrew our funds via the four payment methods we used to make our initial deposits to test all the available withdrawal options.

Tickmill allows you to withdraw your funds using any of the payment methods used to deposit funds without following a particular order. We made our first deposit using Skrill yet our first withdrawal was to our credit card.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funds Released Date	Funds Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit Card	2023-01-02	2023-01-02	2023-01-03	1 working day	zero
Skrill	2023-01-02	2023-01-05	2023-01-05	1 working day (3-4 Oct, weekend)	zero
Bank Transfer	2023-01 -03	2023-01-05	2023-01-06	2 working days (3-4 Oct, weekend)	zero
Neteller	2023-01-02	2023-01-05	2023-01-05	1 working day (3-4 Oct, weekend)	zero

Markets and Products

At Tickmill, you can trade CFDs on Forex, stock indices, commodities, and German government bonds.

Popular asset classes, such as stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds and options are missing.

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

Markets	Instruments
Forex	62
Indices	13
Commodities	6
Bonds	4

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at Tickmill are good. You can run most types of trading strategies as the broker allows high-risk strategies such as hedging and scalping.

There are no time limitations for keeping your hedging positions open. Tickmill also allows the use of Expert Advisors (EAs).

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	Yes

Leverage

Tickmill offers different leverage levels to its clients depending on the entity under which they registered their account:

The table below outlines the various leverage levels available to clients:

Markets	Tickmill UK Ltd	Tickmill Europe Ltd	Tickmill South Africa (Pty) Ltd	Tickmill Ltd	Tickmill Asia Ltd
Major currency pairs	30:1	30:1	500:1	500:1	500:1
Minor currency pairs	20:1	20:1	100:1	100:1	500:1
Exotic pairs	10:1	10:1	10:1	10:1	10:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	500:1	500:1	500:1
Indices	20:1	20:1	100:1	100:1	100:1
Other Commodities	10:1	10:1	100:1	100:1	100:1
Bonds	5:1	5:1	100:1	100:1	100:1

Tickmill Bonus

Tickmill offers a no-deposit bonus worth $30 to its new clients.

However, the bonus is only provided by Tickmill Ltd and does not apply to clients from certain countries.

Here are the full details of the bonus scheme:

Bonus Type	No deposit bonus
Bonus Amount	US$30
Provided by	Tickmill Ltd
Does not apply to clients from	The European Union, Algeria, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Colombia, Georgia, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Kazakhastan,

Trading Platform

Tickmill’s trading platform is based on the popular MetaTrader 4 platform (MT4). The broker does not offer any other trading platform making it ideal for MT4 lovers.

WebTrader

Tickmill MT4

The MT4 platform is decent enough and can be customized to a high degree. However, the design is getting old, and we would have loved to see the broker offer the MetaTrader 5 platform (MT5), which is the newer version of the platform.

In our test, we placed all our trade through the MT4 app on our iPhone.

Research and Tools

Tickmill provides user-friendly research tools including

• Autochartist
• Myfxbook Copy Trading
• Economic Calendar
• Forex Calculators
• Tickmill VPS
• One-Click Trading

Education

Tickmill does a good job in education. They offer

• Webinars
• Seminars
• Ebooks
• Video Tutorials
• Infographics
• Forex Glossary
• Fundamental Analysis
• Technical Analysis
• Market Insights

Customer Service

Tickmill’s customer support team was helpful and provided relevant answers to our questions.

You can contact Tickmill via Email, and Phone calls. However, we could not reach anyone by phone as our calls went unanswered.

We were disappointed to find out that the broker does not have a Live Chat function, which is a crucial support channel offered by most brokers.

See the results of our test below:

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Email	Funds Withdrawal	1 working day	Okay

We did note that the account opening and verification process was smooth and we did not encounter any issues during the process.

Tickmill Customer service channels:

Conclusion

Our overall experience was smooth. Tickmill allows traders to trade with almost any trading strategy including scalping, which is great for day trading and EA trading. Tickmill also allows traders to change their leverage levels and…

As compared to other brokers. Tickmill offers a limited number of markets and instruments, and we hope that they will add shares CFDs, cryptocurrencies, and ETFs in the future.

We recommend Tickmill for traders who run EAs, scalping and prefer the MT4 platform, as well as those interested in trading with FCA-regulated brokers.

We recommend Tickmill for traders who are

• Experienced traders
• Beginners
• Run Scalping
• Hedging
• EAs trading
• Trading through MT4

Tickmill might not be a fit if you are

• Real Stock / Futures Trading
• Commission based trading
• Prefer other platforms rather than MT4

---

For this Trading 212 review, we opened a real account and made a total deposit of over EUR 5,500.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to determine the average spread charged and we placed a total of 15 trades.

We also reached out to the broker’s customer support team to resolve the issues we encountered.

Finally, we withdrew all our funds to identify if there are any delays or issues with withdrawals.

What is Trading 212

Trading 212 is a global Forex and CFD broker, founded in 2004. The broker is headquartered in London and is regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and by the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission (FSC).

Some of the highlighted features of Trading 212 are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK & Bulgaria
🛡️ Is Trading 212 safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.37
💳 Minimum deposit	US$1
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0
🖥️ Trading Platform	Trading 212’s custom Trading Platform
📈 Markets offered	Indices, Forex, Commodities, Stocks, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	2,029

Licenses and Regulations

Trading 212 has 2 licenses globally including a top-tier license from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Here is the full list:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting clients from	Compensation Scheme Amount
Trading 212 UK Ltd	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	609146	Globally (many countries)	£85,000
Trading 212 Ltd	Bulgaria	Financial Supervision Commission (FSC)	RG-03-0237	Globally (many countries)	€20,000

Is Trading 212 Safe

Yes, it is safe to trade. Trading 212 is regulated by two financial authorities globally, including a top-tier one. We did not encounter any issues in the trading and withdrawal process during our test.

FCA

For this review, we opened a CFD account with Trading 212 UK Ltd which is one of theFCA regulated forex brokers in UK in which we deposited money so as to run our tests.

We recommend that you open your account with the UK entity if it’s available to you since we consider regulation by the FCA as being the best given that it offers investor compensation of up to £85,000 in case the broker goes bankrupt.

Fees and Commissions

Trading 212’s CFD Account charges zero commissions on trades but with a spread.

Spread Charged in our Trades

We did blindly trust the spreads quoted on Trading 212’s website. The spreads listed here were actually charged on the live trades we made through our funded account.

In our test, we chose the most popular instrument in each market since we can’t test all 2,029 instruments. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a complete picture of the average spread. Overall, the spread is stable, as seen in our test results shown below.

Test Spread

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.4	1.3	1.4	1.37
Indices	FTSE 100	1.8	3.3	2.3	2.47
Commodities	Gold	10.5	5.4	6.5	7.47
Stocks	Apple	1.8	1.5	1.8	1.70

Comparing the spreads charged in our trades to the industry benchmark, we found the spreads for the FTSE 100 and Gold to be quite high. However, the spreads charged on FX and stock trades were in-line with industry trends, especially the spreads for stock trades which are much lower than the industry average.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.37	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	2.47	1.65
Commodities	Gold	7.47	3.53
Stocks	AAPL	1.70	1.75

App Review

We traded through Trading 212’s mobile app and recorded videos of the trades. You can see this here.

Video of our trading

Other fees

Trading 212 does not charge other non-trading fees such as account inactivity fees, deposit & withdrawal fees.

Account types

Trading 212 offers 2 account types which are the Invest and CFD accounts.

Invest vs CFD Account

See the differences between the 2 accounts below

	Invest	CFD
Minimum Deposit	$1	$1
Real Stocks & ETFs	6,500+	0
CFDs & FX Pairs	0	2,029
Commissions	$0	$0

For our test, we chose to open a CFD Account.

Account opening

Trading 212 account opening is fully digital, fast and straightforward. Below are the 6 steps to opening a Trading 212 account:

1. Enter your name, nationality, phone number, date of birth, Passport/National ID number.
2. Input your residential address, the country where you pay your taxes, and tax ID,
3. Choose your account type and currency.
4. Answer a few questions about your annual income, the value of savings and investments, and source of your deposited funds.
5. Provide your employment status, occupation and industry of business.
6. Verify your identity by taking a selfie with your Passport, driver’s license or identity card.

In our test, it took 2 working days to open and verify our account. The registration took only 16 mins to complete.

In the account verification, we were asked to take a selfie to compare it to our document for identity verification. Our account was verified and allowed to deposit and trade after the ID verification. However, the address proof came after we made our first deposit.

Account Verification

We video recorded our account opening. See the video below

video of our account opening

Deposit and Withdrawal

Trading 212 offers free and fast deposits and withdrawals. The broker provides multiple options for funding your account, including bank wires, credit and debit cards, as well as e-wallets such as Skrill, and PayPal.

Minimum deposit

Trading 212 requires a minimum deposit of $1 for bank transfers, credit/debit cards, Skrill and Paypal.

Deposit

In regards to the deposit, we tested 3 payment methods available to fund our account. Debit card, Skrill and Paypal deposits reflect instantly in your trading account with zero fees, which is why we recommend them. The funding times and fees are as follow

Payment Method	Submitted Day	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Skrill	2023-01-22	2023-01-22	Instant	zero
Credit card	2023-01-22	2023-01-22	Instant	zero
PayPal	2023-01-22	2023-01-22	Instant	zero

Withdrawal Review

And about withdrawals, we made deposits via PayPal, debit card, and Skrill. However, when it came to processing our withdrawals, the broker combined our two separate withdrawals into one payment, which we received via PayPal. Hence, we were unable to test withdrawals back to our debit card.

Payment Method	Submitted Day	Funds Released Date	Funds Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Skrill
Credit card	2023-01 -29	2023-02-02	2023-02 -22	3 Working days	zero
PayPal	2023-01 -29	2023-02 -02	2023-02 -22	3 Working days	zero

Markets and Products

Trading 212’s CFD account offers the following instruments to traders, which are indices, commodities, Forex pairs, stocks, and cryptocurrencies.

Options

Some popular asset classes, such as ETFs, mutual funds, bonds and options, also spread betting are missing.

Markets	Instruments
Forex	184
Indices	57
Commodities	118
Stocks	1661
Cryptocurrencies	9

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at Trading 212 are okay. High-risk strategies such as scalping and using EAs are prohibited. However, hedging strategies are allowed.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	No
Change Leverage	No

Leverage

Trading 212 offers 1:2 to 1:30 leverage to retail clients.

Markets	Trading 212 UK Ltd	Trading 212 Ltd
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1
Non-major Currency Pairs	20:1	20:1
Gold	20:1	20:1
Major Indices	20:1	20:1
Non-major Equity Indices	10:1	10:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1	10:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1
Cryptocurrency	2:1	2:1

You cannot change your account’s leverage level.

Trading Platform

Trading 212 offers proprietary web and mobile trading platforms as the only trading platforms. The broker does not offer the popular MetaTrader 4 & 5 (MT4 platform & MT5 platform) platforms. Therefore, traders interested in using the two platforms may have to go with a different broker.

In our tests, we placed trades via the broker’s mobile platform, which was quite intuitive.

Research and Tools

Trading 212 has excellent charts loaded with many functions that make it easy for traders to plan their trades. The broker also provides a detailed economic calendar for traders, which is a great feature. However, its market analysis and news features are not as detailed as those of its peers. The broker also provides the 212 hotlists showing how many traders own a particular stock.

• Excellent charts
• News
• Economic calendar
• Analysis
• 212 hotlist

Education

We found Trading 212’s educational resources, especially the video tutorial course, to be some of the best in the industry given the easy-to-understand format in which the material is presented.

The broker offers:

• Text and video tutorials
• Educational articles
• A demo account

Customer service

Trading 212 provides 24/7 customer service and their agents give very relevant answers. You can reach their support team via the live chat function, email and phone calls. However, our phone calls went unanswered.

You can contact Trading 212 via Email, Live Chat, and Phone calls. See our test below

	Question	Answer	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Proof of address	Resolved	Instant	Excellent
Email	Change leverage	Resolved	Same day	Satisfactory

Conclusion on Trading 212 Broker

Our overall experience with Trading 212 was smooth, and we found it safe to trade with given that the top-tier FCA regulates it.

On the plus side, we liked the broker’s educational materials, which are some of the best we have seen, especially their video tutorials. We also liked the huge selection of actual stocks available to trade combined with the low spreads on stock trades

Trading 212 has some drawbacks, though. We found the spreads on the FTSE index and Gold to be quite high, and the lack of the MetaTrader 4 & 5 platforms means that MT4 & MT5 traders might have to find another broker.

We recommend Trading 212 for traders who are

• Beginners in trading
• Experienced traders
• Trading currency pairs or CFD stocks

Trading 212 might not be a fit if you are

• Scalping trader
• EA trader
• Trading through MT4/MT5 platform only
• Trading gold or indice

---

For this eToro review, we opened a real account and deposited over US$ 6,000 in total.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to get the spread and placed a total of 18 trades.

We also reached out to customer support to solve issues that we encountered.

Most importantly is fund withdrawal. We withdrew all our funds at the end to see if there is any issue with the withdrawal process.

What is eToro

eToro is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, and was founded in 2007.

The broker gained popularity as one of the best social trading platforms. It allows trading with multiple markets, including forex, indices, commodities, stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and cryptocurrencies.

eToro carries several licenses from regulators in the UK, USA, Australia, Abu Dhabi, and Cyprus.

Some of the highlighted features of eToro are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	USA, UK, Australia, Cyprus, Abu Dhabi
🛡️ Is eToro safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	0.97
💳 Minimum deposit	US$50 or US$500
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$5
🖥️ Trading Platform	eToro’s own trading platform
📈 Markets offered	Indices, Forex, Commodities, Stocks, Cryptocurrencies, ETFs
📉 Number of Products	986

Licenses and Regulations

eToro is licensed by some of the top global regulators, including the UK’s FCA, CySEC, ASIC, ADGM, and FinCEN.

The licenses were awarded to locally formed entities of eToro. The full list of eToro’s licenses is below.

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting clients from	Compensation Scheme Amount
eToro (UK) Limited	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	583263	United Kingdom	£85,000
eToro (Europe) Limited	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	109/10	Globally many countries	€20,000
eToro Aus Capital Pty Ltd	Australia	Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)	491139	Australia	No Compensation Scheme
eToro USA LLC	USA	Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as a Money Services Business		USA	$250,000

eToro can only offer real cryptocurrency trading in the United States as it does not have licenses from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association (NFA), the two derivatives trading regulators in the USA.

Is eToro Safe

Yes, eToro is safe to trade. FCA and CySEC have deposit compensation schemes of up to £85,000 and €20,000 respectively, meaning each traders’ deposits are insured up to those sums.

Additionally, eToro offers insurance of up to £1 million to all its users. If the broker goes bust, the policy will pay its customers.

Our trading and withdrawal were smooth with eToro.

For this review, we opened an account under eToro (Europe) Limited which is regulated by the CySEC. For our tests which we deposited money, placed trades, and withdrew deposits.

We recommend you register your account with the UK or CySEC entity.

Fees and Charges

eToro offers commission-free trading for real stocks, but for CFDs, its commission is included in spreads. Forex spreads are below industry standard, while the spreads on cryptocurrencies (also crypto CFDs) are on the higher side.

eToro Spreads 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. The spreads for all the asset classes did not fluctuate much for our trades.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Indices	FTSE 100	1.2	1.5	1.5	1.4
Forex	EUR/USD	1.1	0.8	1	0.97
Commodities	Gold	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5
Stocks	AAPL	2.3	2.3	2.1	2.23
Cryptocurrencies	Bitcoin	102.23	102.87	103.04	102.71
ETFs	QQQ	0.5338	0.51868	0.5239	0.53

The spreads for indices and forex instruments are below the industry average. For commodities and stock CFDs, spreads are above the industry average.

The spreads on cryptocurrencies in our trades are more than double the industry average.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Indices	FTSE 100	1.4	1.65
Forex	EUR/USD	0.97	1.16
Commodities	Gold	4.5	3.53
Stocks	AAPL	2.23	1.75
Cryptocurrencies	Bitcoin	102.71	72.81
ETFs	QQQ	0.53	0.45

Other Fees

eToro charges a few non-trading fees.

The broker charges a $10 monthly fee after a year for inactive accounts. Though deposit and account maintenance are free on eToro, it charges $5 for each withdrawal.

Account Types

eToro offers only a single account type to the traders. 

Novice traders can also open a demo account before trading on a live account.

Account Opening

Opening a new account on eToro is very simple and easy. We have opened an account ourselves to test the entire process with the broker.

Steps to create an eToro account:

1. Enter username, email, and password (you can also signup with Google or Facebook).
2. Click on ‘Complete profile’ and provide basic information like name, date of birth, address, and Passport number.
3. Answer a few questions: your trading experience, trading plans, occupation, and financial status.
4. Verify your account with phone number verification and submitting other documents.

We have submitted the following documents to verify our eToro account:

1. Copy of passport
2. Copy of national identification
3. Copy of 3 months’ bank statements

The registration process took merely 11 minutes. Our account was verified after 8 days.

We registered our accounts on January 11, 2023, and also submitted all the necessary documents on the same day. Our account was verified on January 19, 2023.

One of the reasons behind the delay was that we had used a VPN for registration. eToro contacted us about the difference in IP address and questioned us back and forth for 8 days.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Both deposit and withdrawal processes on eToro are simple enough. eToro offers a lot of options to fund your account, and deposits are free. The broker, however, charges a flat fee of $5 for every withdrawal. 

We have elaborated both the processes in the following section.

Minimum Deposit

eToro has both minimum and maximum deposit limits. The minimum deposit on eToro varies from $50 to $10,000.

• For US users, the minimum deposit amount is $50
• For most of the others countries, the minimum deposit amount is $500

eToro has a maximum daily deposit limit of $10,000.

Unverified eToro accounts have a total deposit limit of $2,250.

Deposit

eToro users can deposit funds with debit/credit cards, bank transfers, and several popular electronic wallets.

The first deposit has to be made using bank transfer, credit/debit cards, or PayPal.

We have tested the deposit process on eToro using multiple payment modes and, in each case, the deposits were received instantly.

We used a debit card for our first deposit.

The below table shows the details of our deposits:

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Skrill	2023-01 -26	2023-01 -26	Instant	zero
NETELLER	2023-01 -26	2023-01 -26	Instant	zero
Credit/Debit card	2023-01 -26	2023-01 -26	Instant	zero
Paypal	2023-01 -29	2023-01 -29	Instant	zero

For all our tested deposit methods, the process was completed instantly with zero fees.

Withdrawal Review

Withdrawals from eToro are easy, but the platform charges $5 for each withdrawal request.

eToro has a minimum withdrawal limit of $30.

We withdrew funds in multiple accounts to know the process in detail.

First, we deposited with a credit card. The same amount proceeded back to our credit card before we withdrew with other payment methods.

Overall, the withdrawal process is quick.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Skrill	2023-01-29	2023-01-30	2023-01-30	1 working day	US$5
Credit card
Neteller	2023-01-28	2023-01-29	2023-01-29	1 working day	US$5
Paypal	2023-11-29				US$5

Markets and Products

eToro offers trading services with several markets, including forex, stocks, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and indices. 

Though eToro is primarily a forex and CFD broker, it also offers trading services with real stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies.

All digital currencies on eToro’s Australian subsidiary are CFDs.

The complete list of eToro’s offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Indices	13
Forex	49
Commodities	31
Stocks	726
Cryptocurrency	16
ETFs	151

eToro offers access to 17 stock exchanges.

Non-leveraged buy positions on stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies, on eToro are traded as real assets.

Social Trading

eToro is known for its social trading feature. In fact, it gained popularity because of this feature.

It basically has two features: CopyTrader and CopyPortfolio.

Copy Trader

eToro traders can copy trading strategies of any other experienced traders on the platform.

The broker maintains its experienced traders’ page very well and clearly categorizes their profiles.

The profiles are very transparent, and traders can see every detail of the experienced trades activities, including trades per week, average holding time, and performance on charts.

eToro does not charge for availing CopyTrader services. There is a minimum limit of $200 to copy a trader.

CopyPortfolio

eToro also offers a feature called CopyPortfolio. Traders can copy the trades on markets and traders based on a pre-determined trading strategy.

Similar to CopyTrader, CopyPortfolios are categorized as Top trader portfolios, Market portfolios, and Partner portfolios. Do not consider eToro CopyPortfolios as hedge funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Popular Investor Program

eToro runs a Popular Investor Program to attract experienced traders. It offers attractive incentives to the traders who are active on the platform and whose trading portfolios are being copied.

Traders accepted under eToro’s Popular Investor Program will only receive commissions when their trades are copied.

Trading Conditions

Trading conditions on eToro are fair. eToro says it allows hedging. However, it states that it retains any profits generated by such a strategy in its T&C pdf. eToro does not allow scalping.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes (eToro will retain the profits)
Scalping	No
Change Leverage	Yes
Copy trading/Social trading	Yes

Leverage

Traders can change and adjust their leverage levels on eToro.

Markets	eToro (UK) Limited	eToro (Europe) Limited	eToro Aus Capital Pty Ltd	eToro USA LLC
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	400:1	N/A
Non-major Currency Pairs	20:1	20:1	400:1	N/A
Gold	20:1	20:1	400:1	N/A
Major Indices	20:1	20:1	100:1	N/A
Non-major Equity Indices	10:1	10:1	100:1	N/A
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1	10:1	100:1	N/A
Stocks	5:1	5:1	10:1 to 20:1	N/A
ETFs	5:1	5:1	10:1	N/A
Cryptocurrency	2:1	2:1	2:1	1:1

Trading Platform

eToro uses its own trading platform. It looks modern and is easy to use.

eToro only offers trading services on web-client and mobile trading App. The mobile platform is available for both iOS and Android devices.

For our tests, we placed the orders on eToro’s web-trader.

Research and Tools

eToro offers decent market research tools.

It has some good technical analysis tools. But on the downside, it lacks comprehensive fundamental data and a proper news feed.

The platform also recommends stocks to the traders, has market sentiment indicators, showing both activities by hedge funds and insider trading sentiments.

Education

eToro does not offer good educational resources to traders.

Some of eToro’s educational materials are:

• Few basic video tutorials
• Some podcasts on trading
• A text guide on trading and investment
• Daily news and analysis of major market activities

The broker seems to have developing its learning materials for beginners and is offering the materials via eToro’s Trading School.

Customer Service

eToro offers decent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker on:

• email
• Live chat

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	A few basic trading questions		It is only available in Cyprus working hours.
Email	IP Address Difference	Same day and next working day	About 4 emails from our side and 5 emails from eToro side in 5 days. The problem was solved.

To check eToro support, we have raised several tickets.

The live chat is only available on weekdays and in Cyprus working hours. The email support is good with same-day responses.

eToro also has a list of a Q&A page of basic and mostly-faced problems by the traders.

eToro Feedback Conclusion

All in all, our trading experience on the platform was smooth.

eToro is good for beginners and experienced/popular traders. It has some attractive features like social trading.

eToro offers commission-free trading for real stocks and attractive spreads on forex.

We recommend eToro for traders who are

• Beginners in trading to copy Popular Investor’s trades
• Experienced traders who want to join the Popular Investor program
• Trading Currency pairs, Cryptocurrencies or Stocks

eToro might not be a fit if you are

• Scalping trader
• Hedging trader
• EA trader
• Trading through MT4/MT5 platform only
• Commission based trading

---

For this BlackBull Markets review, we opened a live account and deposited over €4,000.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to identify the actual spreads and placed a total of 12 trades.

We contacted the broker’s customer support team to resolve the challenges we faced.

Finally, we withdrew our funds to assess whether the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is Blackbull Markets

Blackbull Markets is a global Forex and CFDs broker launched in 2014 headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand.

The broker is licensed in New Zealand and Seychelles.

BlackBull Markets offers over 200 tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, and commodities categories.

The broker offers a small number of products compared to the leading brokers.

Here’s a summary of BlackBull Markets’ main features:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	New Zealand, Seychelles
🛡️ Is Blackbull Markets safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.23
💳 Minimum deposit	US$200
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$5 per withdrawal
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5, TradingView
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities
📉 Number of Products	280

Licenses and Regulations

2 global regulators license BlackBull Markets, the Financial Markets Authority New Zealand (FMA) and The Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Here are the details of the licenses held by Blackbull Markets’ subsidiaries:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting Clients From	Compensation Scheme Amount
Black Bull Group Limited	New Zealand	Financial Markets Authority New Zealand (FMA)	403326	Globally many countries	NZ$200,000
BBG Limited	Seychelles	The Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA)	SD045	Globally many countries	No compensation scheme

Is BlackBull Markets Safe

Yes, BlackBull Markets is safe to trade. The broker is regulated by the New Zealand FMA, a tier 2 regulator with strict rules. The broker is also licensed by The Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA).

New Zealand’s FMA guarantees investors deposit protection of up to NZ$200,000 to eligible clients.

We did not encounter any major challenges when trading with BlackBull Markets.

For this review, we opened an individual MT4 and MT5 Standard account with Black Bull Group Limited, regulated by New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA).

We recommend that you open your account with the New Zealand entity if it is available to you.

Fees and Commissions

BlackBull Markets charges low fees for trading the main instruments on offer. The fees charged for trading Forex pairs, indices, stocks, and commodities were much lower than industry averages.

Only the standard account offered by BlackBull Markets charges a spread and zero commissions. The other two account types charge a spread and a commission on trades.

Spread Charged in our Trades

In our tests, we traded the most popular instrument in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get an accurate estimate of the average spread. We tested BlackBull Markets’ Standard Account on the MT5 and MT4 platforms, which charged a spread on all trades. The spreads were pretty low, as shown in the table below.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.1	1.35	1.25	1.23
Indices	FTSE 100	1.04	1.04	1.04	1.04
Stocks	Apple	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.40
Commodities	Gold	2.25	2.45	2.4	2.37

We executed all our trades via the MT4 and MT5 mobile apps on our iPhone.

A closer review of the spreads charged in our trades revealed that they were all below industry standards. None of the average spreads were higher than industry benchmarks.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. Spread Charged	Industry Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.23	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	1.04	1.65
Stocks	Apple	0.40	1.75
Commodities	Gold	2.37	3.53

Other fees

BlackBull Markets charges other non-trading fees, including deposit and withdrawal fees.

Account Types

BlackBull Markets offers 3 account types with different features. The accounts are known as the Standard Account, the Prime Account, and the Institutional Account.

See the differences below:

	Standard Account	Prime Account	Institutional Account
Trading Platforms	MetaTrader 4 & 5	MetaTrader 4 & 5	MetaTrader 4 & 5
Account Currency	USD, GBP, EUR, JPY, NZD, AUD, CAD, SGD	USD, GBP, EUR, JPY, NZD, AUD, CAD, SGD	USD, GBP, EUR, JPY, NZD, AUD, CAD, SGD
Minimum Deposit	$200	$2,000	$20,000
Commission	0	$6 per lot	Negotiable
Order Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution
Spread	From 0.8	From 0.2	From 0
Note

BlackBull Markets offers Forex Islamic Accounts to Muslim clients. These accounts do not attract a swap fee for positions held overnight.

We chose to open an individual MT4 and MT5 Standard Account with Black Bull Group Limited for our tests.

Account Opening

BlackBull Markets account opening was fast and smooth. We completed the entire process digitally.

Here are the 5 steps to opening a BlackBull Markets account:

1. Choose your account type, and enter your first name, last name, email address, mobile phone number.
2. Enter your street address, City, State/Province, ZIP/Postcode, date of birth, Country.
3. Provide the purpose for trading, source of trading funds, estimated annual income, estimated net worth, trading experience.
4. Select your account type, trading platform, account currency, funding amount and leverage level.
5. Verify your account.

The registration process took exactly 5 minutes, and our account was approved in one working day.

We opened our account on 17 January 2023, and it was approved on 19 January 2023.

For this test, we opened an individual MT4 and MT5 Standard account with Black Bull Group Limited, regulated by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) of New Zealand.

Deposit and Withdrawal

BlackBull Markets offers fast deposits and withdrawals. Traders can deposit and withdraw from their accounts using bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets such as Neteller.

The broker charges a 2.5% fee on credit card deposits, with credit card withdrawals attracting a €5 fee and Neteller withdrawals attracting a €4 fee.

Minimum Deposit

BlackBull Markets has a minimum deposit requirement of $200 on its Standard account, while its Prime account has a minimum deposit requirement of $2,000. The institutional account requires a minimum deposit of $20,000.

Deposit

BlackBull Markets’ clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts via bank transfers, debit/credit cards, and e-wallets such as Neteller.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Credit Card	21 January 2023	21 January 2023	Instant	2.5%
Neteller	21 January 2023	21 January 2023	Instant	€0.00

BlackBull Markets charges a 2.5% fee on credit card deposits but does not charge fees for Neteller deposits.

Withdrawal

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

BlackBull Markets charges a fee on withdrawals.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funds Released Date	Funds Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit card	22 January 2023	23 January 2023	24 January 2023	2 working days	€5
Neteller	22 January 2023	23 January 2023	23 January 2023	1 working day	€4

We did not have any challenges during the withdrawal process, which was quite smooth.

Markets and Products

BlackBull Markets offers over 200 tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, and commodities markets.

Here’s the complete list of BlackBull Markets’ product offerings:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	69
Indices	11
Stocks	166
Commodities	34
Cryptocurrencies	0

The broker’s collection of instruments is lower than those offered by the top brokers.

Trading Conditions

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

BlackBull Markets also allows traders to use 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

Leverage

BlackBull Markets offers its clients high leverage levels from 300:1 to 500:1 based on the entity under which they registered their account.

Traders can change their account’s leverage levels after registration but they have to contact the broker’s customer support team to facilitate the change.

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

Markets	BlackBull Group Limited	BBG Limited
Major Currency Pairs	500:1	300:1
Non-major Currency Pairs	500:1	200:1
Gold	200:1	150:1
Other Commodities (except gold)	200:1	100:1
Indices	500:1	100:1
Stocks	20:1	5:1
Cryptocurrencies	20:1	20:1

Bonus

BlackBull Markets offers a bonus programme to its clients with a maximum payout of $250. Traders can earn bonuses via the broker’s referral programme.

Here’s how the system works:

Your Friend Deposits	Your friend trades	You’ll each receive
$1,000	5 FX lots	$100
$10,000	20 FX lots	$250

Trading Platform

BlackBull Markets offers the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platforms, as well as highly customizable TradingView to its clients. Clients can access the two platforms via the desktop and mobile MT4 and MT5 applications.

Traders who prefer the MetaTrader platforms will find a home with BlackBull markets. However, traders who prefer a proprietary platform are out of luck since the broker does not offer such a platform.

Traders who prefer a modern platform should try the MT5 platform since the MetaTrader 4 forex trading platform is a bit dated.

Research and Tools

BlackBull Markets provides market research via quality videos created by its in-house team of analysts.

The videos have depth and cover both fundamental and technical analysis topics in a comprehensive manner.

The broker provides daily market update videos published on its YouTube channel and live streams longer session covering new economic releases in a live-trading-room format.

While the broker offers detailed video content, we would like to see written content for traders who learn best via reading.

Education

BlackBullMarkets Review found a section dedicated to trader education with 11 learn to trade videos, 5 trading guides and a trading glossary. The training videos can be found on the broker’s YouTube channel.

The broker has a ‘trading resources’ section on its website that offers an economic calendar, which is very useful to traders. The broker publishes about 10 timely analysis (fundamental and technical) pieces covering the major markets.

The broker’s education offering is not as comprehensive as we would have liked. Traders can also open a demo account to practice trading on the broker’s platforms and test their trading strategies.

However, the videos are located in the broker’s video channel instead of on its website, which can be quite confusing.

Customer Service

BlackBull Markets’ customer service team was quite helpful and gave us direct and prompt answers that were very accurate. Our first interaction with the team was via live chat, where we asked about the order execution and whether they allow hedging, scalping and change of leverage.

We received a fast and accurate response. The broker provides instant execution and allows scalping and hedging strategies. Traders have to contact the support team to change their leverage.

You can reach the BlackBull Markets customer support team via email and live chat. Our second query was via live chat, where we wanted to know if they provide stocks and cryptocurrencies.

We got a fast response, and the support agent let us know that they offer stocks and BTCUSD on the MT5 platform. We then asked how we can open an MT5 account and were instructed to send an email to support@blackbullmarkets.com.

We then sent an email request to open an MT5 account and got a response in 1 working day. They informed us that it would take one day to open our MT5 account.

We sent an email inquiry about the broker’s institutional account and the Active Trader account to institutional@blackbullmarkets.com but did not receive a reply from the broker, which was disappointing.

Here are the results of our test below:

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live chat	We asked what’s the order execution type at BlackBull Markets? Do they allow hedging, scalping and change of leverage?	2 minutes	Direct and fast.
Live chat	We asked if they provide stocks and cryptocurrencies?	1 minute	Direct and fast
Email	We sent a request asking BlackBull Markets to open an MT5 standard account	1 working day	Direct and accurate
Email	We asked several questions about their institutional and Active Trader accounts, including spread, execution type, minimum deposit, etc.	N/A	No response

Conclusion

Overall, our experience with BlackBull Markets was good. The broker charges stable spreads on stocks and indices, and we discovered that the spreads on the tested instruments were lower than industry benchmarks.

The best thing about the broker is the high leverage levels offered to traders backed by its New Zealand FMA license, which ensures the security of customer funds. Most brokers who offer high leverage usually have licenses from offshore jurisdictions.

The broker’s customer support team provides fast and accurate feedback via the live chat function, and we encourage traders to use this method to communicate with the broker.

We tried to make a direct deposit into our MT5 account but were unable to do so. We contacted the broker and were informed that we have to deposit the funds into the MT4 account, and then they would transfer the amount to the MT5 account. We found this a bit inconvenient, but the process did not take long.

We tested two deposit and withdrawal methods and found that the broker charges a fee on Credit card deposits, but Neteller deposits are free. However, the broker charges a fee on both credit card and Neteller withdrawals.

We recommend BlackBull Markets to traders who run scalping, hedging, and automated trading strategies.

We recommend BlackBull Markets for traders who are

• Experienced traders
• Beginners
• Run Scalping
• Hedging
• EAs trading
• Looking for high leverage with regulated Broker
• Trading through MT4

BlackBull Markets might not be a fit if you are

• Real Stock / Futures Trading
• Prefer other platforms rather than MT4

---

For this FXTM review, we have opened a standard and a stock CFDs account and deposited over €6,000 in total.

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 issues that we had faced.

Finally, we withdrew our funds to see if there are any issues with the withdrawal process.

What is FXTM?

ForexTime, known as FXTM, was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Cyprus. The broker is regulated in several jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, Cyprus, South Africa, and Mauritius.

ForexTime Review

FXTM offers trading services with forex pairs, indices, commodities, stocks, cryptocurrencies, spot metals, and also real stocks.

Some of the key highlights of FXTM are:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Cyprus, South Africa, Mauritius
🛡️ Is FXTM safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	1.9
💳 Minimum deposit	US$10
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0 (with exceptions)
🖥️ Trading Platform	MT4, MT5, FXTM Trader
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	258

Licenses and Regulations

FXTM holds 4 regulatory licenses from several top regulators, like the United Kingdom’s FCA.

The full list of all FXTM licenses is below:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting clients from	Compensation Scheme Amount
ForexTime UK Limited	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	777911	United Kingdom	£85,000
ForexTime Limited	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	185/12	EU	€20,000
ForexTime Limited	South Africa	Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA)	46614	South Africa	No compensation scheme
Exinity Limited	Mauritius	Financial Services Commission (FSC)	C113012295	Globally many countries	No compensation scheme

The same FXTM entity holds licenses from the regulators in Cyprus and South Africa.

Is FXTM Safe?

Yes, FXTM is safe to trade.

Under the UK regulator, FXTM clients’ funds are protected with an £85,000 compensation scheme. FXTM clients’ funds under the CySEC-regulated entity are also protected with a €20,000 compensation scheme.

For this review, we opened a standard account and a stock CFD account with ForexTime Limited, which is regulated by CySEC in Cyprus. For our tests, we deposited money, placed trades, and withdrew deposits.

We recommend you to register your account with the United Kingdom or Cypriot entity because of their compensation schemes.

Fees and Commissions

FXTM fees are built into the spreads but varies with the account types. Spreads on its standard and stock CFDs account types are higher than the average industry benchmark.

The spreads, however, are lower on ECN and Pro accounts.

FXTM Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market offered by FXTM. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a picture of the average spread. Though spreads for most of the asset classes did not fluctuate much, swings in commodities spreads were prominent.

Details of our trades are shown below the table.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.9	1.9	1.9	1.9
Indices	FTSE 100	5.1	5.1	5.1	5.1
Commodities	Gold	5	4.1	4.4	4.50
Stocks	Apple	1.7	1.5	1.5	1.57

Our testing with standard account finds that FXTM spreads for forex are above the industry average. Spreads on indices and commodities are significantly higher than the average industry benchmark.

Stock spreads are, however, are closer to the average industry benchmark but still a bit on the higher side.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. spread charged in our trades	Industry avg. spread
Forex	EUR/USD	1.9	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	5.1	1.65
Commodities	Gold	4.50	3.53
Stocks	Apple	1.57	1.75

Other Fees

FXTM does not have any deposit fee but charges withdrawal fees for some payment modes. The broker, however, charges a $5 monthly inactivity fee after any account is inactive for 6 months.

FXTM Account Types

FXTM offers both standard and ECN accounts.

There are 3 FXTM account types under standard accounts: Standard Account, Cent Account, and Stock CFDs Account. Under ECN, there are 4 types of FXTM accounts: Stocks Account, ECN Account, ECN Zero Account, and FXTM Pro Account.

Details of each account type are in the below table:

	Standard Account	Cent Account	Stock CFDs Account	Stocks Account	ECN Account	ECN Zero Account	FXTM Pro Account
Trading platforms	MT4/MT5	MT4	MT4	MT5	MT4/MT5	MT4/MT5	MT4/MT5
Account currency	USD / EUR / GBP	US Cent / EU Cent / GBP Pence	USD / EUR / GBP	USD / EUR / GBP	USD / EUR / GBP	USD / EUR / GBP	USD / EUR / GBP
Minimum deposit	$/€/£ 100	$/€/£ 10	$/€/£ 100	$/€/£ 100	$/€/£ 500	$/€/£ 200	$/€/£ 25,000
Commission	–	–	–	–	$2 per lot	–	–
Order execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Instant Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution	Market Execution
Spread	From 1.3	From 1.5	From 0.1	Tight	From 0.1	From 1.5	From 0

FXTM offers real stock trading under its Stocks account, but this account type is only available with Exinity Limited, that is outside the European Union.

FXTM Pro Account

FXTM Pro account holders need to maintain a minimum balance of $/€/£25,000 always. If the balance comes below the threshold, the broker will offer higher spreads.

The broker also offers NGN base currency accounts for Nigerian traders.

Account Opening

Opening a new account with FXTM is simple and fast.

Steps to create an FXTM account:

1. Enter the first name, last name, country of residence, mobile phone number, email, and password on the initial registration page.
2. Complete your profile with personal and professional information: gender, date of birth, citizenship status, education level, profession, business operation, taxation country, tax identification number, political exposure, and address.
3. Select account type, account currency, account leverage, “swap-free” status, and trading account password.
4. Click on “upload documents” under the user profile to submit identification proofs.

We have submitted the following documents to verify our FXTM account:

1. Copy of national identification (both front and back)
2. Copy of utility bill as address proof

A minimum deposit is required to activate the account.

The registration process took merely 20 minutes. Our standard account was verified after 1 business day.

We registered our account on January 11, 2023, and it was verified on January 12, 2023.

Overall, our account opening experience was quick, smooth, and without any issues.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Both deposits and withdrawals on FXTM are fast, easy, and without any fees. All our funding and withdrawal requests were smooth.

FXTM Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit amount on FXTM depends on the account type and varies from $/€/£10, for a Cent account, to $/€/£25,000, in the case of a Pro account.

For a Standard and a Stock CFDs account, the minimum deposit is $/€/£100.

Please note that the traders only need to deposit the minimum amount the first time they are funding the account and maintain at least that balance. For consecutive fundings, traders can deposit any amount.

Deposit

FXTM allows client deposits through international wire transfers, credit cards, several local bank transfers, and popular e-wallets like Skrill, Neteller, and Paypal. It also takes deposits in popular cryptocurrencies.

The broker also allows internal fund transfers from one account type to another.

We have tested the deposit process on FXTM using multiple payment modes.

There was no deposit fee and the fundings were quick.

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

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Credit/Debit card	2023-01-24	NA	NA	NA
Skrill	2023-01-25	2023-01-25	10 mins	zero
NETELLER	2023-01-24	2023-01-24	10 mins	zero
Paypal	2023-01-25	2023-01-25	10 mins	zero
Internal Transfer (Standard Account to Stock CFD Account)	2023-01-25	2023-01-25	10 mins	zero

We tried to make the first deposit using a credit/debit card. Once the amount was deducted from the card, FXTM asked us to provide a copy of both sides of the card for verification.

We did not proceed to verify our card, and the received the deducted deposit in our card after 7 working days.

Withdrawal

FXTM has broad withdrawal method options similar to its deposits. Traders can withdraw their funds with international wire transfers, on credit/debit cards, by local bank transfers, on popular e-wallets, and in cryptocurrencies.

Though many popular withdrawal methods do not have any fee, FXTM charges a commission for several withdrawal modes. For cryptocurrency withdrawals, this withdrawal fee is 1%, and for wire transfers, it’s €30.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Fund Released Date	Fund Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Credit/Debit card	NA	NA	NA	NA	–
Skrill	2023-01-26	2023-01-26	2023-01-26	same day	zero
NETELLER	2023-01-25	2023-01-26	2023-01-26	1 working day	zero
Paypal	2023-01-27	2023-01-27	2023-01-27	same day	2%

FXTM charges a 2% fee on all withdrawals via PayPal. So this mode is not recommended. 

Withdrawals on FXTM were fast. We received funds from 2 of our withdrawal requests on the same day, whereas on most of the other brokers, it takes at least a day.

Markets and Products

FXTM offers CFDs trading services in various popular markets, including forex, indices, commodities, stocks, and cryptocurrencies. It also offers real US stock trading outside the European Union.

It offers a fair number of forex pairs, but the number of instruments lacks in the other markets.

The complete list of FXTM offerings are:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	62
Indices	11
Commodities	8
Cryptocurrency	4
Stocks	173

Cryptocurrency trading services are only available with Exinity Limited via Exinity ECN Spreads.

Copy Trading

FXTM also offers copy-trading services under FXTM Invest.

Novice traders can copy the trading strategies of any Strategy Managers, investing as low as $100.

Expert traders can become FXTM Strategy Manager only with an ECN or ECN Zero trading account. They can earn up to 40% in trading commission.

Trading Conditions

FXTM offers good trading conditions, allowing both hedging and scalping.

However, hedging is not available on Strategy accounts, which are used by the experts sharing their trading strategies on FXTM’s copy-trading platform.

The broker also allows traders to change the leverage levels.

We recommend traders to run scalping strategies only on ECN accounts and not on Standard and Cent accounts.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	Yes

Leverage

FXTM allows traders to change the offered leverage levels.

Markets	ForexTime UK Limited	ForexTime Limited	Exinity Limited
Major Currency Pairs	30:1	30:1	2000:1
Non-major Currency Pairs	20:1	20:1	500:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	500:1
Other Commodities (except Gold)	10:1	10:1	200:1
Indices	5:1	5:1	2000:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	10:1
Cryptocurrencies	NA	NA	100:1

Exinity Limited has divided its FXTM leverages into further tiers. The full details of leverage can be found here.

Bonus

FXTM offers a 30% bonus on deposits up to $250 to Standard, ECN, Cent, and ECN Zero account holders (Also check Brokers with No Deposit Bonus 2023).

The broker also runs a loyalty program to reward traders. The structure of the loyalty program is detailed below.

	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
Net Deposit(s)	$1 to $15,000	$15,001 to $30,000	$30,001 to $60,000	$60,001 to $120,000	Above $ 120,001
Rebate (cashback) per full completed lot	$2	$3	$4	$5	$5
Frequency of the Rebate transfer(s) to Client’s Account	Monday(s) following the Lots Calculation Period	Monday(s) following the Lots Calculation Period	Monday(s) following the Lots Calculation Period	Monday(s) following the Lots Calculation Period	Monday(s) following the Lots Calculation Period
Maximum Payout	$500	$1,500	$3,000	$5,000	$10,000
Upgrade or Downgrade by FXTM	Automatically	Automatically	Automatically	Automatically	Manually

The loyalty program is only available on Exinity Limited for all clients. However, only professional clients from UK and EU under ForexTime Limited and ForexTime UK Limited can access this program.

FXTM Trading Platform

FXTM offers 3 trading platforms:

• MetaTrader 4 (MT4 platform)
• MetaTrader 5 (MT5 platform)
• FXTM Trader (propriotary mobile trading platform)

FXTM Trade is available on both Android and iOS devices.

For our tests, we placed the orders on the MetaTrader 4 mobile platform.

FXTM ForexTIme MT4

Research and Tools

FXTM offers excellent market research tools.

Some key research tools on FXTM are:

• Trading signals
• Trading indicators and charting tools
• Pivot points strategy
• Economic calendar
• Excellent news feed

FXTM also has an in-house team of experts who provide market research and analysis reports.

On the downside, the broker does not offer fundamental market data.

Education

FXTM offers many learning resources to educate new traders.

The educational resources of the broker include:

• eBooks and trading guides
• Seminars and workshops
• Webinars
• A forex industry glossary
• Video tutorials on trading

The broker also offers a demo trading account.

Customer Service

FXTM has excellent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

• Live chat (on the platform and also on popular social media) 
• email
• Enquiry form
• Phone

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live Chat	Querries on hedging and scalping	1 min	Clear and direct
Email	Querries in debit card verification after funding	1 hour	Clear and direct

Live chat is only available around the clock and in multiple languages.

We asked several questions on multiple live chat sessions, and the customer representative was fast to respond, clear, and accurate every time.

The broker also has a detailed Q&A section for frequently faced issues.

Conclusion

Our overall experience with FXTM was smooth: from account opening to trading and from deposit to withdrawal.

However, the spreads offered by the brokerage on standard accounts are much higher than the industry average.

We did not face any issues during our testing process, and the customer support was also responsive and accurate with our queries.

We recommend FXTM ECN accounts to traders who use scalping strategies and focus on expert advisory (EA) trading. Here you can also see other best forex broker for Iranian.

We recommend FXTM for traders who are

• Beginners in trading
• Experienced traders
• ECN traders
• Trading currency pairs or Cryptocurrencies
• Automated trading
• EA trader
• Micro Trading

FXTM might not be a fit if you are

• Day trader
• Trading of Real Stocks

---