Category: Broker Review

For this AvaTrade review, we opened a real account and deposited over €4,000 in total.

We traded the popular instrument in each popular market to get the real spreads and placed a total of 21 trades.

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

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

What is AvaTrade?

AvaTrade was founded in 2006 with its headquarter in Dublin, Ireland. The broker is regulated in several jurisdictions, including Ireland, Australia, the UAE, Japan, South Africa, and the British Virgin Islands.

AvaTrade started as a retail forex trading platform and now offers trading with forex, indices, commodities, bonds, cryptocurrencies, stocks, and ETFs.

Some of the key highlights of AvaTrade are:

Licenses and Regulations

AvaTrade has gained 7 regulatory licenses from some of the top regulators, including Australia, Ireland, Abu Dhabi, and Japan.

The full list of AvaTrade’s all licenses is in the below table:

AvaTrade UK

Is AvaTrade Safe?

Yes, AvaTrade is safe to trade.

Under the Irish regulator, funds of AvaTrade clients are protected with a €20,000 compensation scheme. Most of the other licenses acquired by AvaTrade are also considered very reputable in the trading industry.

Additionally, AvaTrade offers AvaProtect, which provides insurance on losses for any specific trade for a specific period. This risk management scheme offers protection of up to $1 million and is applicable only for market orders.

For this review, we opened an account with Ava Trade EU Ltd which is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. For our tests which we deposited money, placed trades, and withdrew deposits.

We recommend you register your account with the Irish, Australian, or Abu Dhabi entity.

Fees

AvaTrade fees are built into the spreads. The broker, however, offers attractive spreads on forex, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrency CFDs.

Spread Charged in Our Trades

For our tests, we have chosen popular instruments in each market offered by AvaTrade. 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.

AvaTrade’s spreads for forex are much below the industry standards. The offered spreads on indices and commodities are also below the average industry benchmark.

Cryptocurrency and stock spreads are, however, are above the average industry average.

Other Fees

AvaTrade charges an inactivity fee of US$50 or €50 or £50 every quarter after 3 months of account inactivity. In addition to that, the broker charges administration fees of US$100 or €100 or £100 after a year of inactivity.

Real Account Types

AvaTrade offers only a single account type to the traders. 

The broker also offers Islamic trading accounts to its Islamic clients. This type of account operates under Sharia Law.

Account Opening

Opening a new account with AvaTrade is fast and easy.

Steps to create an AvaTrade account:

1. Enter the first name, last name, email, and phone number (you can also sign up with Facebook or Google account).
2. Provide personal and professional information: including date of birth and address; set password; select trading platform and base currency.
3. Provide professional details like occupation, income level, estimated net worth, and source of trading funds.
4. Click on “upload documents” to submit various identification proofs.

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

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

The registration process took merely 15 minutes. Our account was verified after 1 business day.

We registered our accounts on January 4, 2023, and it was verified on January 5, 2023.

Overall, our account opening experience was quick and smooth, with one minor issue.

After submitting all the documents, our AvaTrade account logged out. When we tried to login again, our password was showing wrong even though it was correct. We have to reset the password.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Deposits on AvaTrade accounts are fast and easy, but processing withdrawal requests take a bit of time. The broker does not charge anything for deposits and withdrawals.

Minimum Deposit

AvaTrade has a minimum deposit amount of US$100 for all payment methods.

Deposit

AvaTrade allows client deposits through wire transfers, credit cards, and popular e-wallets like Skrill, Neteller, and Paypal.

Deposits with credit cards are not available in Canada, while EU and Australian clients cannot use Skrill, WebMoney, and Neteller.

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

There was no deposit fee and for most of the payment methods, funding was instant. See forex no deposit bonus India brokers.

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

Our debit card deposit was not instant. It showed “pending” for 3 hours before the amount was approved and funded.

Withdrawal

AvaTrade supports withdrawals with multiple payment methods, similar to its deposits. The broker does not charge any withdrawal fee.

Our experience with the withdrawal process was mixed. We faced some issues with our initial withdrawal requests, but it was quickly resolved.

First, we submitted 4 withdrawal requests on the same day, each with a different payment method. AvaTrade rejected all these requests. 

We reached out to Avatrade customer support for this issue. 

The customer support executive told us that as we deposited through different payment methods, we have to withdraw our fund through the same order and the same amount for each payment method. Any remaining booked profits need to be withdrawn using the last used deposit method.

We did as we were instructed and received the funds.

Details of our withdrawal requests are in the table below.

Markets and Products

AvaTrade offers CFDs trading services in various popular markets, including forex, indices, commodities, bonds, cryptocurrencies, stocks, and ETFs.

It offers a fair number of instruments across all the markets. All instruments on AvaTrade are CFDs.

The complete list of AvaTrade offerings are:

AvaTrade also offers vanilla forex options for which a separate account with AvaOptions is needed.

Trading Conditions

AvaTrade offers good trading conditions. The broker allows both hedging and scalping. It also offers copy trading services with two third-party services: DupliTrade and ZuluTrade.

AvaTrade offers MQL5 Signals Services as well.

The broker, however, does not allow traders to change the leverage levels.

AvaTrade Leverage

Traders cant change and adjust their leverage levels on AvaTrade.

Australian ASIC imposed major restrictions on leverages offered by the retail brokers, which came into effect on March 29, 2021 so no longer high leverage up to 1:400 is available.

AvaTrade Bonus

AvaTrade offers attractive bonuses on the first deposits of its clients.

The promotional offer is valid for clients under three regulated entities:  Ava Capital Markets Pty, Ava Trade Ltd, and Ava Capital Markets Australia Pty Ltd.

Clients from countries, including European countries, Canada, Japan, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Macao, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, are not eligible for deposit bonuses.

Deposits via Skrill and Neteller are not eligible for this promotional offer.

The first deposit bonus for traders under Ava Capital Markets Pty are:

The first deposit bonus for traders under Ava Trade Ltd, and Ava Capital Markets Australia Pty Ltd are:

AvaTrade Trading Platform

AvaTrade offers multiple trading platforms:

• MetaTrader 4
• MetaTrader 5
• WebTrader (AvaTrade’s propriotary web-based platform)
• AvaOptions (for forex vanilla options)
• AvaTradeGo (for mobile trading)

MetaQuotes Software developed the MetaTrader platforms, and they are among the widely used third-party trading platforms.

AvaTrade’s own web trading platform and its mobile trading platform are also very clean and easy to use for the traders.

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

Research and Tools

AvaTrade offers a good set of research tools. The charting tools are excellent with many functions. 

Some of the key tools are:

• Excellent charts
• Economic calendar
• Trading calculator
• Popular trading ideas
• A good news feed

On the downside, the broker lacks in offering good fundamental data on the markets.

Education

AvaTrade offers excellent trading educational materials for new traders.

The educational resources of the broker include:

• Tutorial videos on trading and platform-tools
• eBooks and web-based guides on trading
• Webinars

The broker also offers a demo account for novice traders.

Customer Service

AvaTrade has excellent customer support.

Traders can contact the broker via:

• Live chat
• email
• Phone

To check AvaTrade’s customer service, we have asked several questions via live chat. One of the questions we asked is if AvaTrade allows hedging and scalping.

We received a reply in less than 5 minutes.

Live chat is only available on the weekdays (East European working hours).

AvaTrade offers support in several languages.

The broker also maintains a detailed Q&A page for mostly faced issues with Customer Reviews.

Conclusion

Overall, our experience with AvaTrade is positive.

The broker offers impressive spreads on forex pairs.

Though we faced withdrawal rejections at first, the issue was resolved quickly by the support staff. Our experience with customer support was also good.

We recommend Avatrade to traders who focus on trading currencies and traders who would like to run hedging or scalping as their trading strategies.

We recommend AvaTrade for traders who are

• Beginners
• Trading Currency pairs
• Trading Stocks
• Scalping trader
• Experienced traders
• Copy Trading
• EA trader

AvaTrade might not be a fit if you are

• Futures Trading
• Trading of real Stocks
• Commission based trading

For this XTB review, we opened a live account and deposited €5,000

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 identify if there are any issues with withdrawals.

What is XTB

XTB is a global Forex and CFD broker, founded in 2002.

The broker has dual headquarters in London and Warsaw and is licensed by regulators in the UK, Cyprus, Poland, Spain, and Belize.

XTB has offices in each of the countries in which it is regulated.

Here’s a summary of XTB’s key features:

Licenses and Regulations

XTB is licensed by 5 regulators globally including the top-tier UK’s FCA, the CySEC, Poland’s KNF, Spain’s CNMV & Belize’s FSC.

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

Is XTB Safe

Yes, XTB is safe to trade. XTB is a public company listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and as such is required to publicly disclose its financial statements, which it does on a regular basis.

The broker is also regulated by the FCA and CySEC, which are highly regarded, and 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 XTB.

For this review, we opened an account with XTB Ltd which is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), which we used to deposit money, place trades, and finally withdrew our funds.

You can open an account with the UK, Cyprus, Poland and Spain entities since they all offer deposit protection if they’re available to you.

We consider the FCA regulation to be the best since it provides compensation of up to £85,000 in case the broker goes bankrupt, but the other three entities also provide deposit compensation of up to €20,000.

Fees and Commissions

XTB doesn’t charge any commissions except for Equity and ETF CFDs.

The commissions could add up quickly and greatly reduce your profits if you trade small contract sizes.

XTB 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 Standard Account which charges a spread on most assets except for ETFs, which attract a fixed €6.60 commission. Overall, the spread is stable as shown in the table below.

We tested all our trades via the xStation5 mobile app on our iPhone. We discovered that the broker only allows long trades on the QQQ ETF since we were unable to go short/sell the ETF.

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

Other fees

XTB charges some inactivity fees: after 12 months of inactivity it starts charging €10 per month; also, it charges some small fees for withdrawing if it is below £60.

XTB Account Types

XTB offers only 1 Standard account:

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

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

Account Opening

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

Here are the 5 steps to opening an XTB account:

1. Enter your email address, country of residence and account password.
2. Enter your personal details including your full name, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and Tax identity among others.
3. Provide your physical address including your street, building no./name, flat no, postcode and city.
4. Choose a trading platform, account type, currency, and preferred language.
5. Answer questions about your experience, market knowledge and financial status.
6. Verify your ID and residency using either a National ID or Passport and a bank statement.

The registration process took just 13 minutes and our account was approved on the same day, which was impressive!

We registered our account on 21 January 2023 and it was verified on 21 January 2023. Our account was approved shortly after submitting all the necessary documents.

We opened a standard account with XTB Ltd, which is regulated by the CySEC.

Deposit and Withdrawal

XTB offers free and fast deposits and withdrawals. There are various options for funding your account, including bank wires, credit and debit cards, and Skrill.

XTB Minimum Deposit

XTB has no minimum deposit for individual accounts.

Deposit

XTB clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts using debit/credit cards, bank transfers, and Skrill.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

All the deposit methods offered by XTB are instant and free, we did not make a deposit via bank transfers.

Withdrawal

XTB processes client withdrawals via bank transfer only, which could be a major drawback.

You cannot withdraw your funds via any other deposit methods available. Since the XTB is a UK broker and deals with UK customers mainly, it provides instant withdrawal.

XTB does not allow you to withdraw your funds using the other payment methods except for bank wire transfers.

Markets and Products

At XTB, you can trade CFDs on Forex pairs, stock indices, stocks, commodities, ETFs and cryptocurrencies.

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

The trading conditions at XTB 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.

Leverage

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

However, traders cannot change the leverage level of their account after registration.

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

XTB Trading Platform

XTB only offers a proprietary trading platform known as xStation5 as well as its mobile version xStation5 mobile.

Starting from 2020, XTB no longer provides MetaTrader 4 to its clients.

XTB Trading Review

In our test, we placed all our trade through the xStation5 mobile app.

xStation5

XTB offers the xStation5 trading app, which is a proprietary platform developed by the broker.

Research and Tools

XTB provides user-friendly research tools including:

• Interactive charts
• Market analysis
• News flow
• Trading ideas

Education

XTB offers a wide variety of educational materials including:

• A demo account
• Webinars
• Ebooks
• Video Tutorials about the platform
• Detailed educational articles
• Educational videos

XTB educational materials are grouped according to a trader’s experience and based on various subjects, which we found to be very helpful.

You can find the educational resources in the broker’s trading academy section under the learn to trade tab.

Customer Service

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

You can contact XTB via email, and live chat. We got an instant response to our questions via the live chat function.

Our email queries were answered within one working day for our first question with our followup question being answered on the same day.

See the results of our test below:

Conclusion

Overall, our experience with XTB was smooth from opening account, to deposit, trading and withdrawal.

XTB offers great trading conditions with zero commissions charged; however, it does charge a small fee for inactivity and withdrawals.

XTB carries several licenses and the spreads on currency pairs are quite low; the broker also allows scalping.

We recommend XTB for traders who are

• Trading Currency pairs and Stocks
• Scalping trader
• Experienced traders and beginners
• EA trader

XTB might not be a fit if you are

• Trading on ETFs with small contacts
• Commission based trading

For this AxiTrader review, we opened a live account and deposited over €6,000.

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

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

Finally, we withdrew our funds to determine if the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is AxiTrader

Axi is an Australian Forex and CFDs broker formerly known as AxiTrader. The broker was founded in 2007 and rebranded to Axi in 2020.

The broker is licensed in Australia, the United Kingdom, the UAE and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Axi offers the following tradeable instruments: forex pairs, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies. Its product range is quite narrow as compared to other brokers.

Here’s a summary of Axi’s key features:

AxiTrader Regulation

Axi is licensed by 4 regulators globally including the top-tier UK’s FCA, Australia’s ASIC, Dubai’s FSA, and St Vincent and the Grenadines FSA.

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

Is AxiTrader Safe

Yes, AxiTrader is safe to trade. The broker is regulated by the top-tier UK FCA and the ASIC, which have stringent rules and enforcement mechanisms.

The FCA also guarantees traders registered under the UK entity deposit compensation of up to £85,000 in case the broker goes bankrupt.

We did not encounter any major issues when trading with AxiTrader.

AxiTrader UK Review

For this review, we opened an account with AxiCorp Limited which is one of the FCA regulated brokers (the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority), which we used to deposit money, place trades, and finally withdraw our funds.

We recommend that you open your account with the UK entity since it is the only one that offers deposit protection to traders if it is available to you.

We consider the FCA regulation to be the best since it provides compensation of up to £85,000 in case the broker goes bankrupt.

AxiTrader Fees and Commissions

Axi charges low fees for all the instruments on offer including Forex pairs, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies.

The broker’s average spreads for the popular instruments in each market was below industry averages.

We were particularly impressed by the low spreads charged on Bitcoin trades, which are less than a third of the industry average, making the broker very attractive to Bitcoin traders.

AxiTrader 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 Standard Account with AxiCorp Limited which charges a spread on all tradable instruments. The spreads were generally stable as shown in the table below.

We tested all our trades via the MetaTrader 4 mobile app on our iPhone. Axi does not offer any other trading platforms, which is a drawback.

Looking at the spreads charged in our trades, we found that they were all lower than industry benchmarks. None of Axi’s average spreads were above industry averages, which was quite impressive. We also discovered that the broker charges extremely low spreads on Bitcoin trades as compared to its peers.

Other fees

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

Account Types

Axi offers 2 account types with different fee structures, that is, the Standard, and PRO accounts. See the differences below:

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

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

Account Opening

Axi account opening is fast and seamless. We tested the entire process when opening our account, and it was fully digital.

Here are the 5 steps to opening an Axi account:

1. Enter your full name, email address, phone number, country of residence and application type.
2. Enter your personal details including title, date of birth, country of birth, residential address, and nationality.
3. Provide your current employment status, job title, company, and Tax ID.
4. Answer questions about your income sources, average income and savings, as well as market knowledge.
5. Verify your ID and current residential address using either a National ID or Passport and a bank statement.

AxiTrader Login

The registration process took a total of 15 minutes and our account was approved on the next day, which was expected.

We registered our account on 1 January 2023 and it was verified on 2 January 2023. Our account was approved after submitting all the required documents.

We opened a standard account with AxiCorp Limited, which is regulated by the UK’s FCA.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Axi 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.

AxiTrader Minimum Deposit

Axi has no minimum deposit for its standard and PRO accounts.

Deposit

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

AxiTrader Add Funds

The table below shows the details of our deposits to AxiTrader Fund Account:

All the deposit methods offered by Axi are instant and free, we did not make a deposit via bank transfer.

AxiTrader Withdrawal Review

Axi processes client withdrawals via most of the payment methods available for deposit making it convenient for its clients to withdraw their funds.

However, you cannot withdraw funds back to a credit/debit card even if you funded your account using this method.

Traders should bear in mind that credit card deposits can only be withdrawn via bank transfers.

We encountered a hitch as our two Neteller withdrawal requests were declined. Axi’s customer service reps told us that our first Neteller withdrawal was cancelled due to a technical error, while the second withdrawal was cancelled because we had made our last deposit via credit card.

We were advised to initiate our next withdrawal via bank transfer, which we did, and the funds arrived on the next day.

Markets and Products

At Axi, you can trade CFDs on Forex pairs, stock indices, commodities, and cryptocurrencies.

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

Bitcoin

Axi offers several cryptocurrency products including Bitcoin, which is the most popular and largest crypto by market capitalization. Axi offers a small number of Cryptocurrencies to traders, just 6 instruments. We found the costs of trading Bitcoin at Axi were much lower than industry averages. The average Bitcoin spread in our trades was just 14.4 versus the industry average of 45.

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at Axi 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. Axi also allows the use of Expert Advisors (EAs).

Leverage

Axi offers different leverage levels to its clients depending on the entity under which they registered their accounts.

Traders can also change the leverage level of their accounts after registration.

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

Trading Platform

AxiTrader offers the popular app MetaTrader 4 (MT4 platform) to its clients and does not have a proprietary trading platform. Traders can trade via the broker’s website, as well as via the mobile and desktop MT4 applications available via Axitrader download.

AxiTrader MT4

The lack of a proprietary trading platform may dissuade traders who do not like the popular MT4 platform. However, traders who prefer the MT4 platform will be right at home with AxiTrader.

The MT4 platform can be customized to a great extent, but is a bit dated and Axi’s web platform can be slow at times.

Research and Tools

Axi provides research tools via the MetaTrader 4 platform’s in-built features. However, the platform does not provide trade ideas or fundamental reports that could affect certain instruments.

The broker provides some market analysis on its blog, but the information is not frequently updated to keep up with market events.

We found the PsyQuation tracking tool to be very useful for tracking our trading performance and setting trade alerts.

Education

AxiTrader offers in-depth articles on many trading topics to help traders improve their trading results.

AxiTrader also provided video tutorials on how to navigate their platform. The broker could provide more video tutorials covering other topics.

Axi’s educational articles are grouped according to the relevant trading topics making it easy for traders to find information on specific topics.

Customer Service

AxiTrader’s customer support team was helpful and provided direct and relevant answers to our questions, but not at all times. On our first interaction with the customer service team via live chat we received an inaccurate answer to our question.

You can contact AxiTrader via email, and live chat. We waited for 1-8 minutes before being connected to the customer service team via the live chat function.

Axi outsources its live chat customer support to specialised agencies. The first agency we dealt with told us that our Neteller withdrawal was cancelled due to a technical issue. We repeated the transaction and it was declined a second time.

We reached out via the live chat function and the second agency gave us the correct reason why our Neteller withdrawals were cancelled. They recommended we do a bank transfer, which we did and were successful.

Our email queries were answered within the same day, which was quite fast, and we got very accurate answers.

See the results of our test below:

Conclusion

Overall, our experience with AxiTrader was smooth from opening our account, to the deposit, trading and withdrawal processes.

A major pro was that Axi has low spreads across all the instruments we traded with Bitcoin spreads being very low. The broker also offers fast deposits and withdrawals.

However, Axi offers a small number of tradable instruments, about 130, and does not offer ETFs and stocks, which is a drawback.

We recommend that traders open account with the UK, Australia or Dubai entities if it is available to you.

We recommend Axi for traders who are

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

Axi might not be a fit if you are

• Looking for wide range of instruments
• Real Stock / Futures Trading
• Commission based trading
• Prefer other platforms rather than MT4

For this FXFlat 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 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 test whether the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is FxFlat

FxFLat is a German Forex and CFD broker founded in 1997 based in Ratingen, Germany.

The CFD trading broker is only licensed in Germany.

FXFlat offers over 250 tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, and commodities markets.

The broker offers an average number of tradable products compared to the leading brokers.

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

IS FxFlat Regulated

FXFlat is licensed by one global regulator, Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

Here are the details of FXFlat’s sole license:

Is FXFlat Safe

Yes, FXFlat is safe to trade. The broker is regulated by Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), a tier 1 regulator with strict rules.

BaFin guarantees investors deposit compensation of up to €20,000 if the broker goes bankrupt in line with ESMA regulations.

We did not encounter any major challenges when trading with FXFlat.

For this test, we opened a standard account with FXFlat Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH, regulated by The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) in Germany.

Given its singular license, all FXFlat accounts are registered under the German entity.

Fees and Commissions

FXFlat 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.

Both the standard and professional accounts offered by FXflat charge a spread and commissions on trades.

Spread Charged in our Trades

In our tests, we traded the most popular asset in each market. We placed 3 trades per instrument to get an accurate estimate of the average spread. We tested FXFlat’s Standard Account on the MT5 platform and MT4 forex trading platform, which charged a spread and a commission on all trades. The spreads are shown in the table below.

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. However, the broker also charges a commission on trades, which results in higher fees.

Other fees

FXFlat does not charge other non-trading fees, such as deposit and withdrawal fees.

Account Types

FXFlat offers 2 account types with different features. The accounts are known as the Standard Account and the Professional Account.

See the differences below:

FXFlat does not offer an Islamic or sharia-compliant account.

Market Data Subscriptions

*FXFlat customers can choose between EUREX real-time prices and/or CME real-time prices via CQG. The fees for EUREX real-time courses at FXFlat are €20.00 per month. The CME fees for real-time courses (bundle) are €30.00 per month. At FXFlat, active customers who generate a minimum commission of €300.00 per month with EUREX Futures receive free EUREX prices in real-time.

For CME real-time courses, the minimum commission is €300.00 per month with CME Futures trading. If the minimum commission is not reached, the broker will charge your trading account the full amount.

The Professional Account

To get classified as a professional customer, you should fulfill 2 out of the 3 criteria below:

1. Trader have an average of 10 significant CFD or Forex trades per quarter.
2. Trader hold an investment portfolio (including savings and financial instruments) exceeding €500,000.
3. Trader have worked in a financial services branch and got the required knowledge about CFDs or Forex for at least 1 year.

For this test, we chose to open the standard account with FXFlat Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH, regulated by The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) in Germany.

Account Opening

FXFlat account opening was fast and efficient. We completed the entire process digitally.

Here are the 5 steps to opening an FXFlat account:

1. Choose your trading platform and enter your first name and surname, email, prefix and mobile phone number.
2. Select your trading instruments, platform, extension, fond through, and enter your initial deposit.
3. Enter your address, date of birth, marital status, nationality, second nationality, place of birth, Tax Id and residency, and client type.
4. Are you a politically exposed person, type of employment, education background; choose and answer three security questions?
5. Provide your trading experience, number of trades in the past three years, estimated net worth, available funds, annual income, source of invested capital.
6. Enter reference account details including first and last name of the account holder, name of the bank, IBAN, SWIFT-BIC, Bank account number and bank code.

The registration process took exactly 18 minutes, and our account was approved in one working day.

We opened our account on 9 February 2023, and it was approved on 9 February 2023.

For this test, we opened an standard account with FXFlat Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH, regulated by The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) in Germany.

Deposit and Withdrawal

FXFlat 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 Skrill and PayPal.

Minimum Deposit

FXFlat has a minimum deposit requirement of €200 on both its Standard account and its professional account.

Deposit

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

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

We submitted the front image of our debit card to service@fxflat.com as we tried to make a card deposit. However, we received an email from FXFlat saying that we cannot use a prepaid card to deposit, so we should use another payment method.

Withdrawal

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

FXFlat does not charge a fee on withdrawals.

We requested two withdrawals (2000 EUR withdrawal and 2943.93 EUR withdrawal) to our Skrill and PayPal accounts, but the broker sent the entire amount of 4943.93 EUR to our Paypal account instead of splitting the amounts.

Markets and Products

FXFlat offers over 200 tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies markets.

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

The broker’s collection of instruments is lower than those offered by the industry leaders.

Trading Conditions

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

FXFlat also allows traders to use Expert Advisors (EAs).

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

Leverage

FXFlat offers its clients different leverage levels based on the account they chose to open.

Traders cannot change their account’s leverage levels after registration since it is fixed.

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

Bonus

FXFlat does not offer bonuses to its clients due to EU regulations that prohibit the practice (Find brokers with No Deposit Bonus Forex $100).

Trading Platform

FXFlat offers the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platforms to its clients. Traders can access the platforms via desktop and Mac computers as well as mobile devices.

Clients also have access to AgenaTrader, a professional trading platform that supports multiple brokers, instruments and offers numerous trading tools.

Traders who prefer the MetaTrader platforms will be at home with FXFlat. Traders who prefer a modern platform should try the MT5 platform since the MT4 platform is a bit dated.

Traders who prefer a custom trading platform designed for professionals should try out AgenaTrader.

Research and Tools

FXFlat provides various trading tools including webinars, tutorial videos, training PDFs, and a client newsletter with trading ideas and market research.

The broker also provides a host of trading platform add-ons such as StereoTrader, which adds tons of functions to the MetaTrader 4 &5 platforms.

Traders can also access NinjaTrader via the AgenaTrader platform. Other add-ons offered by the broker include Forex-Screener and BasketTrader.

FXFlat also provides an economic calendar on its website showing all the economic events planned for a specific day and week.

Education

FXFlat has a YouTube channel with over 500 educational videos and webinars presented in German. English speaking clients are significantly disadvantaged in this aspect.

FXFlat has partnered with several trader education companies to bring comprehensive trading education to its clients.

• Tradimo: This is an online trading academy with numerous training videos that also offers mobile games and apps.
• Algo-Camp: This is a firm that teaches traders how to develop auto trading systems.
• Statistical trading: Publishes high-quality content about stocks and the stock market. The content is focused on statistical stock analysis.

The broker offers weekly webinars, and interested clients must register to attend the webinars, which are taught in German.

The broker has a comprehensive education offering provided by the trader education companies it has partnered with.

Traders can also open a demo account to practice trading on the broker’s platforms and test their trading strategies.

Customer Service

FXFlat’s customer service team was quite helpful and gave us fast, direct and accurate answers to our questions. Our first interaction with the team was via live chat, where we asked whether they charge commissions on the standard and professional accounts.

We received a fast and accurate response. The broker does not charge any commissions on CFDs and spot Forex instruments. However, futures trades attract a commission.

You can reach FXFlat’s customer support team via email and live chat. Our second query was via live chat, where we wanted to know when our account login details would be ready since we had already deposited funds as required.

We got a fast response, and the support agent let us know that our account login details would be ready in an hour.

We then sent an email asking about the account types offered, the broker’s licenses and deposit and withdrawal methods available. We received a detailed answer within one hour, which was impressive.

The account currency is Euros, and they are an STP Broker. The execution types/orders are market orders. Accounts operate in hedging mode, so hedging is possible. Scalping is allowed, and leverage levels are fixed.

The broker has a German banking license for securities trading, and they are only settled in Germany. They do not charge fees for payments and withdrawals. No bonus is provided due to regulation.

Here are the results of our test below:

Conclusion

Overall, our experience with FXFlat was good. The broker has fast execution speeds and low spreads.

FXFlat requires traders to deposit funds first before receiving their account login details. The broker’s funding team confirms your deposit before providing your account login details.

We were not allowed to deposit using a prepaid card and had to use Skrill and PayPal to deposit funds into our account. Our PayPal deposit was credited to our account in 5 hours, while the Skrill deposit was credited in 20 minutes.

When making our withdrawal, we were not allowed to choose the payment method we wanted to use as the broker processed our entire withdrawal amount via PayPal.

We recommend traders contact the broker’s customer support team via both email and live chat as the replies via both channels was fast and direct.

Unfortunately, FXFlat only communicates in German, and we were forced to translate the emails received back to English. Non-German traders may face challenges when trading with this broker.

We recommend FXFlat to German traders who want to trade with a local broker.

We recommend FXFlat for traders who are

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

FXFlate might not be a fit if you are

• Real Stock / Futures Trading
• Clinets from other than Germany countries