OANDA Broker Review

Regulation: Global clients will be trading with OANDA Global Markets Ltd, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands, authorized and regulated by the BVI Financial Services Commission. Unfortunately, the BVI FSC has a light touch when it comes to regulating forex brokers, and consumers are not afforded the same protection as that of reputable regulatory bodies such as the FCA.

Safety Features: OANDA’s clients can be sure that their funds will be kept in segregated bank accounts, but OANDA Global Markets Ltd does not offer negative balance protection. Additionally, OANDA offers leverage of up to 800:1 on its account types and has no minimum deposit requirements, which makes it difficult to hold a substantial trading position without getting stopped out and losing the money in your trading account or even incurring a negative balance.

We found that OANDA’s account-opening process is seamless and hassle-free compared to other brokers, and we were pleased that our trading account was ready for trading within a day.

We tested the account opening process, which took approximately 10 minutes to complete, and once our documentation had been submitted, our accounts were ready for trading within a day. 

OANDA offers corporate and individual accounts, but we will focus on opening an individual account:

How to open an account at OANDA:

1. New traders will have to click on the “Start Trading” button at the top of the page where they will be directed to register an account.
2. OANDA’s intake form requires clients to fill in their country of residence, and personal details, (including name, country of residence, and telephone number). 
3. Next clients must confirm their citizenship, filling in their identity or tax number.
4. The fourth step requires traders to confirm their home address.
5. Lastly, traders are required to fill in their employment status and financial details. 
6. Note that verification documents are not needed for traders who deposit less than 9,000 USD. 
7. For clients that deposit more than 9,000 USD, OANDA needs at least two documents to accept you as an individual client:
   • Proof of Identification – OANDA accepts all government-issued identification documents such as passports, national ID cards, driving licenses, or other government-issued ID. The document must be valid and must contain a trader’s full name, date of birth, a clear photograph, and issue date, and if it has to have an expiry date, that should be visible as well.
   • Proof of Address – Proof of residence/address document must be issued in the name of the OANDA account holder within the last 3 months and must contain a trader’s full name, current residential address, issue date, and issuing authority.

After the application is approved, traders can log in and fund their accounts. We advise you to read OANDA’s risk disclosure, customer agreement, and terms of business before you start trading. 

Overall, OANDA’s account-opening process is quick and efficient, and accounts are generally ready for trading within one business day. 

While OANDA offers a selection of CFDs to trade, it has only just introduced the MetaTrader 5 trading platform, and the MetaTrader 4 platform is primarily a platform for trading Forex.

The Standard, Premium, and Swap-Free accounts have trading costs included in the variable spreads, while the Core and Core Premium Accounts offer tighter spreads in exchange for a small commission per trade. Trading costs are slightly higher than average on its Standard and Swap-Free Accounts but significantly lower than average on its Premium, Premium Core, and Core Accounts. Additionally, traders must prove that they are indeed Muslim to open a swap-free account. 

Spreads on the Standard and Swap-Free accounts are wider than average. The average cost for trading one lot of EUR/USD among similar brokers is about 9 USD per lot. However, trading costs on its other three accounts are significantly lower than average.

We opened and tested Oanda‘s accounts:

Standard Account

A commission-free account, the Standard Account has no minimum deposit, leverage of up to 800:1, and access to all tradable instruments. Spreads start at 1.0 pips on the EUR/USD, which is wider than other similar brokers.

Core Account

The Core Account offers much tighter spreads than the Standard Account – starting at 0.2 pips on the EUR/USD and charges a reasonable commission of 4 USD per lot. The maximum leverage is also set to 800:1.

Premium Account

The Premium Account can only be opened when traders have an account balance of 20,000 USD and trade more than 10 million USD notional or equivalent per month. Spreads start at 0.8 pips on the EUR/USD, which is tighter than the spreads on other brokers’ commission-free accounts, and traders have other account benefits, including personalised account management, zero deposit fees, free withdrawals, priority support, and free VPN access. Note that the Premium accounts are only available on MetaTrader 5 and the fxTrade app.

Premium Core Account

Like the Premium account, the Premium Core Account requires an account balance of 20,000 USD, and traders have to trade more than 10 million USD notional or equivalent per month. Spreads start at 0.2 pips (EUR/USD) and a commission of 3.5 USD (round turn) is charged per lot traded. These fees are some of the lowest in the industry.

Swap-Free Account

This account is also commission-free, and as no interest is paid or received spreads are wider than on the Standard Account – starting at 1.6 pips on the EUR/USD. The only base currency supported for this account is USD, but otherwise, it is similar to the Standard Account. Swap-free accounts are opened by first opening a Standard Account and then requesting the change from OANDA’s customer service.

In line with Anti-Money Laundering policies, deposits and withdrawals at OANDA cannot be made to/from third-party accounts.

Trading Account Currencies: At OANDA, traders can only choose from four base currencies: USD, SGD, HKD, and EUR. This is limited compared to most other international brokers, and conversion fees (0.5%) are charged to all deposits and withdrawals. Conversion fees can make trading expensive and are usually not presented on the fee report but affect profitability.

Deposit and Withdrawal Fees: While no fees are charged for deposits, OANDA charges fees for withdrawals by bank transfer.

With support for MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, and recently, its own in-house mobile trading app, OANDA’s mobile platform support is better than other brokers.

All three of OANDA’s mobile platforms are available on both Android and iOS.

fxTrade App

We downloaded and tested the fxTrade app on an iPhone 11 and were impressed that we could access all our accounts with one login. The app integrates seamlessly with MT5 and you can trade directly on the charts, view multiple time frames, deposit and withdraw funds, choose from a huge number of technical indicators, and access VPS services. We were also pleased to find how easy it is to set risk and profit parameters on our order ticket. Disappointingly, traders can only choose from 81 of the 350 CFD instruments available at OANDA, which may limit some traders’ experience. 

MT4 and MT5 Mobile Apps

Traders should be aware that there is some loss in functionality when compared to the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 desktop trading platforms, including reduced time frames and fewer charting options, but traders can close and modify existing orders, calculate profit and loss, and trade on the charts.

MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5

The advantage of brokers offering third-party platforms such as MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 is that traders can take their own customised versions with them should they decide to migrate to another broker. Additionally, there are thousands of plugins and tools available for the MetaTrader platforms. However, these platforms are not as beginner-friendly as the in-house platforms offered by other brokers.

OANDA offers a variety of trading tools, including Autochartist, MT4 Premium Tools, and a Trading Performance Portal.

Autochartist

Autocharist is a powerful pattern recognition tool that scans and analyses the markets to identify trading opportunities. Other features of Autochartist include:

• Continuous intraday market scanning
• Correlating signals: receive email notifications and flag trading opportunities when support/resistance levels coincide with chart pattern projections
• Spot potential trading opportunities: get automated alerts about emerging or completed charts, Fibonacci, and key level formations
• Review only the forecasts that have historically had a certain level of success probability
• Volatility analysis
• Set instrument-specific exits based on estimated market volatility
• Performance statistics
• Customisable daily market reports sent to your inbox

Autochartist is one of the best technical analysis tools on the market, and OANDA does well to offer this tool to its clients.

MT Premium Tools

The MT4 Premium Tools are a host of powerful forex trading indicators, including an alarm manager, keyboard trading, mini terminal, tick chart trader, and more. These are provided by FX Blue Labs. You can access over 15 indicators and nine expert advisors in a single download. Popular features such as Renko charts, one cancels the other (OCO) orders, keyboard trading, tick chart trading, and advanced trade management are all included free of charge to OANDA MT4 traders.

Trading Performance Portal

The Trading Performance Portal is a behavioural analysis tool that is designed to help you improve your trading patterns. Powered by Chasing Returns, OANDA’s portal analyses your trading history and helps you focus on your strengths while identifying areas you can improve.

OANDA’s analysis section is excellent compared to other brokers, curated by its in-house analysts and third-party provider, Market Pulse.

Market analysis is supplied by OANDA’s MarketPulse service. MarketPulse is an award-winning news site that delivers round-the-clock commentary on a wide range of asset classes, as well as in-depth insights into the major economic trends and events that impact the markets. 

The 24/7 coverage at MarketPulse is provided by six expert analysts and professional traders with decades of experience covering and trading the full range of markets. All analysis is detailed, accurate, and posted within minutes of a market event occurring.

In addition to MarketPulse’s text-based coverage, regular videos and podcasts are also published.

Considering OANDA’s history as an FX data service, it’s no surprise that the market analysis is detailed and excellent. 

The education section is not easily discoverable on OANDA’s website. It is not linked from the menus across the top of the page and can only be found in the menus at the bottom of the page. Whether this is intentional or an oversight is unknown.

Once discovered, education at OANDA is split into three subsections: Getting Started, Tools and Strategies, and Capital Management. Information is detailed and helpful and is presented in a mixture of video and text. It also offers a demo account.

The Getting Started section covers the basic aspects of Forex CFD trading such as leverage and margin and introduces traders to the MetaTrader 4 platform. The Tools and Strategies section covers analysis and explains how traders can use various technical analysis tools to better predict the markets an essential skill for successful traders. Finally, the Capital Management section covers risk management and how to apply it in real market conditions.

Alongside these tutorials, OANDA also hosts frequent webinars on all aspects of trading, including the Basics of Trading and Live Market Analysis. Past webinars are also stored in an archive and are available on demand. Webinars and the webinar archive are free but do require registration with your name and email address.

Demo Account

OANDA’s demo account mimics the conditions found on the Standard Account and is available with a virtual 100,000 USD balance. The demo account will not expire if you request this from OANDA customer service. 

Support is available via email and live chat 24/5. For the purposes of this review, we found the customer support to be responsive but not knowledgeable of OANDA’s products and services.