Oanda Review 2023 - Verified Customer Reviews

Regulations and Money Protection

Entity/Regulation

• USA customers: Oanda Corporation is a company registered in Toronto, Canada. Principal and registered office at 370 King Street West, 2nd Floor, Box 60, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1J9, Canada. Oanda Corporation is authorised and regulated by the US National Futures Association with NFA ID number 0325821 and registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer.
  
  
• UK customers: Oanda Europe Limited is a company registered in England and Wales under number 7110087. Principal and registered office at 3rd Floor, 18 St. Swithin's Lane, London EC4N 8AD, United Kingdom. Oanda Europe Limited is authorised and regulated by the FCA with licence number 542574.
  
  
• Canadian customers: Oanda (Canada) Corporation ULC, with head office at 330 Front Street West, Suite 1200, Toronto, ON M5V 3B7, Canada, is a registered Securities Dealer company and is regulated by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) to provide investment services in Canada.
  
  
• Australian customers: Oanda Australia Pty Ltd, (ABN 26 152 088 349), trading as Oanda, is regulated by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), under licence number AFSL 412981. Oanda Australia Pty Ltd is the issuer of the products and/or services offered in Australia.
  
  
• Singapore/Asia customers: Oanda Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, with registered address at 50 Collyer Quay #04-03 OUE Bayfront 049321, is authorised and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to deal in Over-The-Counter Derivatives Contracts.
  
  
• Japan customers: Oanda Japan Co., Ltd, with registered address at 3-6, Kojimachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, is authorised and regulated by Japan's Financial Services Agency (JFSA) with JCN number 4010001122945 and holding a Type I Financial Instruments Business licence number 2137.

Client Money Protection

• Oanda complies with the highest safety standards for client's funds. For this reason, Oanda client's funds are kept in top-tier international banks, such as the JPMorgan Chase Bank and HSBC, fully segregated from the company's funds.
  
  
• Oanda also complies with the client money handling rules and employs strict policies and procedures regarding the maintenance and operation of these accounts. Oanda holds client's money separately to the company funds and does not use these funds for any operational expenses or purposes.

Deposit Compensation Scheme

• Oanda Europe Limited is a member of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), an independent compensation fund of last resort for customers of authorised UK financial services firms. If Oanda Europe Limited is unable to pay claims against it in the event the firm has stopped trading or has declared to be in default, clients might be entitled to compensation (up to the value of £85,000) per claim.
  
  
• Oanda (Canada) Corporation ULC is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund, an investor protection fund for clients of Canada based companies and its functions are regulated by the IIROC. If OANDA (Canada) Corporation ULC is unable to meet its obligations, clients might be entitled to compensation (up to the value of C$1 million) per claim for all general accounts combined (such as cash accounts, margin accounts and TFSAs).

Negative Balance Protection

• For accounts opened via Oanda USA, Oanda Canada, Oanda Singapore and Oanda Japan there is no Negative Balance Protection, to prevent clients from keeping their accounts balance below zero. This means that in extreme market volatility and without an adequate stop loss in place, a losing trading position can cause a negative account balance.
  
  
• For clients of Oanda Europe Limited and Oanda Australia there is Negative Balance Protection mechanism in place (by default), protecting traders from losses bigger than their original investments, in compliance with ESMA and ASIC's new regulations.

Accounts, Instruments and Platforms

Account types and currencies

• Oanda has two types of trading accounts available; Standard and Premium. When opening an account, traders can choose between two pricing models; Spread Only (no commissions) and Core Pricing (lower spread + commissions). Oanda does not offer swap-free accounts for traders of Islamic belief.
  
  
• *Oanda allows social trading, including copy trading, via ZuluTrade, but not for European clients.
  
  
• Oanda does not offer any MAM/PAMM accounts alternatives for money managers.
  
  
• Oanda maximum leverage is up to 30:1 for accounts opened within Europe and Australia, and 100:1 for accounts opened in other countries around the world.
  
  
• Currently, Oanda trading accounts are available in AUD, CAD, CHF, EUR, GBP, JPY, SGD, USD and HKD.

Financial instruments

• FX market - 80+ currency pairs (including Minor and Exotic crosses).
  
  
• Indices - 16 world indices including CAC 40, UK 100 and NIKKEI 225.
  
  
• Bonds - 6 top Government Bonds from Germany, UK and the US.
  
  
• Commodities - 13 commodities CFDs available for trading including the most common energy, metals and soft commodities (Gold, Silver, UK Oil, US Oil and Nat Gas).

Pricing

Spreads

Rollover Rates

Deposits/Withdrawals and Other Fees

• Deposit fees - Oanda trading accounts can be opened in 9 different currencies and maintained via 3 different funding methods; cards, bank wires and PayPal (subject to jurisdiction). Deposited funds are available, usually, within 10 minutes. Oanda does not charge any fees for deposits made by credit card, debit card and bank transfers (i.e. BACS, CHAPS, or Internet Banking / Faster Payments). PayPal levies a charge depending on your location.
  
  
• Withdrawals fees - For withdrawals, there are no fees for the first withdrawal processed within the calendar month, if the withdrawal method is by card, then a fee of $15/€20 applies. If traders withdraw with bank wire, then a fee of $/€ 20 applies for the first monthly withdrawal and a fee of $/€ 35 for subsequent withdrawals. For PayPal, there are no withdrawal fees for accounts in GBP, EUR and USD. But, if the PayPal account is denominated in a currency other than GBP, EUR or USD, traders may incur exchange fees levied by PayPal in addition to PayPal processing fees. For more information, please visit the Oanda deposits and withdrawals dedicated page.
  
  
• Inactivity fee - Oanda also charges an Inactivity fee of $10 (or equivalent in other currencies). This fee is a monthly charge applied to accounts if there has been no trading activity for a period of 12 months. The inactivity period begins the moment of the first deposit and will be reset once traders open a position on the account and thereafter will begin to run from the point at which there is no trading activity on the account.
  
  
• Currency conversion charge - When an instrument is traded in a different currency to the trading account denominated currency, the realised profit or loss, adjustments and any associated fees will be converted to the currency in which the account is denominated at Oanda's prevailing currency exchange rate. This rate is calculated by applying a 0.5% mark-up/ mark-down (depending on whether a debit or credit is to be applied to the trading account) to the midpoint price (buy + sell price divided in half) at the time of conversion.

Popularity

• Trading accounts - The Oanda Core Pricing modelling account is a popular choice with traders looking to save on trading costs, with a lower spread and with a competitive commission of $5.00 per lot traded. Extra points for Oanda's policy of no fees on deposits or withdrawals.
  
  
• Forex education - Oanda gets extra popularity points for their extensive range of Forex education materials available on the website. Traders can visit the “Learn” tab, where they can find how to get started with Oanda, use their proprietary tools, learn a few trading strategies and how to manage funds in the capital management section. Very originally, Oanda has also created their own financial news website, the Market Pulse, packed with videos, daily market news, daily market fundamental and technical analysis and a lot more.

• Minimum deposit - Opening a trading account with Oanda is completely hassle-free and can be done online. The minimum deposit requirement with Oanda is 0! Of course, with a zero balance, Oanda customers will not be able to open any trades, but traders can have a real feel for the broker's trading platforms and for the overall trading conditions.
  
  
• Customer support - Oanda multi language customer support service is available 24 hours, 5 days a week, in 7 main languages. Oanda's support is available via email or by local office phone call (subject to jurisdiction). Live chat directly from Oanda's website is also available.

Broker Profile