Is Oanda regulated?

The Oanda broker is regulated by many financial authorities in different countries like:

• FCA: Financial Conduct Authority in the UK
• CFTC: Commodity Trading Futures Commission and National Futures Association in USA
• IIROC: Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada
• ASIC: Australian Securities and Investment Commission
• MAS: Monetary Authority of Singapore
• FAS: Financial Services Agency in Japan

Is Oanda a scam?

Oanda safety is divided into 2 parts: the safety of the broker itself and the safety of the client.

Broker safety

Oanda has a long tracking record since 1996 and has survived from different financial disasters up-till-now. It’s also regulated by several top-tier financial authorities like FCA and CFTC which is great. Oanda also publishes its financial statements regularly.

Although Oanda is a big trading platform, it’s not listed in the stock exchange or having a banking background.

Client protection

Oanda does have client protection amounts under its top-tier regulators as the following:

Oanda Legal Entities Table

Oanda does provide a negative balance protection only from residents from the EU on CFDs and forex. Other countries are not covered by any negative balance protection amounts.

Oanda does provide a variety of trading instruments like forex and CFDs, metals, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. Some of these options depend on the type of your trading account and the country of residence.

Unfortunately, there’s no ETF trading, bonds, or futures.

Disclaimer: CFDs have a high risk of losing money rapidly. About 80% of retail investor accounts lose money due to leverage when trading CFDs with this provider. Please note that CFDs are not complying with the islamic religion. And if you want to trade in CFDs you should consider a swap-free account to follow islamic rules.

Learn more about CFDs for muslims.

Oanda Offering of Investments

Note:

• The EU clients can not trade cryptocurrencies as the FCA bans the trading of crypto in the european union.

Countries available

You can open an account on Oanda from all over the world except, but not limited to North Korea, Iran, and Cuba.

Account types

There’s only three trading account options that you can select one of them.

Oanda - Account comparison

Oanda also provides a demo account with 0 fees if you want to experience the trading platform with no risk.

Oanda Account Types

Min deposit

There’s no minimum deposit when you open an account at Oanda which is great.

How to open an account

You can open an Oanda account in minutes through these steps:

1. Enter your country of residence.
2. Provide a username and password.
3. Provide some personal information like your employment.
4. Verify your identity by providing a proof of residence.
5. All done! You can start trading now.

Oanda - Account opening

Commissions

You only pay a fixed commission per trade. The total cost for each trade will be the sum of the applicable core spread plus commission. Our core pricing spreads start from 0.1, with $40 commission per million USD traded.

Trading Fees

Forex fees

The minimum forex spread is 0.2 pips per lot.

Index fees

For indices, the spread ranges between 3.7 and 11 pips.

Commodity fees

For commodities, Oanda’s spread ranges between 1.6 and 40 pips for natural gas and copper respectively.

Metals

The spread ranges between 0 and 367 pips for silver and gold respectively.

Disclaimer: CFDs have a high risk of losing money rapidly. About 80% of retail investor accounts lose money due to leverage when trading CFDs with this provider. Please note that CFDs are not complying with the islamic religion. And if you want to trade in CFDs you should consider a swap-free account to follow islamic rules.

Learn more about CFDs for muslims.

Non-trading fees

• Account fee: $0
• Deposit fee: $0
• Withdrawal fees: $0

(you can check the full withdrawal fees in withdrawal fees section)

• Inactivity fee: £10 per month after one year of inactivity

Account Currencies

The Oanda account has 4 main account currencies which are:

USD, EUR, HKD, and SGD.

Notes:

• You will not be charged with conversion fees if your account has the same currency with your bank account or when you trade assets with the same currency of your account.
• You can open more than one account with one base currency per each if you want to be not charged with conversion fees.
• If you want to avoid being charged with conversion fees, you can open a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank.

Deposit

1. Options

Oanda deposit methods

Oanda supports depositing using different methods such that:

• Credit or debit cards
• Paypal
• Paysafe (formerly Skrill)
• Neteller
• Wire transfers

2. Fees

Oanda does not charge any deposit fees from you.

3. Time

Bank Transfers can take several business days while depositing using other methods is instant.

Withdrawal

1. Options

Oanda supports withdrawal using the same methods like deposit as the following:

• Credit or debit cards
• Paypal
• Paysafe (formerly Skrill)
• Neteller
• Wire transfers

Oanda withdrawal methods and fees

2. Fees

Oanda does charge $0 fees for withdrawals using debit cards. The first credit card withdrawal each month is also free of charge.

For withdrawals using bank transfers, Oanda does charge a fee of $25.

3. Time

It takes 2 - 3 business days to transfer your money in the best case.

Oanda works on different platforms like :

• fxTrade (Mobile)
• MT4

Each of the previous platforms has its pros and cons. So, let’s dig deeper into each one of them.

fxTrade

Languages

fxTrade is available in the following languages:

• English
• Russian
• Chinese
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Portuguese
• Spanish

User interface (UI)

The UI of fxTrade looks beautiful with the ability to navigate seamlessly within the application.

fxTrade - Mobile Platform - UI

Login and Security

• For the web, desktop, and mobile platforms, they’re all having a two-factor authentication method for login which is safer than a lot of other brokers.
• On the negative side, there’s no touch ID or face ID on mobile platforms.

Searching

Searching through the platform for assets is fine. You can search for the asset you want and find it easily without any problem.

Placing orders

There are 5 types of orders:

1. Market
2. Limit
3. Stop loss
4. Take profit
5. Trailing stop

Notifications and alerts

On the web and desktop platforms, there’s no option to set alerts. On the other hand, you can set alerts on the mobile application platform.

Portfolio and reports

fxTrade provides a good portfolio report with clear fees and spreads as well.

fxTrade - Mobile Platform - Portfolio

MT4 Platform

Languages

MetaTrader 4 is available in a number of languages like:

MT4 Languages

User interface (UI)

MT4 has a very customizable UI that you can adjust according to your needs and preferences. On the other hand, it seems hard to find some of the features inside.

MT4 - Mobile Version - UI

Login and Security

Unfortunately, the MT4 does not provide a two-step verification method for logging in, and it does only support a one-step login.

Searching

Searching using the MT4 platform has its pros and cons.

• Pros: you can search by categories and find assets.
• Cons: you can not type the name of the asset and search for it manually.

Placing orders

MT4 has a simple order types which are:

1. Market
2. Limit
3. Stop
4. Trailing stop

In addition to those 4 types, there are other orders which are the time limit ‘Good ‘til time’ (GTT) and ‘Good 'til canceled’ (GTC).

There’s also an order confirmation feature in MT4.

Notifications and alerts

Unfortunately, the MT4 web trading platform does not have an option to set price alerts and notifications unlike the desktop and mobile versions.

MT4 - Mobile Version - Notifications Settings

Portfolio and reports

Under the ‘History’ tab, you can find your portfolio reports with a clear fee description.

MT4 - Mobile Version - Portfolio

Oanda offers a number of research tools in order to help you trade with the best possible experience.

Sources

Oanda does provide its research tools through its platform as well as the MT4 trading platform.

Fundamental data

Oanda provides some fundamental data within the ‘Economic Analysis’ section.

Charting

Oanda has a great charting feature with the ability to choose from a variety of indicators and visualize the data smoothly.

Oanda - Research Tools - Charting

Newsfeed

Oanda does give an option to view recent news through its research tool ‘Market Pulse’ which gives you a glance of the financial market at the moment within the platform.

Other tools

Oanda has also some other features that you may like:

• Oanda Labs
• Algo Lab
• Technical Analysis
• Trading Performance

Options

Oanda supports different customer service channels like:

• Live chat
• Phone calls
• Email support
• Fax support

In addition to the previous contact options you can send a mail directly to Oanda, telling them your problem and asking for help.

Unfortunately, there’s no 24/7 customer support at Oanda.

Oanda Customer Support Options

Languages

The languages available for customer service are many with the support of major languages like English, Spanish, German, and Japanese.

Oanda does provide a good educational materials like:

• Texts
• Webinars
• Live events
• Platforms tutorials

In addition to the previous educational materials, Oanda does provide a demo account as well on the MT4 platform in order to learn with %0 risk.

On the other hand, the materials could be more organized than what it looks like now to be more user-friendly.

Oanda Educational Materials

• 1. How long does it take to verify my account?
• It takes from 1 to 3 days in order to verify your Oanda account.
  1. Can I open more than one trading account?
• Yes, Oanda offers you an option to open up-to 19 sub accounts under your main account in case you want to have more than one account with different currencies.
  1. Does Oanda allow bot trading?
• Yes, you can develop automated trading strategies with our API from the developer portal of Oanda.
  1. Does Oanda give a bonus?
• Unfortunately, you will not find any mention of any such promotion on the OANDA site.
  1. Does Oanda allow scalping?
• Yes, Oanda does allow scalping and hedging.
  1. How do I login using the MT4 mobile platform?
• Steps:

1. Go to ‘Settings’

2. Click on 'Manage Accounts' or 'Settings'

3. Then click on the small plus sign or select 'New Account'

4. Then select 'Log in to an existing account'

5. Search for the broker name

6. Select the server your account was set up on

7. Enter your login credentials and password

8. Click on 'Sign In'

• 1. When trading forex, will you lose more than your initial deposit?
• Both our MetaTrader 4 and Oanda web trading platforms are set to automatically close your positions when your margin requirement reaches 100% (stop out level).
• Please note that this process is automated and is not a guarantee that your account will not enter into a negative equity situation and you should keep a balance amount in your account above your required margin.
  1. Can I login to the same account through different devices?
• Yes, you can login to the MetaTrader 4 platform using the same password and username through different devices.
  1. Does Oanda accept payments from third parties?
• No, as you can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.
  1. Can I transfer funds between my OANDA sub-accounts?
• Ytes, you can transfer your money between your main account and any of your sub-accounts.

Conclusion:

• Pros: regulated by top-tier regulators, negative balance protection, swap-free account, and no commissions
• Cons: no banking license, no ETF trading, and unstructured website
• Best for: Beginners or advanced trader
• Regulated by: FCA, CFTC, IIROC, ASIC, MAS, FAS
• Headquarters: New York, US
• Foundation year: 1996
• Min Deposit : $0
• Deposit and withdrawal methods: credit/ debit cards, electronic wallet, and bank transfers
• Deposit and withdrawal fees: $0
• Base currencies: USD, EUR, HKD, and SGD
• Offering of investments: forex, indices, commodities, and metals
• Number of users: +10,000 traders