Forex Broker Reviews
Below are our in-depth forex broker reviews with detailed analysis, platform breakdowns, trading fees, account features, and much more!
When we review a broker, we actually open an account and deposit money while testing the broker services.
Note that unregulated brokers and brokers with a total score under 4 stars will not be published on our site.
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How we review forex brokers
Upon reviewing various forex brokers, we systematically look at a fixed series of criteria, -and grade all these individually. Having done that we then assign scores between 0 and 10 scores to 9 main categories.
Having done the ‘formal grading’ we then comment thoroughly upon our findings and offer our views on each main category.
The combined score of all the categories are then added up and divided by 9, then aggregated into a rating from 0 to 5 stars, to come up with the overall rating of the broker.
The 9 main categories in the review are as follows;
1. Regulation & Security
Where is the broker licensed, -and who is the regulating body (tier-1 regulators such as FCA, ASIC, MiFID are preferred)?
If the broker has an offshore entity, we look if they offer negative balance protection and segregation of client funds.
In addition, we read through the terms and conditions and look for any unfair terms that clients must accept.
Having additional insurances apart what is required by the regulators are a massive plus.
2. Deposits & Withdrawals
How fast deposits and withdrawals are handled are of course very important to most traders. Not much is more irritating than not being able to deposit or withdraw your funds.
How are deposits treated, -this varies according to the regulatory environment, -and clients would be well advised to know about the differences here.
Are deposits held in segregated bank accounts, -and in which banks?
Further, – fees charged upon deposits and withdrawals are also differing greatly from broker to broker.
As a client you might be charged by your bank, or payment service provider, -this is beyond a brokers control, -however how much (if anything at all) the brokers charge upon deposits and withdrawals are obviously important to you as a client.
Minimum deposit
Minimum deposits also vary from broker to broker. Minimum deposits can also to differ between countries using the same broker.
Account currencies
Most common is obviously the major currencies; EUR, USD, GBP, -but many brokers also offer account openings in minor currencies, this way saving their clients of unnecessarily costs of exchanging their deposits and withdrawals.
Some brokers also offer multi-currency accounts so that you can trade using margin from the currency at your own discretion.
3. Fees & Spreads
Brokers obviously charge their clients differently, -and the most noticeable cost for traders are typically the spreads, swaps, -and trading fees (volume based fees, ticket fees etc).
We do not only evaluate the various brokers target spreads and swaps. We have a real close look to find the actual average spreads and the swaps that clients are charged.
Further, slippage and actual fill prices are tested with real funds and evaluated in various marked conditions.
4. Instrument offering
Which asset-classes are available for trading, -and how many different instruments within each asset class tend to vary a lot between brokers.
Some brokers only offer forex trading. Some brokers only offer a ‘bare minimum’ of the most popular instruments, -while yet other brokers offer thousands of tradable instruments.
The most common asset classes that brokers offer are; Forex, Equites, Indices, Commodities, EFTs, and Cryptos. Some brokers have also started to also offer NFT Fan Tokens for popular instruments such as i.e. Juventus, AC Milan, Barcelona PSG etc.
5. Trading Platforms
What trading platforms (and mobile trading apps) does the broker offer?
Brokers often develop their own proprietary trading platforms, -and these trading platforms are for obvious reasons what they are prioritizing the most.
However, -many brokers also offer the generic trading platforms that are available from third party developers. Many of these trading platforms have a large group of traders who prefer to use them regardless of the broker they are trading with.
MetaTrader 4 (MT4), TradingView and cTrader are the most common and popular of these trading platforms. Serious brokers tend to acknowledge this and offer one, – or several of these trading-platforms in addition to their own proprietary platforms.
Some brokers only offer third party trading platforms (most common is MetaTrader MT4).
This can indeed be solid and good brokers, -however there has unfortunately to often been this kind of brokers who in the past have had a great deal of unfortunate happenings and many believes that this has been caused by the low entry cost of setting up a brokerage this way has led to many less solid brokerages that are not able to handle themselves adequately over time.
If you are new to trading and don’t know what trading platform to choose, it would probably be smart to find a broker that offers several platforms so that you can test many platforms without having to change your broker.
6. Customer Support
Customer support is important to most clients as this is your first line of help should you experience problems or have questions of any kind.
Hence, having qualified personnel handling client services is of great benefit for clients.
Opening hours, Chat functionality, phone, and email contacts are all an important aspect of a brokerages support services.
Also, some brokerages assign you a personal account manager who you can choose to contact directly if you need support or if you should have any questions.
7. Education & Research
Does the broker offer any kind of educational material and, -or research?
Many brokers offer a lot of material for you to educate yourself, or for you to find good trading ideas.
Courses in trading analysis (technical and fundamental) are often sought after by new traders and many brokers offer a variety of such educational content.
Further, -economic calendars, daily market updates, and periodical reports are something you most likely will learn to appreciate upon having been used to receiving these for some time.
8. Trading Features
What do we mean by trading features? Isn’t all trading the same? No, -all trading is not the same, and there are many trading features that separates brokers significantly.
Some brokers offer only a minimum of basic trading features, -while other brokers offer multiple trading platforms suitable for all kinds of traders including features such as copytrading, signal trading, algo trading etc.
Making sure you find a broker that you can grow with as a trader often tends to be a good advice in this context.
9. Trading Experience
Trading experience is our own experience trading with considerable funds with the broker. We look for things like execution time, slippage, and spread widening.
A score between 8-10 would indicate none or minor issues.