OANDA Review
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Founded in 1996, OANDA operates across eight global financial centers, serving clients in over 196 countries through its entities licensed in six major regulatory jurisdictions, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Singapore.
OANDA caters to Forex and CFD traders through its proprietary fxTrade platform, which is available as a desktop, web, and mobile app. OANDA also offers the popular MetaTrader4 (MT4) platform alongside connectivity to third-party platforms and tools through its app marketplace.
Review Summary
As a trusted global brand, OANDA provides forex and CFD traders a limited offering of FX pairs and CFDs but stands out for its excellent charting tools and quality market research.
Benefits
- Powerful charting tools in web, desktop and mobile.
- Diverse offering of market research.
- Clean online account management.
Considerations
- Limited range of CFDs instruments offered.
Is OANDA Safe?
OANDA is considered average-risk, with an overall Trust Score of 84 out of 99. OANDA is not publicly traded and does not operate a bank. OANDA is authorised by six tier-1 regulators (high trust), zero tier-2 regulators (average trust), and zero tier-3 regulators (low trust). OANDA is authorised by the following tier-1 regulators: Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC), Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), Japanese Financial Services Authority (JFSA), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) . Learn more about Trust Score.
Regulations Comparison
| Feature | OANDA |
|---|---|
| Year Founded | 1996 |
| Publicly Traded (Listed) | No |
| Bank | No |
| Tier-1 Licenses | 6 |
| Tier-2 Licenses | 0 |
| Tier-3 Licenses | 0 |
| Trust Score | 84 |
Commissions & Fees
When it comes to pricing, overall OANDA is slightly better than the industry standard.
Benefits
- OANDA’s bid/ask spreads, which are the fees clients pay to trade, are most comparable to FOREX.com and FxPro, while the minimum spread available (or lowest advertised rate) may be slightly higher than other firms that list a sub-pip spread (i.e., less than 1.0 pip). For example, the average non-core spreads at OANDA were 1.2 pips on the EUR/USD pair during Q1 2019.
- In 2018, OANDA launched core pricing in additional markets, including Singapore, where average core spreads for the EUR/USD were 0.3 pips for the month of December 2018. While this must be manually requested, users can also create a v20 sub account and login to their dashboard to enable core pricing.
- The smallest contract size for trading forex that most brokers offer is 1000 units or 1 micro lot, whereas, OANDA brings this minimum trade size down by three orders of magnitude to 1 unit or 0.001 micro lot.
- Rather than publishing a specific number that reflects the average spread over a fixed period such as one day or one month, OANDA releases a trailing average of its average spread across nearly all timeframes, as part of its push for greater transparency with pricing.
Considerations
- When you deposit more than £100,000 with OANDA, spreads are discounted anywhere from 0.2 – 0.4 pips, which reduce the spread to 0.80 – 1.0 pip, from the 1.2 pip spread on the EUR/USD we observed using sample data.
- In the European Union (EU), OANDA Europe Limited acts as a matched-principal (i.e. comparable to an agency broker), whereas its other international OANDA entities, such as in the US, offer accounts with market-making execution. This diversity of account execution across OANDA entities is comparable to brokers that offer both modes, such as FOREX.com, FXDD and FxPro). Therefore, the execution mode should be considered when factoring potential trading costs including any spreads, commissions, and fees, and depending on whether a trading strategy is more spread-sensitive or execution-sensitive.
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Further Reading
Fees Comparison
| Feature | OANDA |
|---|---|
| Minimum Initial Deposit | $0.00 |
| Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard | 1.40 |
| All-in Cost EUR/USD - Active | 1.40 |
| Active Trader or VIP Discounts | Yes |
Platforms & Tools
OANDA’s trading platform suite, fxTrade, is excellent for charting but lacks in other areas. Despite an overall diverse offering of platforms, OANDA is good, but not great.
Benefits
- OANDA’s fxTrade platform is available for web, desktop, and mobile. Powered by TradingView, charting offers nearly 80 indicators and additional features such as the ability to overlay multiple currency pairs within a single chart for comparison. I also appreciated the fact that both the web-based and desktop versions of fxTrade were identical to each other, making swapping between both painless.
- Additional platforms are available from third-party developers within OANDA’s Marketplace, including the Seer Trading Platform, which can be used for developing, back-testing and forward-testing automated trading systems. OANDA also supports trading connectivity to multiple charting platforms such as NinjaTrader, MultiCharts, and MotiveWave. Lastly, OANDA’s Algo Labs page uses Quant Connect to let users build their own apps in various supported languages including Python and C#.
- OANDA combines several services into its online account management portal that make it easy to transfer money between accounts and access your statements.
- For traders who prefer MT4, OANDA also offers the MetaTrader4 (MT4) platform.
Considerations
- Beyond great charting, the fxTrade platform lacks depth as far as trading tools go.
Gallery
Further Reading
- Best Forex Trading Platforms 2019
- Best FX Brokers for Copy Trading 2019
- Best MetaTrader Brokers 2019
Tools Comparison
| Feature | OANDA |
|---|---|
| Virtual Trading (Demo) | Yes |
| Proprietary Platform | Yes |
| Desktop Platform (Windows) | Yes |
| Web Platform | Yes |
| Social Trading / Copy-Trading | Yes |
| MetaTrader 4 (MT4) | Yes |
| MetaTrader 5 (MT5) | No |
| cTrader | No |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total) | 51 |
| Charting - Drawing Tools (Total) | 31 |
| Charting - Trade From Chart | Yes |
| Watchlists - Total Fields | 7 |
| Order Type - Trailing Stop | Yes |
Customer Service
To score Customer Service, ForexBrokers.com partnered with customer experience research group Customerwise to conduct phone tests from locations throughout the UK. For our 2019 Review, 229 customer service tests were conducted over six weeks.
Results
- Average Connection Time: <2 minutes
- Average Net Promoter Score: 6.7 / 10
- Average Professionalism Score: 4.1 / 10
- Overall Score: 5.9 / 10
- Ranking: 13th (23 brokers)
- View Infographic
Research
OANDA provides forex and CFD traders everything they need, and more, to successful navigate the markets and conduct quality market research.
Benefits
- OANDA offers a broad range of research for forex traders, including from within its trading platforms, with news headlines on OANDA’s MetaTrader4 (MT4) platform streaming from Reuters, Market Pulse, MarketWatch, Mainichi, CNBC, and other providers.
- Research content includes technical analysis, various macroeconomic news, as well as research from UBS, an economic calendar forecast from 4CAST, and access to AutoChartist for traders to find and research trading opportunities.
- OANDA’s MarketPulse site has content dedicated to news, research, and analysis, and is supported by the firm’s research team. OANDA’s mobile app, fxTrade, streams news from Dow Jones as well as the company’s blog. The broker also offers Dow Jones Select for a premium.
Considerations
- On the fxTrade desktop and web platform certain research modules trigger an external browser to open the content in a web page. OANDA could improve this by keeping its research centralized in the platform, so traders are not distracted from their desktop-based trading and while using the web version. This is an area we would like to see fixed to improve the fxTrade desktop experience, as many of the modules redirect to an external page.
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Further Reading
Research Comparison
| Feature | OANDA |
|---|---|
| Daily Market Commentary | Yes |
| Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) | Yes |
| Weekly Webinars | Yes |
| AutoChartist | Yes |
| Trading Central (Recognia) | No |
| Delkos Research | No |
| Social Trading / Copy-Trading | Yes |
| Social Sentiment - Currency Pairs | Yes |
| Economic Calendar | Yes |
Mobile Trading
fxTrade is easy to use and includes excellent charting features; however, like its desktop and web-based counterparts, lacks in other areas important to traders.
Benefits
- OANDA’s fxTrade mobile app, supported in both iOS and Android flavors, has a consistent feel with its web and desktop counterparts. The app cleanly integrates its research offering and charting is robust, providing identical tools, including 33 technical indicators.
- One neat feature that stood out was the seamless transition to the trade ticket window within the charts. Users can easily enter their orders from the chart then adjust their stop-loss and limit order levels using simple drag & drop.
- Funding via the mobile app is easy, and during my testing, funds were credited to the live account almost immediately after the transaction was successfully completed.
Considerations
- Positives aside, one feature I’d like to see added to the mobile app is the addition of global watch list syncing, so instruments that are added in the web and/or desktop version of the platform automatically appear in the mobile app.
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Further Reading
Mobile Apps Comparison
| Feature | OANDA |
|---|---|
| Android App | Yes |
| Apple iOS App | Yes |
| Trading - Forex | Yes |
| Trading - CFDs | Yes |
| Alerts - Basic Fields | Yes |
| Watch List | Yes |
| Watch List Syncing | No |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies | 30 |
| Charting - Draw Trend Lines | Yes |
| Charting - Trend Lines Moveable | Yes |
| Charting - Multiple Time Frames | Yes |
| Charting - Drawings Autosave | Yes |
| Forex Calendar | Yes |
Offering of Investments
The following table summarizes the different investment products available to OANDA clients.
Offering Comparison
| Feature | OANDA |
|---|---|
| Forex: Spot Trading | Yes |
| Currency Pairs (Total Forex pairs) | 71 |
| CFDs - Total Offered | 52 |
| Cryptocurrency traded as actual | No |
| Cryptocurrency traded as CFD | Yes |
Other Notes
In May 2018, CVC Capital Partners (CVC) Asia Fund IV, a private equity and investment advisory firm that manages $70 billion, announced the acquisition of all the outstanding equity of OANDA, subject to regulatory approval.
In November 2018, OANDA launched cryptocurrency bitcoin trading as a CFD from its Singapore office.
Final Thoughts
OANDA’s edge is its strong regulatory track record, with licenses in the strictest major financial centers, and the company’s robust proprietary trading technology, which is trusted by large corporate clients and well-known brands.
While OANDA’s list of tradable products is limited, the broker offers powerful charting tools alongside numerous research and news channels all at competitive prices. OANDA is suitable for casual investors to sophisticated traders who prefer to connect via API or who use automated trading systems on MT4.
2019 Review Methodology
For our 2019 Forex Broker Review we assessed, rated, and ranked 28 international forex brokers over a six month time period. Each broker was graded on 81 different variables and, in total, over 60,000 words of research were produced.
While encouraged, broker participation was optional. Each broker had the opportunity to complete an in-depth data profile and provide executive time (live in person or over the web) for an annual update meeting.
All data submitted by brokers is hand-checked for accuracy. Ultimately, our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .1% each year, providing site visitors quality data they can trust. Learn more about how we test.
Forex Risk Disclaimer
"There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these products will be profitable, or that they will not result in losses." Learn more.
About the author: Steven Hatzakis Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Research for ForexBrokers.com. Steven previously served as an Editor for Finance Magnates, where he authored over 1,000 published articles about the online finance industry. Steven is an active fintech and crypto industry researcher and advises blockchain companies at the board level. Over the past 20 years, Steven has held numerous positions within the international forex markets, from writing to consulting to serving as a registered commodity futures representative.
