Saxo Bank Review

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Established in 1992, the Saxo brand today is one of the leading retail forex and multi-asset brokerages, with multiple regulated entities including Saxo Markets, regulated in the UK, and Saxo Bank, which is licensed and regulated as a Danish bank with its headquarters in Copenhagen. Saxo operates multiple entities that are regulated across the world in major and emerging regulatory hubs.

In September of 2018, China-based Geely Holding Group increased its stake to become a majority owner in Saxo Bank. Although the broker sold its South Africa-based entity last year, clients of that entity will continue to be serviced with the same access, thanks to its partnership with the new owners of that business. In December 2018, Saxo Bank announced the acquisition of BinckBank for an estimated €424 million.

Saxo Bank covers nearly every electronically traded asset class, providing spot FX, FX options, non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), Contracts for Difference (CFDs), stocks, stock options, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) including cryptos, futures, contract options, and bonds.

Saxo Bank caters to both retail and institutional clients, and provides wealth management and banking services through its related offerings. According to Saxo Bank Group’s 2017 Annual Report, the company had $1.97 billion in assets under management (AUM), and $17.39 billion in clients’ collateral deposits as of mid-2018, making it one of the top retail forex and multi-asset brokers globally.

In addition, Saxo Bank committed to the FX Global Code, an evolving interbank standard around enhanced disclosures and execution best-practices to promote integrity and transparency across the global foreign exchange market.

Trust Score

Trading with a forex broker traders can trust is crucial to success. Unfortunately, forex fraud and scams are common in the industry.

Here at ForexBrokers.com, we maintain the largest independent regulatory database available on the web. Using 28 different variables, we have created a proprietary 1-100 score (the higher the better) of overall trustworthiness, which we call the Trust Score. Here is our trust summary of Saxo Bank.

Offering of Investments

The following table summarizes the different investment products available to Saxo Bank clients.

Commissions & Fees

As of late 2018, Saxo Bank rolled out its new pricing model in Australia, Singapore, and the UK, where the commission-free option has been re-introduced for those who prefer a spread-only price with no added commission. In addition, Saxo Bank has launched a new pricing model with lower pricing compared to its volume-based pricing.

The broker’s new FX volume-based discount plan has six tiers, with the default Level 1 requiring no minimum monthly-volume requirement. However, it does not offer any discount either up to $25 million in volume. The first discount kicks in at Level 2 once traders surpass $25 million, and up to $100 million the net commission is reduced from $50 per round-turn down to $40 per million trade.

The highest tier, or Level 6, is reserved for the most active traders who do more than one yard (one trillion dollars) in volume. In such cases, commission drops to $17 per $1 million traded. It’s worth noting that the volumes traded are measured over the most recent three-month average.

In terms of spreads, looking at February 2018 data, the average spread on the EUR/USD was 0.4 pips at Saxo Bank. Together with its new volume-based pricing that includes a default commission equivalent of 0.5 pips, Saxo Bank provide an all-in cost of 0.9 pips.

Overall, Saxo Bank provides traders great all-around pricing, especially with the re-introduction of its old pricing model with new lower commission rates. Saxo Bank finished fifth out of 28 brokers for Commissions & Fees in our 2019 Review, and Best in Class for Active Traders.

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: <1 minute
• Average Net Promoter Score: 7.8 / 10
• Average Professionalism Score: 5.1 / 10
• Overall Score: 7.2 / 10
• Ranking: 5^th (23 brokers)
• View Infographic

Research

Saxo has a rich and diverse research offering across its websites and platforms, ranging from in-house analysts who publish daily opinions and conduct webinars on Saxo Bank’s research and educational portal – TradingFloor.com, as well as content from numerous third party providers.

Saxo Trader Go Web News

Saxo Bank does a great job centralizing its research within the SaxoTraderGo web platform. In 2017, Saxo Bank further extended its research scope by integrating Auto Chartist directly into the platform.

Saxo Bank does a great job centralizing its research within the SaxoTraderGo web platform.

Saxo publishes a quarterly Essential Trades report as well, and provides Equity research reports from Factset from within the trading platform, and the platform features economic news streamed from NewsEdge.

The desktop version of the SaxoTrader platform has even more research tools, including screeners, detailed options chains, factset reports, and other features beyond what the web version offers. Out of 28 forex brokers in our 2019 review, Saxo Bank finished in first place for research.

Saxo Trader Go web signals

Platforms & Tools

Saxo Bank’s main trading platform under the ‘SaxoTrader’ suite runs on desktop, web, and mobile The web and mobile versions are referred to as SaxoTrader GO, and bring a consistent look and feel compared to the SaxoTrader desktop version, and the most recent addition to the suite is the SaxoTrader Pro desktop platform.

While the SaxoTrader desktop version is still available, I was unable to download updates in order to login, which may indicate SaxoTrader is being phased out. The likely reason is that in 2018, the broker released the new SaxoTraderPro, a platform that appears to be SaxoTrader’s successor. For this review, I focused on SaxoTraderPro, along with its web-based SaxoTrader GO.

The web-based version SaxoTrader GO runs very smoothly in the browser, aided by its HTML5 design, and the way the layout was designed keeps the number of tabs and sections to a minimum, with only Trading, News & Research, and Account, as the three main categories on the top row of the platform interface.

Saxo Trader Go Web platform

The default trading section on SaxoTrader GO has three main windows: one for watch lists and alerts, one for your account overview with charts, and one for positions and orders. On the bottom row of the screen is a high-level overview of account balance information, such as account value, available cash, and margin details.

Saxo Trader Go Web platform charts

Overall, Saxo Bank‘s trading platforms come packed with a wide range of tools and research capabilities that will satisfy the majority of traders.

The windows within the platform can be resized but remain fixed otherwise. This can help keep things organized compared to other platforms that let windows float, which can overlap other panels. The only exception is the charting module, which can float freely or be viewed full screen.

Moving to the SaxoTrader Pro desktop-based platform, the new software resembles the web version in terms of look and feel, although the number of features available is far less than SaxoTrader’s offerings, leaving the web version my preferred choice.

Saxo Bank SaxoTraderPro Desktop Platfrom

Overall, Saxo Bank‘s trading platforms come packed with a wide range of tools and research capabilities that will satisfy the majority of traders.

Speaking of charts, charting is robust on SaxoTrader GO, with nearly 50 indicators and 17 drawing tools, although this number trails behind other multi-asset brokers such as CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers. Another small drawback is that panning isn’t always a smooth experience, which in Saxo’s defense, can be impacted by computer graphics and internet connection quality.

Saxo Bank SaxoTraderPro Desktop Platfrom charts

Saxo Bank has done very well keeping the look and feel consistent across platforms, even bringing functionality such as syncing charts and watch lists that save automatically and sync with the mobile app, among other similar design qualities, where great attention to detail is given.

Overall, Saxo Bank‘s trading platforms come packed with a wide range of tools and research capabilities that will satisfy the majority of traders. While the new SaxoTrader Pro platform appears more modern than its predecessor, it still has much room to match the number of features offered on the broker’s flagship, SaxoTrader desktop. That said, I do expect more bells and whistles to be added to SaxoTrader Pro as this new platform evolves. Saxo Bank finished first overall in our 2019 Review for Platforms & Tools out of 28 forex brokers.

Mobile Trading

The SaxoTrader GO mobile app was very consistent in its look and feel compared to the web-based version of the platform. We tested the app on Android, and it is also available for iOS devices.

One drawback users encounter when they login is the default Account Summary screen, which is mostly empty in the middle of the screen, and the trade, orders, and positions tabs are at the bottom.

SaxoTrader Go Mobile Trade Ticket

This precious space available on the first screen users encounter upon login – which defaults to the Account Summary page – could be utilized better (by adding other fields to the empty section or defaulting to another category).

SaxoTrader Go Mobile Watchlist

Once users navigate beyond the Account Summary screen, they will find themselves right at home., The calendar, news, and other research content, including pattern recognition analysis from Auto Chartist, all match the web-version of the platform.

The charting capabilities of the SaxoTrader GO mobile app were rich with drawing tools, indicators, and customizations, and were nearly identical with the web-based version of the platform.

The charting capabilities of the SaxoTrader GO mobile app were rich with drawing tools, indicators, and customizations, and were nearly identical with the web-based version of the platform.

The charting capabilities of the SaxoTrader GO mobile app were rich with drawing tools, indicators, and customizations, and were nearly identical with the web-based version of the platform.

In addition to syncing watch lists, mobile charts in SaxoTraderGO sync with the web-based version of the platform, which means that if you draw trend-lines and add indicators in the web-version, they appear in the mobile app (and vice-versa), unifies the SaxoTraderGO experience across devices.

SaxoTrader Go Mobile Charts

Overall, Saxo Bank does a great job tying in high quality trading tools and research into its mobile app. The entire experience also aligns seamlessly with the web-based version of its trading platform. Needless to say, Saxo Bank left us impressed; the broker finished second for Mobile Trading, second to Dukascopy.

Other Notes

To protect traders, rather than trigger orders on its own pricing, Saxo Bank uses the underlying interbank price, which doesn’t include the markup or commission seen on in its platform. This means that stop-loss orders and limits have extra price cushion.

Furthermore, for sell stop orders, rather than trigger the order on the bid price, the ask price is used (and vice versa, buy stop orders trigger at the bid, not at the ask). This is important, especially during volatile market conditions when spreads widen, where traders would have otherwise been taken out of the trade pre-maturely.

Orders aside, under the default account settings, rather than having a credit or debit added to the balance directly as a line item, these amounts are adjusted from the original entry price of the trade each time a trade is rolled forward (this structure can also help facilitate the needs of Islamic customers where Sharia law applies with regards to earning interest).

Another difference at Saxo Bank is how margin is calculated, which follows a tiered approach that depends on the net exposure in each pair. Different margin calculations can apply to different portions of a single trade - if it is above a certain size, or are based on the net exposure across all trades in each pair/instrument.

All in all, the broker sets its higher margin tiers in line with volatility in the market, whereas the lower tiers are in line with margin call trends. Thus, traders with smaller positions may get a margin call sooner if using higher leverage. In 2017, three additional margin tiers were added to cater to more active traders.

Therefore, traders taking larger positions should plan in advance in order to know how the margin calculations Saxo Bank applies would affect their position – depending on the tier levels reached – so they can adjust their margin or positions as needed.

For investors seeking wealth-management solutions, the SaxoSelect range of products includes a MacroFX Strategy for Forex, and a Balanced Portfolio series that is structured using ETFs and based on clients’ objectives with a conservative, moderate, and aggressive portfolio available for as little as $10,000.

Additional investment products for investors include the Equity series, which combines 30 quality stocks selected by Morningstar, and is available as the Saxo Morningstar MOAT ® which requires a minimum of at least €30,000. For a minimum of $20,000, Saxo Bank offers a Trading Strategy series, which has higher potential risk/reward – and includes systematic and discretionary trading systems to manage investors’ funds.

Finally, Saxo Bank offers a social trading feature via its TradingFloor offering, whereby clients can copy the live trades of other users (i.e., copy trading) and have those trades reflected in their own trading account automatically.

Final Thoughts

Saxo Bank does a great job unifying its desktop, web, and mobile platforms. Not only is the client experience seamless, but it is also rich with depth of tools and research throughout.

With an appeal to the wealth management needs of investors, Saxo also caters to more than just retail traders and speculators and is, therefore, an ideal choice for those who have accumulated assets and who need assistance using Saxo Bank’s advisory services.

For those who can’t afford to deposit $2,000 to start a live account at Saxo Bank, industry peers such as IG, Plus500, and CMC Markets are the closest options to access a diverse range of products with a lower minimum deposit.

Overall, for traders that can afford its minimum deposit, Saxo Bank came in second place for 2019.

Methodology

For our 2019 Forex Broker Review we assessed, rated, and ranked 28 international forex brokers. Each FX broker was graded on 81 variables. 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.

Reviewed by 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.