Stornowaybc.com – Oanda Foreign Exchange. OANDA is a multi-disciplinary financial services provider with a CFD trading division. As a market mover, OANDA offers trading of Forex, indices, commodities and metals.
Although the trading fees offered are average compared to its peers and only the MT4 trading platform is supported, OANDA excels in education, market analysis and trading tools.
There are three live account options available; Standard, Core and Swap-free accounts. Standard Account has no minimum deposit and trading is commission free; The Core Account offers market spreads but charges a commission, and requires a minimum deposit of 5,000 USD.
Please note that negative balance protection is not provided for Indonesian traders and that customer service is not available over the phone or in Indonesian.
Is Oanda Foreign Exchange Safe?
Founded in 1997 in Delaware, USA as a provider of FX rates, Oanda has grown into a large, multi-service financial company offering retail CFD trading, Forex data services for institutions, and exchange rate information for over 38,000 currency pairs.
As an international CFD broker, OANDA is highly regulated, with regulatory oversight from no less than 7 top-level national regulators:
- OANDA Asia Pacific Pty. Ltd. regulated and licensed in Singapore by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (CMS License No: CMS100122-4) and International Enterprise Singapore (Commodity Brokers License No: OAP/CBL/2012) for trading commodity CFDs
- OANDA Australia Pty Ltd. regulated in Australia by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) ABN 26152 088 349, AFSL No. 412981.
- OANDA Japan Inc. holds a Type 1 Financial Instrument license from the Japan Financial Services Agency, is registered with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau #2137, and is a member of the Japan Financial Futures Association #1571.
- OANDA Corporation is a Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED) registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (Commodity Futures Trading Commission/CFTC), and a Forex Dealer Member (FDM) of the National Futures Association (NFA # 0325821).
- OANDA (Canada) Corporation ULC is regulated in Canada by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC).
- OANDA Europe Limited is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK, No: 542574.
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OANDA Europe Markets Limited is a company registered in Malta No: C 95813. The company is authorized and regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority as a Category 3 Investment.
All Indonesian clients will trade with OANDA Global Markets Ltd, registered in the British Virgin Islands (No. 2026433) and authorized and regulated by the BVI Financial Services Commission, number: SIBA/L/20/1130.
While OANDA Indonesia clients can rest assured that their funds will be held in segregated bank accounts, OANDA Global Markets Ltd does not offer negative balance protection, so Indonesian traders may lose more than they invested.
OANDA has won many awards for their services and products over the years, such as Best Educational Materials 2018 (Investment Trends – US Foreign Exchange Report) and No. Forex Broker. 1 in Singapore 2017 (Investment Trends Singapore CFD & FX Report).
Recently, OANDA was voted Most Popular Broker and Best Forex and CFD Broker 2020 by TradingView clients in the company’s inaugural TradingView Broker Awards. TradingView is one of the world’s largest social networks for traders, with over 15 million registered users worldwide.
OANDA Trading Terms
As a market-moving broker, OANDA offers trading on four instruments: Forex, indices, commodities and precious metals. Although only 38 Forex pairs are available and only the MT4 trading platform is supported, the broker offers three account types. The available accounts are Demo Account, Standard Account, Core Account and Swap Free Account for Muslim clients.
All three live accounts have a maximum leverage of 200:1 and a minimum order size of 0.01 lots. All three accounts also allow hedging, scalping and automated trading. The base currencies for trading accounts include USD, EUR, SGD and HKD.
Demo Account: The OANDA demo account resembles the trading conditions found in the Standard Account and is available with a virtual balance of 100,000 USD. You can submit a request to OANDA customer service to ensure your demo account will not expire.
Standard Account: Commission free account, Standard Account has no minimum deposit, leverage up to 200:1 and access to all tradable instruments.
Core Account: Core Account offers much tighter spreads than Standard Account, but charges a reasonable commission of 4 USD per lot. The minimum deposit for the Core Account is 5000 USD and the maximum leverage is set at 200:1.
Swap-free Accounts: These accounts are also commission-free, and since no interest is paid or received, the spreads are slightly wider than Standard Accounts. The only supported base currency for this account is USD, but other than that this account is the same as the Standard Account. Swap Free Accounts are opened by first opening a Standard Account and then requesting a change from OANDA customer service.
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Spreads and Commissions
Spreads on OANDA are wider than similar sized market moving brokers, with EUR/USD spreads on Standard Accounts starting from 1 pip. Core Account spreads are tighter, starting at 0.2 pips on EUR/USD with a reasonable commission of 4 USD per lot traded – this is average for similar raw spread accounts. Swap Free accounts are also commission free, but spreads on EUR/USD start at 1.6 pips.
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Deposits and Withdrawals
Deposits and withdrawals can be made by the following methods:
- Bank Transfer: Deposit by bank transfer takes 3-5 working days and is free of charge. Bank transfer withdrawals are charged 20 USD per transaction and take 2-4 business days. Also note that banks may charge processing fees, especially in the case of international bank transfers.
- Credit/Debit Card: Credit and debit card deposits are processed immediately and free of charge. Withdrawals to credit/debit cards take 1-3 business days and are also free of charge.
- Skrill/Neteller: Deposits with Skrill and Neteller are free and take up to 1 business day – However, Skrill/Neteller may charge a service fee. Withdrawals to Skrill and Neteller take up to 1 business day and are also free, although conversion fees may apply and Skrill/Neteller may charge additional service fees.
OANDA for Beginners
Beginner traders will have a relatively friendly user experience with a structured education section available for traders with different experience levels. Considering OANDA’s history as an FX data service, it is not surprising that the market analysis on offer is very detailed and excellent. However, customer service in Indonesia is still limited in scope.
Oanda Education
The education section cannot be found easily on the OANDA website. This section is not linked from the menu at the top of the page and can only be found in the menu at the bottom of the page. We cannot determine whether this was intentional or a form of negligence on the part of the OANDA team.
Once found, the education section at OANDA is divided into three subsections: Getting Started, Tools and Strategies and Capital Management. The information provided is detailed and useful and is presented in a mix of video and text formats.
The Getting Started section covers the basic aspects of Forex CFD trading such as leverage and margin and introduces traders to the MT4 platform. The Tools and Strategies section covers analysis and explains how traders can use various technical analysis tools to better predict the market; an important skill for traders who want to be successful. Finally, the Capital Management section covers risk management and how to apply it in real market conditions.
Along with this tutorial, OANDA also regularly conducts webinars on all aspects of trading, including Trading Fundamentals and Live Market Analysis. Previous webinars are also archived and available upon request. Webinars and webinar archives are free, but require registration with your name and email address.
Material Analysis
Market analysis is provided by OANDA’s MarketPulse service. MarketPulse is an award-winning news site that provides round-the-clock commentary on various asset classes, as well as in-depth insight into the major economic trends and events that affect the market.
24/7 coverage on MarketPulse is provided by six expert analysts and professional traders with decades of experience covering developments and trading experience across a wide range of markets. All analysis offered is detailed, accurate and posted within minutes of the market event occurring.
In addition to MarketPulse’s text-based coverage, videos and podcasts are also regularly published.
Customer Support
Customer support is only available in English, Chinese, Spanish and German. Support is available via email and live chat 24/5. For the purposes of this review, we found that customer support was responsive, but lacked sufficient knowledge of OANDA’s products and services.
OANDA Trading Platform
In Indonesia, OANDA only provides support for the MT4 trading platform and related desktop, mobile and web applications.
The MT4 trading platform is the most widely used Forex trading platform and can also be used to trade other instruments such as commodities, cryptocurrencies, stock indices and stock CFDs.
Although the platform is arguably old, MT4 is still popular for its automated trading features that allow algorithmic trading and strategy retesting with expert advisors (trading robots).
MT4 at OANDA is also available with free Autocharist, a powerful pattern recognition tool that scans and analyzes the market to identify trading opportunities. Also provided is the MT4 premium upgrade, which provides a number of tools to improve the quality of the MT4 trading environment.
These include the OANDA Connect app, which provides direct access to content from Dow Jones, market sentiment news, as well as two calendars to ensure you can stay up to date. Also available is the OANDA performance dashboard (powered by Chasing Returns), as well as OANDA Forex blog content.