OANDA Review 2024

Rating 8.2/10

Max. Leverage

1:30

for Forex

Minimum Deposit

$0

EUR/USD Spread

0.6 pips

Benchmark

Visit OANDA

OANDA is a CFD broker that offers trading services for spread betting and CFDs (Contract for Differences) on forex (foreign exchange), indices, bonds, metals, oil, and agricultural commodities.

Onda was established in 1996 in the United States of America, and the broker is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) and by other top-tier financial regulators.

In our review of OANDA, we assess the trading conditions of the broker, fees, deposit/withdrawal options, available tradable instruments, supported trading platforms, and customer support.

OANDA is the trading name of OANDA Corporation, which is incorporated in Delaware, USA. OANDA Corporation is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association in the USA.

The broker is regulated by Tier-1 and Tier-2 financial regulators around the world under different names. Find some of the regulations of OANDA in various jurisdictions below:

1) Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC): OANDA is regulated in Australia by ASIC as OANDA Australia Pty Ltd and licensed to offer financial services with Australian Company Number (ACN) 152 088 349, issued in 2011. Their Australian Financial Service License number is 412981.

2) Financial Conduct Authority (FCA): OANDA is regulated in the UK by the FCA and authorised to offer financial services under the name ‘OANDA Europe Limited’ with reference number 542574, issued in 2011.

3) Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA): OANDA is licensed in Europe as ‘OANDA Europe Markets Ltd’ by the FSA in Malta with registration C 95813, issued in 2020. OANDA serves residents of the EEA (European Economic Area) with this license.

4) Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS): OANDA is regulated in Asia by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as ‘OANDA Asia Pacific Pte Ltd’ and licensed to deal in capital market products.

5) Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO): Oanda is regulated with the CIRO in Canada as Oanda (Canada) Corporation ULC. They are authorized to offer CFD trading in Canadian districts. Clients under this regulation are also protected by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF)

Leverage on OANDA depends on the instrument you are trading and whether you are a retail or professional client. The maximum leverage on OANDA for retail clients is 1:30, which means that you can open a trade position worth up to 30 times the value of your deposit.

For example, with a deposit of $100, you can open a trade position of $3,000 to increase your profit potential. Note that it also exposes you to more risk.

The maximum leverage of 1:30 is for forex majors, other instruments have maximum leverage of 1:20 for forex minors; 1:20 for minor forex pairs, gold, and major indices; 1:10 for minor indices, other metals (silver, platinum, etc.), oil, and agriculture commodities; 1:5 for treasuries or bonds; and 1:2 for cryptocurrencies.

Professional traders on OANDA have access to higher leverage of up to 1:100 for major forex pairs. The leverage is also lower for some instruments.

OANDA offers 2 main account types for retail clients, Core Pricing Account and a Spread-only Pricing Account. You can also request a professional account status and be treated as a professional client with access to higher leverage.

OANDA offers Islamic Accounts to traders under the OANDA Global Markets regulation in the British Virgin Islands, Australian traders currently cannot apply for Swap-free Accounts under the regulation by the ASIC. You can open a demo account on OANDA and practice trading with virtual money before putting in your real money.

You can open an account on OANDA as an individual, a partnership (joint account) or as a company (corporate account).

Find an overview of the account types on OANDA Australia below:

1) Core Pricing Account: The OANDA Core Pricing Account is designed for retail traders and can be accessed on the MetaTrader 4 and OANDA trading platforms. With this account, you can trade Forex pairs, indices, bonds, agriculture commodities, oil, and metals.

Spreads for Core Pricing Account on OANDA start from 0.1 pip for major pairs like EURUSD, you pay commission fees of AU$3.5 per 100,000 trade volume that you place. You will also incur swap fees whenever you keep a trade position open past the market’s closing time with this account.

There is no mandatory minimum deposit with this account type, a minimum lot size of 0.01, and you have a maximum leverage of 1:30. You also have negative balance protection as a retail client which means you cannot lose more than the money in your account.

2) Spread-only Pricing: The OANDA Spread-only Pricing Account is also designed for retail traders and can be accessed on the MetaTrader 4 and OANDA trading platforms. With this account, you can trade Forex pairs, indices, bonds, agriculture commodities, oil, and metals.

Spreads on this account start from 0.6 pips for major forex pairs like EURUSD, you pay zero commission fees whenever you open and close trade positions, but will incur swap fees for keeping a trade position open past the closing time of the market.

There is also no mandatory deposit for the Corporate Account on OANDA, the minimum trade volume is 0.01, with maximum leverage of 1:30. This account also has negative balance protection.

3) Professional Account: Professional Account on OANDA is designed for experienced traders who want to trade with higher leverage and access more sophisticated trading tools.

To get a Professional Account, first, create a Retail Account, then contact the customer support team to upgrade your account to professional status. Note that you will have to meet certain conditions with proof as a Whosale Client or Sophisticated Investor before your application is approved.

1) Wholesale Client:
The following conditions have to be met for you to qualify for a Professional Account as a Wholesale Client.

1. Have at least AU$2.5 million in net assets;
2. Have had an annual gross income of at least AU$250,000 for the last 2 years.
3. Prove knowledge of leveraged products via an online assessment.

OANDA will have a qualified accountant certify your financial claims above before your application is approved.

2) Sophisticated Investor Conditions:
The following conditions have to be met for you to qualify for a Professional Account as a Sophisticated Investor.

1. Proof of trading derivatives for the last 12 months with OANDA or another authorised broker.
2. Proof of executing at least 150 trades over the last 12 months.
3. Proof of executing derivative trades with a notional value of US$10,000,000.
4. Proof that you have been assessed by an OANDA representative to have satisfactory knowledge and experience of derivative.

The OANDA Professional Account does not have negative balance protection, which means that you can lose more than the money in your account and will be required to deposit more money to clear any negative balance that accrues from an unsuccessful trade position.

As a professional client on OANDA, you can access leverage of up to 1:100 for major forex pairs. Other instruments have lower leverage limits.

OANDA Base Account Currency

Account base currencies available on OANDA are Australian Dollar – AUD, British Pound sterling – GBP, Euros – EUR, United States Dollars – USD, Swiss Franc -CHF, Japanese Yen – JPY, Canadian Dollar – CAD, Honk Kong Dollar – HKD, and Singapore Dollar -SGD.

Your deposits, trades, withdrawals, and fees are measured in your OANDA account currency.

OANDA charges different fees depending on the instrument you trade size and whether you are a retail or professional client. Here’s an overview of the broker’s trading and non-trading fees.

Trading fees

1) Spreads: When you trade a financial instrument on OANDA, the price you pay includes a markup that goes to your broker. The spread is the difference between the bid and asks prices for a trade. The size of the spread depends on the instrument you are trading, your account type, and whether you are a professional or retail client.

OANDA operates a variable spreads system, which means that the spreads will fluctuate during the day to reflect market movements. The minimum spread for majors like EURUSD is 0.6 pip, but this changes as well.

2) Commission fees: OANDA offers commission-free trading in Australia for a Spread-Only Pricing Account, which means that you do not pay any fees when you enter or exit a trade position. While Core Pricing Accounts pay a commission fee of AU$3.5 per 100,000 trade volume.

3) Swap fees: If you open a trade position and you do not close it before the closing time of the market, which is 5 PM ET, it will roll over to the next trading day, and you will be charged a rollover fee or overnight funding cost also called swap fees.

The fees will be added to your profit or loss when you eventually close the position. The fee is calculated based on the volume of your trade, the instrument you were trading, the leverage, and whether it was a long swap (buy) or a short swap (sell).

If your position was a long swap and the trade is successful, you gain swap interest, which is added to your profit.

4) Currency conversion fees: Whenever you trade a financial instrument that is not paired with the currency of your account, you incur currency conversion fees when you close the trade position.

For example, if your base account currency is AUD, and you trade USD/JPY, any profit or loss you make will be converted to your base account currency and charged a currency conversion fee because the pair you traded is not in the currency of your account.

The currency conversion fee on OANDA is 0.5% of the mid-point price at the time of conversion, applied to the profit or loss realized from the trade.

Here is the trading fess of some popular CFDs that OANDA provides.

Swaps are subjected to change daily so you can always check them on OANDA’s website.

Non-trading fees

1) Deposit and Withdrawal fees: OANDA charges zero fees for deposits for all payment methods, which means you don’t pay any fees for depositing funds to your trading account on OANDA, although your payment processor may charge an independent fee.

OANDA offers free withdrawals to cards and local bank transfers. In contrast, international bank transfers attract a fee of AU$20 for the first withdrawal initiated in a month and $40 on subsequent withdrawals in the month.

2) Account Inactivity charges: If you do not perform any trading activity on your account for 12 months, your account will be categorized as inactive and any funds in it will be charged AU$10 each month.

If you do not have any money in your account, you will not accrue a negative balance.

How to Open OANDA Account in Australia?

Follow these steps to open a trading account on OANDA.

Step 1) Visit the OANDA Australia website via www.OANDA.com, scroll down and click on the ‘See our CFD markets’ button highlighted in blue. Then click on the ‘Create account’ or ‘Start trading’ buttons on the next page.

Step 2) Confirm that you live in Australia, enter your email address, create a username and password then click ‘Confirm and continue’.

Step 3) Provide your full name, date of birth, phone number, ID number, and home address then click ‘Confirm and continue’.

Step 4) Answer some questions about your employment and financial status, then some questions about your knowledge of financial instruments and trading experience, then click ‘Confirm and continue’.

Step 5) Upload verification documents to confirm your identity and address.

Step 6) Confirm your email address by clicking the link sent to your inbox, which will log you into the trading account.

After uploading the relevant documents, it takes up to 24 hours for your account to be approved. Until your account is approved, you will be unable to deposit funds, withdraw or trade.

Payment methods supported on OANDA are cards (debit/credit) and bank transfers (local/international). The bank account or card used to deposit or withdraw funds must have the same name as the name on your trading account. Find an overview of the deposit and withdrawal on OANDA below:

What is the minimum deposit for OANDA?

There is no mandatory minimum deposit on OANDA, you can deposit any amount that you want with any payment method of your choice.

While PayPal and card deposits are credited immediately, it takes up to 3 business days for funds to reflect in your trading account if you used local transfers, and up to 5 business days for international transfers.

How do I deposit money into OANDA?

Follow these simple steps to deposit funds into your OANDA Account:

Step 1) Log in to your OANDA trading account via www.OANDA.com/account/login.

Step 2) Once your dashboard loads, click on the ‘View’ under ‘Manage Funds’ tab.

Step 3) Select ‘Deposit’ and follow the on-screen instructions to add funds to your account.

What is the OANDA Minimum withdrawal?

There is also no compulsory minimum withdrawal on OANDA and you can withdraw any amount, this applies to all payment methods. All withdrawal requests are processed within one business day by OANDA, and it may take up to 3 business days to receive funds for cards and up to 5 business days for bank transfers.

How to Withdraw Funds from OANDA

Follow these simple steps to withdraw money from your OANDA Account:

Step 1) Log in to your OANDA dashboard via www.OANDA.com/account/login.

Step 2) Once your dashboard loads, click on ‘View’ under the ‘Manage Funds’ tab.

Step 3) Select ‘Withdraw’ and follow the on-screen instructions to withdraw funds from your account.

You can trade the following financial instruments on OANDA:

Trading platforms supported by OANDA are:

1) MetaTrader 4 OANDA supports the MT4 trading application which is available on the web, desktop, and mobile devices (Android & iOS).

2) OANDA Trader: OANDA offers trading via a proprietary trading platform developed by OANDA and can be accessed via the web, or desktop or downloaded from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

OANDA Australia strives to achieve the best execution and prices for traders. In order of importance, OANDA’s execution factors are price, costs, speed, and likelihood of execution.

For the price, OANDA Australia Pty Limited obtains the price for CFDs from companies within the OANDA Group. These companies get their prices from several external market participants. The final price displayed on trading platforms is an average of the pricing received from these third parties. This is OANDA’s way of having an objective view of bid and offer prices to ensure you get the best execution. In addition, OANDA adds their spread
to the final price displayed as mark up.

Costs are more straightforward. OANDA Australia operates a spread pricing model with commissions on certain accounts. If there are any extra fees to pay, they will be disclosed in your transaction history report, disclosures, and the trading platform.

We didn’t find much information on the speed. OANDA’s legal documents only state that trades can be executed poorly if your internet service, mobile apps, and trading platforms are not working well. However, all trades are executed on an automated basis. This means the likelihood of execution is high.

Finally, OANDA does not aggregate your trade/order with any other customer during execution. They are one of the few brokers that do not aggregate.

Here is a breakdown of OANDA’s education section.

Getting Started: This section is a basic introduction to trading. You are first introduced to OANDA as a company, then the main learning begins. There are three sub-sections you will be exposed to — trading essentials, order types, and price patterns.

Trading essentials cover basic definitions like currency pairs, bid/ask prices, spreads, pips, opening/closing your orders, and partial closing of orders. Beyond definitions, these trading concepts are explained with examples. A video is also added to help you learn visually. It is about 5 minutes long.

The second sub-section is order types explain the market order, limit orders, take profit, stop loss, and trailing stop loss. These are key foundations to trading successfully.

Price and chart patterns is the most detailed sub-section. The section opens by explaining the different chart styles that you will see on a forex trading platform and how to identify them. You also get to learn about candlesticks, candlestick formation, and how to interpret them. What makes this section interesting is the combination of texts and images.

Finally, the section covers how to combine candlestick formations with indicators to create a trading strategy A brief explanation of support and resistance is also added.

Webinars: Oanda’s webinars and free and you can build up your knowledge with them. They have archived webinars that you can watch on-demand at your own pace. There are also scheduled live market analyses. All you need to do is register and pick your preferred time slot. Finally, there are the premium webinars. They are available for traders with an OANDA live account only.

OANDA offers 24/7 online customer support to traders via the following channels:

1) Live chat support: OANDA offers live chat support to clients that can be accessed through the support page of their website and is available 24/7 to chat with the Virtual Assistant, while live agents are available from 04:00 PM on Sunday to 06:00 PM on Friday.

When our team tested the OANDA live chat, there was no wait time as the agent was connected immediately. When you start the live chat, the chatbot will suggest some quick answers to you based on what you type.

To transfer to a live agent, type ‘Live chat agent’, then it will request your email and connect you to a live agent that is online. Although it will request for a code sent to the email, we didn’t get any, so we clicked resend code, then ‘I didn’t get email’ and were connected to an agent.

The answers we received to our questions were relevant and we were sometimes directed to some articles that answered our questions.

2) Email support: OANDA also offers email support for traders and is available 24/5 as well. When our team tested the OANDA email support, we got a response 20 minutes later and the answers were relevant.

The OANDA email address for customer support is [email protected].

3) Phone support: OANDA has a phone line for customers to call and make inquiries and is available 24/5. The OANDA phone number is +61 2 8046 6258 and 13001 14359 (This is Toll-free).

Do we Recommend OANDA Australia?

We recommend that you try out OANDA because they are regulated in Australia, by ASIC, and the broker is considered safe as they are obliged to take measures to protect client funds based on the various regulations.

OANDA offers several account types to traders, including professional and retail clients. You can also use the demo account option to learn more about the platform and trading in general.

Fees on OANDA are moderate, as they offer a spread-only trading account with zero commission for opening and closing trade positions, the spreads are also competitive, they only charge withdrawal fees for international bank transfers, while all deposits are free of charge, and they charge currency conversion fees and dormant account fee after 1 year which you can avoid if you have no funds in the account.

The customer support is responsive and available 24/7. The website is also informative and the registration process is easy. Although OANDA offers few tradable instruments, you can check out the broker’s website and probably chat with the live support to help decide if you want to trade on the platform.

OANDA Australia FAQs