OANDA – Everything You Need to Know Before You Trade

The firm has expanded into a globally reputable and recognized entity offering different services, including currency conversion, FX data service, and the primarily recognized one, its forex brokerage services. In 2001, it became the first fully automated trading platform on Forex.

In addition, it offers a vast range of product catalogs for different assets that have been primary drivers for user acquisition and customers across the operational zones. OANDA’s distinct arms and components elevate its position as among the best-rated brokerage firms.

Top-tier industry authorities regulate it; it has a social trading feature available via ZuluTrade; it allows Trading View for MetaTrader 4; and excellent market research with coverage of important topics. The verification part is relatively arduous as it can take weeks to complete.

Still, it has been the foundation for driving off fraudsters and other suspicious actors aiming to attack the network. Traders’ deposits are stored in separate accounts in well-known banks, which allows the administration of the resource to settle accounts with its customers at any moment if they decide to leave the trading floor.

The customer/client support section is another significant facet of the company, with 24/6 (Sunday through Friday) support willing to assist. The service specialists will answer your questions and quickly address technical and financial problems.

You can use the phone, chat, email, or contact form on the OANDA web resource. Overall, OANDA has a well-dedicated mobile application and responsive website that facilitate convenient usage and enhance smooth interaction with its platform’s features and assets.

Regulatory compliance is an important facet of any trading platform. It’s important to examine a company’s compliance with financial legislation and the presence of licenses/documents issued by regulatory agencies to ensure it is not a fraudulent platform. OANDA is authorized by different regulatory bodies, including,

• Japan Financial Services Agency (JFSA).
• UK Financial Services Authority (FCA).
• Regulatory Investment Authority (Canada).
• Monetary Authority MAS (Singapore).
• CFTC and NFA (USA).
• Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC), Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC).

Through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), OANDA’s UK clients get additional asset protection of up to $85,000, which helps prevent its users in case the firm fails. These listed institutions, some state-run, have excellent reputations and well-established regulations.

Training

Educating clients and setting them through their investment journey is significant. OANDA (just like Forex4You) hosts a suite of educational resources, ranging from webinars to text-based. Despite its rich and well-detailed resources, the available training materials are limited, and there is a lot to know.

The training center is categorized into different segments. Overall, its training center has detailed courses covering technical and fundamental analysis topics; however, it needs to be more explicit and focus more on teaching about the platform.

There’s a drawback to how inefficient and disorganized the training resources are for beginners who have yet to figure using the platform. However, the Demo account feature allows newbies to develop their training prowess.

This way, novice traders with minimal theoretical preparation can begin practice, enabling them to make real financial transactions using virtual currency. You can save money while gaining practical experience.

Such a decision is welcomed by many traders who believe it is unfair to provide some users of the site with benefits and additional services just for depositing a larger amount of money.

Assets and Tradeables

OANDA describes itself as the forex platform focusing on “all things currency.” This theme gives an overview of what to expect from using OANDA. Certain assets aren’t available on OANDA, limiting CFD offerings.

Individual stocks, ETFs, industry sectors, or cryptocurrencies aren’t up for trading. However, the currency pairs to trade are endless. NB: cryptocurrency is available for purchase via CFD trade, not by buying the underlying crypto assets.  The assets open to clients include

• Bonds
• Forex
• Precious metals
• Indices
• Commodities

The problem with this is that OANDA loses a competitive edge over other brokerage platforms offering upward of 1,000 CFD assets.

Given the wide variety of assets in each group, OANDA fully meets the needs and expectations of the modern trader—regardless of if you’re an investor, full-time trader, or scalper. CMC Markets has a 4.2 Trustpilot Rating, higher than Oanda’s. Check out our CMC Markets Review.

Trading Terms

It’s easy to be drenched with the information disseminated over the internet. Certain pieces of information are aimed at misguiding you. For example, one reviewer stated that the company was created in 2001, which is false. Ideally, the appropriate approach is to filter out the noise and take so-called expert reviewers’ advice with a pinch of salt.

This is the launch date of automated trading on Forex, which the unscrupulous “analyst” confused with the broker’s registration. We’ll separate fact from fiction and provide a list of the key trading conditions of OANDA, as follows:

• There is no minimum deposit (in some sources, it is indicated as $1, which is partially true; a smaller amount, as a rule, is not carried out by the payment system).
• Maximum leverage is 1:50.
• Minimum bid – not set.
• Affiliate program – not available.
• Islamic account – not available.
• Automatic trading – yes.

Deposit and withdrawal

Many reviews compiled about OANDA cite the limited number of methods for input/output of financial resources as the main disadvantage of the trading platform. For deposits and withdrawals, traders may use plastic cards (debit and credit), PayPal, or bank transfers.

OANDA offers similar commissions and fees compared to other top brokers and has maintained transparency with the average possible charge for trading specific pairs. The spread on OANDA is slightly above the typical spread on other platforms but compensates with automated trade execution.

Conclusion

OANDA is a top tier broker that has built a solid reputation. It’s mostly known for its in-depth market research, dedicated effort to training and educating users and non-users, and meager fees that are well below the marketaverage price.

There are risks accompanying using broker; however, OANDA appears to have dotted their i’s and crossed their T’s regarding users’ safety and protection making them an outstanding choice.

In the world of business genius Elon Musk, he said, “If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.” It’s easy to say OANDA has the needed ingredients and in the appropriate proportion to keep offering quality service.