Overview/ background
Oanda is a premier provider of Forex services. The trading platform caters to FX and CFD traders and allows for corporate Forex payments for investors and organizations across the board. Clients have access to a real money trading account, or a demo trading account. The multi-award-winning platform provides Forex traders with a useful selection of tools and resources for rapid executions of trades and cost-effective transactions. Among others, Oanda offers tight spreads and custom pricing, automated trading with FIX APIs and REST strategies, and full transparency.
Other features of this FX brokerage include fully regulated operations around the world, 24/6 customer support, and no minimum deposit on accounts. Further, there is no minimum trade size, and clients get to enjoy a premium account with some 100+ financial instruments including metals, commodities, bonds, indices, and currency pairs. Trading is available on desktop, and mobile with MetaTrader 4. Expert advisors are offered, and personalized charting and economic indicators are provided. The services provided by Oanda are ideally suited to novice traders and professional traders. The company provides in-depth analysis of the financial markets with live webinars, Q&A analysis, economic data updates, charts and currency converters.
Account Types
Forex traders have access to a live account and a demo account. The live account features real money trading in the financial markets across a wide range of underlying instruments. The demo account offers Forex traders a virtual bankroll for trading financial instruments under real market conditions. Account registration begins at the Registration Page. It is quick and easy to complete the registration information, and many times clients will be able to start trading without uploading other documentation. If further information is needed for verification purposes, this can take up to 2 business days to review. Accounts are subject to two-factor authentication for security purposes. It is possible to have a primary account, and multiple sub-accounts at Oanda.
Trading Platform/ software
The trading platform used by Oanda is the v20 Trading Engine. It has been designed for rapid execution of trades, and improved performance. In fact, Oanda is currently upgrading all of its platforms to utilize the V 20 engine. Currently, the following Oanda platforms support this latest trading engine: OANDA API, MetaTrader4 Windows terminal, and FX trade for Android, iOS and desktop.
The legacy engine that runs the Oanda trading enterprise offers single bid/ask pricing, allows for multiple order types (markets, trailing stop, take profit, stop loss, and entry), upper and lower bound orders, and a maximum order size of 10 million for FX pairs. There are 5 trading platforms available, including the web trading platform, the desktop trading platform, mobile trading apps, MetaTrader 4, and OANDA API. Each of these platforms allows for trading across the full range of financial instruments such as forex, commodities, indices, stocks, and bonds.
Deposit options
Various deposit options are available including debit cards backed by MasterCard, Visa, or Discover, bank wire transfers, checks, and ACH. The deposit limits for debit cards are $10,000 per month and there are no limits on bank wires or checks. The ACH limit is $50,000 per deposit with no limit on the number of deposits that are allowed. In the worst-case scenario, your funds will be available in your account within 7 business days for checks and ACH, while debit cards offer immediate clearance of funds, and bank wires can take up to 3 days.
Markets
A wide range of markets is available at Oanda including the following:
- Spread Betting – accessible to all clients on MetaTrader 4 for mobile and desktop with 100+ financial instruments.
- Precious Metals – these include gold, platinum, silver and palladium.
- Index CFDs – Japan 225, Hong Kong 33, Europe 50, France 40, China A50, Australia 200, US NASDAQ 100, SPX500, Netherlands 25 and others.
- Bonds CFDs – BUND, UK 10-year gilt, US 10-year treasury note, US 2 year treasury note, US 5 year treasury note, and US T-bond.
- Commodity CFDs – Wheat, West Texas oil, Brent crude oil, sugar, corn, soybeans, and natural gas.
- Forex – 55+ currency pairs with no commissions and competitive spreads on MetaTrader 4. These include USD/JPY, USD/CAD, GBP/USD, GBP/CHF, EUR/USD, EUR/GBP, AUD/JPY, and AUD/USD.
Bonuses
At the time of writing, there were no bonuses or promotional offers at Oanda.
Customer Support
Forex traders can enjoy multiple customer support options. These are available in Polish, French, Italian, English, Spanish, Japanese and other languages. The most effective way to gather information is through the FAQ option. Simply enter your search query and results will be fed to you. If you need additional help, you can always chat with a customer support representative (when available).
Sometimes customer support is inundated with live chat queries, and they may take some time to get back to you. Forex traders can also reach Oanda support representatives based on products offered at the brokerage. The company’s global offices provide useful contact options for traders everywhere. Offices and telephone numbers are available in San Francisco California, Toronto Ontario, New York New York, London United Kingdom, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo, Singapore, and Sydney New South Wales
Safety
The fact that this Forex brokerage is fully licensed and regulated by multiple authorities around the world is testament to its safety standards. When you deposit funds, full identity verification is needed. For security reasons, all clients can only use the same deposit method for withdrawing funds. Two factor authentication requires clients to perform an additional security check when logging into the trading platform. This can either be done through your smartphone, or your PC. Google Authenticator is recommended for this purpose.
Ease of Use
Oanda presents as an easy to use Forex trading platform. The services provided by this brokerage are best suited to businesses and institutional clients, however the presence of an FX trade and FX trade practice account is good for individual clients too. Getting started with the secure sign in is easy, and each of the trading features, functions and resources is designed with user-friendliness in mind.
Final Thoughts
Oanda offers Forex traders many useful tools such as live webinars for building confidence and understanding the markets. The trading platforms are ideally suited to Forex and CFD traders, with live Forex rates and CFD rates, and up-to-date trading use. Useful Forex tools include a currency converter, live rates, and historical rates. The free demo account is a useful resource for new FX traders.
There have been numerous promotional offers over the years, however.
