OANDA, established in 1996 as an FX rate provider in Delaware, USA, has expanded to become a multi-service financial company offering retail CFD trading, Forex data services for institutions, and exchange rate information. The broker is well-suited for traders who prefer low-risk trading and offers unique features such as a comprehensive education suite, 1.0 pips spread, commission-free trading, and no minimum deposit.

OANDA forex brokers best provide its clients with a reasonable selection of trading instruments, including Forex pairs, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and options, which is adequate for traders starting in the Forex trading space. The broker supports the MT4 and MT5 platforms, and a range of helpful trading tools are available to help traders make informed trading decisions.

Interestingly, this OANDA review gathered that the broker offers varying account protection based on the client’s region. For example, OANDA Europe Limited offers ESMA-mandated negative balance protection, while OANDA Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. provides guaranteed stop-loss orders.

Supported Countries

OANDA offers its services to clients from over 132 countries internationally. These countries range from Tier 1, Tier 2, and 3 financial services countries. OANDA has obtained regulatory licensing in all these countries and is subject to the financial rules and regulations of the country’s watchdog. 

Citizens from these countries can access the financial offerings peculiar to their region by signing up on the platform. The support countries include Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Georgia, Grenada, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Niger, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Swaziland, Tajikistan,  and the United States. 

On the other hand of the scale, OANDA, like many other brokers, is banned from offering its services in some countries. These countries are Afghanistan, Albania, Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Congo Dem., Rep. Congo, Rep. Cuba, Gaza Strip, Ghana, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, North Korea, Libya, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. 

Customer Service Rating

OANDA is rated “average” with 3.4-star ratings on 351 customer reviews on Trustpilot. This average rating suggests the broker’s satisfactory performance. Hence, its clientele is comfortable with the quality of trading services rendered by the broker.

On the positive side of OANDA forex reviews, longtime clients applaud the broker for the quality of its company’s customer service, its swift withdrawal process, and its analytical trading tools. Some reviews considered the absence of a stop loss feature a plus to be risk-conscious and trading efficient.

On the other side, however, some traders expressed displeasure with the sudden closure of their accounts and withdrawal hitches. Others also complained about the unavailability of local customer support phone lines.

Despite the negative reviews, it’s important to note that OANDA constantly works to improve its platform’s functionality and its services to its clientele in various regions. Hopefully, these complaints will soon be history.

OANDA Trading Platforms

OANDA supports its clients with the MT4 and MT5 trading platforms, including their associated desktop, mobile, and web-based applications.

• Metatrader 4: The MT4 is a widely used trading platform, not only for Forex but also for other instruments such as commodities, cryptocurrency, stock index, and stock CFDs. It is renowned for its auto trading features, including algorithmic trading and strategy backtesting with expert advisors. The platform boasts a built-in library of over 50 indicators and tools, analytical tools, algorithmic trading capabilities, customizable alerts, and access to the MetaTrader market and MQL4 community.
• Metatrader 5: MT5 OANDA trading platform boasts a more robust and faster backtesting functionality for automated trading algorithms compared to MT4. It also includes several additional features such as a built-in news feed, market depth indicator, economic calendar, technical indicators, 6 pending stop order types, improved strategy tester for algorithmic trading and expert advisors, in-built market trading systems and trading functions, and alerts. Furthermore, the platform provides traders access to scalping robots, exchange trading, forex signals and copy trading, 21-time frames, and 8 order types. With over 80 technical indicators and 44 analytical objects, the MT5 platform also offers traders an extensive range of analytical tools.
• OANDA’s Mobile Trading Platform: OANDA provides mobile support for both OANDA’s best forex trade platforms MT4 and MT5 on Android and iOS devices. While some features differ between the mobile app and web-based platform, such as reduced time frames and fewer charting options, traders can still manage existing orders, calculate profits and losses, and trade on charts available on the mobile app. This OANDA best forex trading app is a decent trading platform.

Trading Denominations

OANDA broker offers a range of trading currency options to its clientele. Here is a list of the major trading currencies on OANDA: EUR, USD, GBP, CAD, CHF, JPY, AUD, CZK, HUF, NZD, SEK, SGD, DKK, NOK, PLN, TRY, ZAR, CNH, DKK, HUF, MXN, PLN, SEK, THB, ZAR, HKD, NOK, SAR, XAG, XAU, BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC.

Company Structure

Since its establishment in 1996, OANDA has grown its global presence across eight reputable financial centers and offers its financial services to clients in over 132 countries. The broker operates through multiple subsidiaries licensed by regional watchdogs based in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Japan, and Singapore. 

This OANDA review reports that the broker has multiple subsidiaries across the globe. Hence, the subsidiary that a client contracts with depends on their country of residence. It is important to remember that each subsidiary provides different products via different platforms. Therefore, clients have a unique OANDA trading and customer support experience based on their location.

OANDA Licenses and Regulatory Compliance

Since its inception in 1996, OANDA has maintained a remarkable regulatory compliance record. The broker prioritizes regulatory oversight of its subsidiaries and the safeguarding of its traders, ensuring that it adheres to all regulatory requirements in the different regions it operates. OANDA forex brokers best subsidiaries and their respective watchdogs are highlighted below:

• OANDA Corporation: This subsidiary is a registered Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED) in the U.S. and is subject to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulations. It is also a Forex Dealer Member (FDM) of the National Futures Association with registration number NFA # 0325821.
• OANDA Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd: This is the broker’s subsidiary in Singapore, and it is regulated and licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore with CMS Licence Number CMS100122-4. It is also a member of the International Enterprise Singapore with Commodity Brokers Licence Number OAP/CBL/2012.
• OANDA (Canada) Corporation ULC: Our OANDA Canada review discovered that this Canadian subsidiary is regulated by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC).
• OANDA Europe Limited: This OANDA subsidiary serves the entire European region and is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under license number 542574.
• OANDA Japan Inc.: This OANDA Japanese subsidiary has a Type 1 Financial Instruments license from the Japanese Financial Services Agency. The company is registered under the Kanto Local Finance Bureau with license number #2137. It is also a member of the Financial Futures Association of Japan with registration number #1571.
• OANDA Australia Pty Ltd.: This is OANDA’s Australian subsidiary, and it is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) with ABN 26 152 088 349 and AFSL number 412981.

OANDA Customer Support

OANDA reviews agree that the broker has unique customer care support for its prospective and existing clientele. The broker’s customer support service is available to existing clients 24/5 between 8:00 and 20:00 CET. The broker’s customer care lines are:

Prospective clients can contact the customer support service 24/5 from 9:00 to 17:00 CET on the following phone lines:

OANDA’s sales team can be contacted via email at [email protected], and relocating Europe clients can contact [email protected] for seamless transfer of their investments. The broker’s customer support team can provide support in English, French, German, and Spanish.

OANDA Customer Protection

This OANDA broker review gathered that the broker takes the financial and data protection of its clients seriously. This is evident in the broker’s efforts to ensure the safety and security of its clients. This OANDA forex review discovered that some of the broker’s customer protection measures include:

• Regulatory Compliance: As mentioned earlier, OANDA is regulated by several financial regulatory authorities, including the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) and Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)s. These regulatory bodies ensure that OANDA operates with transparency, fairness, and compliance with applicable Trading Information
• 2 Factor Authentication (2FA): The broker uses this feature to protect its clientele’s account and funds from unauthorized access. Traders, however, have to enable the 2FA feature to enjoy this protection.
• Comprehensive, Cutting-Edge Security: OANDA has invested significant resources into creating comprehensive security coverage to ensure your data is kept secure and private. With an internal security team, partnerships with multiple industry-leading security firms, and round-the-clock monitoring by a security operations center, the broker ensures that its platform is inaccessible to third parties.

It is important to note that each account’s protection amount varies depending on the region the account is held. For example, OANDA Europe Limited offers ESMA-mandated negative balance protection, while OANDA Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. offers guaranteed stop-loss orders. OANDA Corporation in the U.S. does not provide its clientele with any of the above protections. 

Leverage on OANDA

Oanda leverage ratios will depend on the country in which you are trading and your account type. This review has highlighted 3 countries and the broker’s leverage, they are:

•  United States

• United Kingdom

•  Denmark

Deposits and Withdrawals

We made an OANDA money transfer review and gathered that on the OANDA platform, traders can enjoy seamless deposits and withdrawals by using any of the available methods and base currencies. These methods include Bank cards, Wire transfers, Payment Services, and Crypto. 

Deposits

Withdrawals

Please note that OANDA only allows withdrawal through funding sources. This implies that depositions made via credit cards can only be withdrawn via that same card. 

All withdrawals are also subject to the broker’s hierarchy rules of withdrawing the total sum deposited by each means in a set order. Once these rules are adhered to, trading on OANDA will be seamless.

OANDA Trading Education and Training

A series of educational materials, such as videos and articles, are available for new and experienced investors. The materials available on OANDA are good for novice traders; Much of the advanced content on this platform is geared toward individual tools.

The educational materials on OANDA are split into three subsections: Getting Started, Tools and Strategies, and Capital Management. The Getting Started section covers the basic aspects of Forex CFD trading, such as leverage and margin. The Tools and Strategies section covers analysis and market predictions, while the Capital Management section covers risk management and how to apply it in real market conditions.

The broker also hosts live webinars covering various subjects on market analysis and economic analysis. The platform also features the “OANDA classroom,” a series of webinars on live market analysis and basic platform navigation and analysis.

Conclusion

OANDA is a reputable name in the forex market, aiming to set itself apart with top-notch trade execution and transparency. Its user-friendly platforms make it a good match for novice and experienced traders. 

However, OANDA’s range of product offerings is relatively limited compared to its competitors, which is reflected in its ratings. Although its regulatory provisions are impressive, additional clientele protections would be desirable.