OANDA vs IFC Markets 2024

Trust Score is a data-driven rating system that provides an at-a-glance rating of a broker’s overall trust by tracking 60+ brokers and over 100 regulatory jurisdictions across the globe. To make things clearer for everyday traders, we’ve created a five-tier system for regulators and Trust Score rating labels. Learn more about Trust Score, and check out our country guides to see the most trusted brokers in your country of residence.

OANDA has a Trust Score of 93, giving it a "Highly Trusted" Trust Score Label.

IFC Markets has a Trust Score of 73, giving it a "Average Risk" Trust Score Label.

Founded in 1996, OANDA is a long-standing, highly trusted broker licensed in an impressive seven Tier-1 regulatory jurisdictions. Forex and CFD traders will find plenty to like at OANDA, including strong market research and support for a range of third-party plug-ins and platforms (like MetaTrader 4 and the wildly popular TradingView). The OANDA Trade platform is available for web, desktop, and mobile. Though the desktop platform is good – not great – the mobile app is easy to use and boasts a great balance of features. The only downside with using OANDA is its comparatively small range of markets and industry-average spreads.

IFC Markets is a long-standing brand with 17 years of operation. Traders will appreciate that IFC Markets delivers a growing range of markets, numerous trading platforms, and a decent balance of research and educational resources.

Tier-1 is reserved for the strictest, most stringent regulatory jurisdictions in the world. Tier-1 regulators impose additional capital requirements and require a tougher initial screening process. OANDA holds regulatory licenses in the following Tier-1 jurisdictions: Australia (ASIC Authorised), Canada (CIRO Authorised), Japan (SFC Authorised), Singapore (MAS Authorised), United Kingdom (U.K.) (FCA Authorised) and USA (CFTC Authorized). IFC Markets, on the other hand, is licensed in these Tier-1 regulatory jurisdictions: none. Neither have Hong Kong (SFC Authorised), CBI Authorised (Ireland), New Zealand (FMA Authorised) and Switzerland (FINMA Authorised)

Tier-2 and tier-3 licenses are still important in evaluating the overall trustworthiness of forex brokers. As far as tier-2 licenses go, OANDA is none, while IFC Markets is South Africa (FSCA Authorised).. Neither have China (CBRC Authorised), Cyprus (CySEC Authorised), India (SEBI Authorised), Israel (ISA Authorised), Russia (CBR Authorised), Thailand (SEC Authorised) and UAE (DFSA/Central Bank Authorised). When comparing tier-3 licenses both OANDA and IFC Markets are British Virgin Islands (FSC Authorised).. Neither have Bahamas (SCB Authorised), Belize (FSC Authorised), Bermuda (BMA Authorised), Cayman Islands (CIMA Authorised), Mauritius (FSC Authorised) and Vanuatu (VFSC Authorised).

Whether your broker develops its own proprietary platforms or provides access to popular third-party platforms, you should make sure you can use your preferred type of trading platform. In our testing, we found that both OANDA and IFC Markets offer a Proprietary Platform and Desktop Platform (Windows). Neither have cTrader, DupliTrade and ZuluTrade

Both OANDA and IFC Markets offer the whole MetaTrader suite, which consists of both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. If you’re new to MetaTrader 4 here’s our educational guide on how to use MT4.

OANDA requires a minimum deposit of $0, while IFC Markets requires a minimum deposit of $1. It's also important to ensure your broker accepts the funding options and deposit methods that work best for you. In our research, we've found that OANDA supports Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw), Visa/Mastercard (Credit/Debit), PayPal (Deposit/Withdraw) and Skrill (Deposit/Withdraw) for funding and deposit methods, whereas IFC Markets supports Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw) and Visa/Mastercard (Credit/Debit)

When choosing a forex broker, it’s important to consider each broker’s available investment products and tradeable asset classes. We’ve researched each broker’s individual offering of investments to help you pick the right broker for what you want to trade. During our testing, we found that OANDA delivers a more diverse selection of investment options than IFC Markets, offering tradeable asset classes and investment types such as Forex Trading (Spot or CFDs), Spread Betting, Social Trading / Copy Trading, Metals, Energies and Agriculturals.

We also keep track of each broker’s total number of tradeable symbols; OANDA offers 3928, and IFC Markets offers a total of 630 tradeable symbols.

Crypto trading has become popular among forex traders across a range of international jurisdictions. As a result, many forex brokers now offer crypto products to their clients; most crypto assets are offered either as an underlying physical asset (such as when you own actual bitcoin assets, for example) or as a derivative product like a CFD. If you are looking to trade physical cryptocurrencies, you’ll find that OANDA offers clients access to trading physical cryptocurrencies while IFC Markets does not.

Market research plays a huge role in any forex trader’s ability to conduct analysis within the global forex market. We test each broker’s research offering to help you decide which broker is right for your technical or fundamental analysis needs. OANDA delivers the following research tools: Autochartist, Daily Market Commentary, Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) and Social Trading / Copy Trading. IFC Markets, on the other hand, provides the tools listed here: Daily Market Commentary, Stock Charts and Social Trading / Copy Trading. Neither have Trading Central (Recognia)

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