Interactive Brokers vs ThinkMarkets 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.

Interactive Brokers has a Trust Score of 99, giving it a "Highly Trusted" Trust Score Label.

ThinkMarkets has a Trust Score of 92, giving it a "Highly Trusted" Trust Score Label.

Founded in 1977, Interactive Brokers is a long-standing highly trusted broker that holds a stunning nine Tier-1 licenses from regulatory jurisdictions across the globe numerous regulatory licenses. We've consistently rated Interactive Brokers as an excellent choice for professional traders, and its Trader Workstation (TWS) platform offers a variety of advanced trading tools that will be appreciated by experienced traders. Interactive Brokers delivers access to over 100 markets, including forex and CFDs. IBKR's recently introduced web-based platform is a great choice for beginner forex traders, and its powerful research and extensive educational content make for a balanced experience for newcomers and professionals alike.

Founded in 2010, ThinkMarkets is a trusted broker that holds multiple Tier-1 regulatory licenses, boosting its overall Trust Score rating. ThinkMarkets offers the full MetaTrader platform suite (both MT4 and MT5) as well as its proprietary ThinkTrader platform. Traders at ThinkMarkets also gain access to trading signals via its Signals Centre and social copy trading (in certain jurisdictions). ThinkMarkets has a growing number of available markets, research materials, and educational content, yet still has room to improve in these important categories.

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. Interactive Brokers holds regulatory licenses in the following Tier-1 jurisdictions: Australia (ASIC Authorised), Canada (CIRO Authorised), Hong Kong (SFC Authorised), CBI Authorised (Ireland), Japan (SFC Authorised), Singapore (MAS Authorised), United Kingdom (U.K.) (FCA Authorised) and USA (CFTC Authorized). ThinkMarkets, on the other hand, is licensed in these Tier-1 regulatory jurisdictions: Australia (ASIC Authorised), Japan (SFC Authorised), New Zealand (FMA Authorised) and United Kingdom (U.K.) (FCA Authorised). Neither have 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, Interactive Brokers is India (SEBI Authorised) and UAE (DFSA/Central Bank Authorised), while ThinkMarkets is Cyprus (CySEC Authorised), South Africa (FSCA Authorised) and UAE (DFSA/Central Bank Authorised).. Neither have China (CBRC Authorised), Israel (ISA Authorised), Russia (CBR Authorised) and Thailand (SEC Authorised). When comparing tier-3 licenses Interactive Brokers is none, while ThinkMarkets is Cayman Islands (CIMA Authorised) and Mauritius (FSC Authorised).. Neither have Bahamas (SCB Authorised), Belize (FSC Authorised), Bermuda (BMA Authorised), British Virgin Islands (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 Interactive Brokers and ThinkMarkets offer a Proprietary Platform and Desktop Platform (Windows). Neither have cTrader, DupliTrade and ZuluTrade

For MetaTrader Interactive Brokers provides neither of these, while ThinkMarkets provides MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). If MetaTrader is a must for you, read our guides on the best MT4 brokers or best MT5 brokers.

Interactive Brokers requires a minimum deposit of $0, while ThinkMarkets requires a minimum deposit of $50. 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 Interactive Brokers supports Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw) for funding and deposit methods, whereas ThinkMarkets supports Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw), Visa/Mastercard (Credit/Debit) and Skrill (Deposit/Withdraw). Neither have PayPal (Deposit/Withdraw)

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 Interactive Brokers delivers a more diverse selection of investment options than ThinkMarkets, offering tradeable asset classes and investment types such as Forex Trading (Spot or CFDs), Metals, Energies, Agriculturals, ETF and U.S. Stocks (CFD).

We also keep track of each broker’s total number of tradeable symbols; Interactive Brokers offers 8500, and ThinkMarkets offers a total of 4000 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 Interactive Brokers offers clients access to trading physical cryptocurrencies while ThinkMarkets 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. Interactive Brokers delivers the following research tools: Daily Market Commentary, Stock Charts, Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) and Trading Central (Recognia). ThinkMarkets, on the other hand, provides the tools listed here: Daily Market Commentary, Stock Charts, Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) and Social Trading / Copy Trading. Neither have Autochartist

Broker Reviews