What is Swissquote.com? What does it have to offer in the market? Is it one that you can trust? Let us find out about all that and more in today’s comprehensive review. Here are the main items that we shall have a look at:
- What is swissquote.com?
- Swissquote’s investment offerings
- The commissions and fees
- Charges in the UK entity
- Charges in the Swiss entity
- Platforms and tools
- Mobile trading
- Is swissquote.com genuine or is it a Scam?
- Pros and Cons
Name: Swissquote.com
Official Website URL: https://en.swissquote.com/
Overall Rating: (3.7 / 5)
Recommended: Yes
What is swissquote.com?
Swissquote is one of the popular Swiss investment banks. It was established in 1996, and has two main arms:
- The Swiss Unit that deals with stocks, funds, options, and options trading.
- A UK-based company that deals with CFD and forex trading.
The main entity is based in Switzerland, where it operates under the name Swissquote Bank Limited. This entity is regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), which is Switzerland’s financial regulator.
The UK entity known as Swissquote Limited is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is UK’s financial authority.
Swissquote can generally be considered safe to use since Swissquote Bank Limited has a valid banking license, and it’s also listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange. This essentially means that Swiss Bank Limited has to disclose its financial activities regularly.
Swissquote’s investment offerings
Swissquote became the first bank in the world to add cryptocurrencies to the list of its crypto offerings. By 2020, customers could access and trade in the following cryptos:
- EOS
- Stellar
- Tezos
- Ethereum Classic
- Chainlink
- Augur
- Ox
Customers can open eTrading accounts or eForex accounts on Swissquote. The Swissquote eTrading account offers customers the opportunity to trade cryptos and a wide variety of products in about 60 global market exchanges. They, however, cannot do forex and CFD trading.
To trade CFDs and forex, as well as forwards and options, traders are required to use the eForex Accounts. These accounts offer 130 tradable symbols.
Note:
- com offers forex trading
- There are 78 currency pairs
- You can access 49 tradable CFDs
- Social trading/copy-trading offered
- No cryptos traded as CFDs
The commissions and fees
The commissions and spreads in the UK entity differ from the Switzerland entity significantly. Of the two, the UK entity has relatively lower costs and deposit requirements but unfortunately offers fewer products. Generally, Swissquote trading costs are not the very best, compared to other forex brokers in the industry.
Charges in the UK entity
In the UK entity, traders have the option of opening one of the following accounts offered:
- Elite account – active traders who deposit not less than $10,000 do well with this option. It has lower spreads and charges $5 per round-turn trade.
- Professional account –this account is somehow identical with the professional account, with the main difference being that the threshold for the margin call stop-out happens to be lower.
- Standard account – the EUR/USD spreads start at 1.3 pips
- Prime account – the spreads start from 0.6 pips
Charges in the Swiss entity
Besides the eTrading account offered, customers can also access one of the following account options:
- Standard account- requires a $1k deposit. This account’s spreads start from 1.7 pips on EUR/USD
- Premium account – requires a $10k deposit. The spreads start from 1.4 pips.
- Prime account- requires a $50k deposit. The spreads start from 1.1 pips.
Active traders have a shot at negotiating custom pricing based on their trade volumes.
Charges for crypto trading
For crypto trades, customers incur charges equivalent to 1% of the value of cryptos in question. These charges drop based on the trade volume, as shown below:
- 75% for the values above CHF 10k
- 5% for values above CHF 50K
Swissquote does not charge any custody fees, but customers incur a USD 10 fee for all deposits that are less than USD. Customers depositing larger amounts only pay deposit fees for the same amount.
Platforms and tools
Swissquote, in an attempt to match up the performance standards of the other top performers in this industry, offers a collection of tools and platforms that customers can use to achieve their trading objectives. Overall, Swissquote.com offers the Advanced Trader platform suite that is available for desktop and web.
MetaTrader – to make the default MetaTrader desktop experience even better, Swissquote gives traders the chance to access MetaTrader Master Edition suite. This suite is developed by FX Blue LLP.
Advanced Trader Web – Swissquote recently upgraded Advanced Traders web-version to HTML5. This upgrade incorporates TradingView charts. The web version has significantly fewer tools than the desktop version.
Advanced Trader – The desktop version of Advanced Trader brings together some desirable features such as robust charting, complex order types, as well as forex options trading based on a Request For Quote approach.
Mobile trading
Swissquote also makes it possible for traders to trade through the Advanced Trader app, as well as MT4 and MT5 mobile. The mobile app is generally easy to use, and it has a clean design. It, however, lacks some charting features, making MetaTrader suite the better option.
Swissquote needs to improve on the Advanced Trader App to give it a shot at competing with other top performers in the industry, that have more superior features.
In the MetaTrader suite and the app, market research is limited to the headlines that are streamed from Dow Jones Newswire, alongside an economic calendar. A friendly feature of Advantage Trader is that it has about 25 educational videos integrated into it.
Is swissquote.com genuine or is it a Scam?
Swissquote.com is in my humble opinion, genuine. It is regulated in Switzerland and the UK, making it one that customers can trust. Customers who have used it in the past perceive it as an average platform. These sentiments are echoed on a consumer trust site such a Trustpilot on which has a rating of (3.7/5) stars. Generally, I think Swissquote is doing its job in the industry but has a number of competitors to outmatch before it can claim to be the overall best.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Several types of platforms
- Zero-commissions
- Educational resources for beginners offered
- Regulated
- Crypto-trading supported
Cons
- Spreads are higher for Swiss accounts
- High minimum deposit.
Final Words and Verdict
Verdict: Legit
Overall Rating: (3.7 / 5)
Swissquote.com is a legit broker that has built for itself a name in the industry. I think there’s not much to worry about in terms of safety since it’s regulated in Switzerland and the UK. Unfortunately, the Swiss customers have to pay higher fees in the form of spreads, which disadvantages this company significantly. Other brokers in this industry are committed to delivering nothing short of the most customer-friendly fees. Fees savings can be quite significant over a considerable period.
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That’s all for this review of what swissquote.com is about. I hope you enjoyed it and got enough insights as to whether you can use it to achieve your moneymaking objectives. Let me know what you think about it in the comments section. You can also ask any question about it. I’ll get back to you ASAP.
Your Friend,
Eric, Investor, and Blogger at Start Make Stop Waste!