Our Results After Opening 20 Forex Accounts

Why does ease of account opening matter?

The best experience we had simply asked us for some standard personal information, proof of ID and residence, a few trading knowledge questions, and then immediately provisioned us with MT4 login credentials for live trading. Experiences with other brokers took many days, and involved us communicating with online chat, phone support and account managers.

What was our approach?

At compareforexbrokers.com, we believe the right approach to opening an account with a new forex broker is to start with a demo account. This allows you to get to know the broker, hopefully getting some nice emails from an account manager, and allows you to back-test any automations you might want to use. With a demo account, you can do all this in a safe environment where you can’t lose any money.
We opened demo accounts at all the brokers we tested. After we had successfully installed all our testing Expert Advisors (EAs), indicators and scripts, we upgraded to live accounts.
As our testing is based in Australia, we wanted to open AUD accounts, with a standard leverage of 1:30. We wanted MT4 trading accounts set up, so we could do our testing with the most popular trading platform.
The factors we recorded and engineered into our scoring model were:

1. Did the broker assign an account manager?
2. Did the broker send an email with a link to upgrade to a live account?
3. Was the “appropriateness” or knowledge test standard (or was it more difficult)?
4. Was the personal information collected standard (or did the broker ask for spurious data)?
5. Did the broker require a Tax File Number?
6. Did the broker require a W-8 BEN (for United States tax purposes)?
7. Was the proof of ID process separate or seamless?
8. Was the proof of residency process separate or seamless?
9. Did the broker require signed contracts?
10. Was a deposit required to open the account?
11. Were different account types explained to make choosing one easy?
12. Was AUD offered as a base currency?
13. Was 1:30 offered as the account leverage?
14. Was negative balance protection offered and explained?
15. Were MT4 credentials delivered smoothly by email, or did we have to go hunt for them?
16. Were there additional touchpoints (online chat, help desk, emails) required to complete the process?
17. Were any errors received during the process?
18. How long did it take for the account to be opened?

Each factor was scored out of 15, and we then converted those scores to an overall score out of 15.

What did we like / not like about each experience?

Pepperstone (15 out of 15)

✔Very helpful account manager assigned

OANDA US and OANDA Canada (14 out of 15)
✔Account manager assigned
✔Straightforward account opening process
🗶A few errors were encountered received during the process

Fusion Markets (13 out of 15)

✔Completely smooth process, immediate account creation
✔Completely smooth process
✔Very helpful account manager assigned
🗶It took a couple of hours for the account to be approved an opened

Axi (12 out of 15)

✔ Immediate account opening
✔ Account manager assigned
🗶The client portal is not available for demo users
🗶Requires a W-8 BEN. No other broker required that

Eightcap (12 out of 15)

✔ Immediate account opening
✔ Account manager assigned
🗶Required e a Tax File Number
🗶Asked if there were any financial hardships, addiction, age-impaired, job loss or mental health issues (spurious information)

FP Markets (12 out of 15)

✔Account manager assigned
✔Account opened within a couple of hours
🗶Demo users do not have access to the client portal
🗶Received unexpected errors during the process

TMGM (11 out of 15)

✔Account manager assigned
✔Account opened within the same day
✔Has leverage options from 1:1 to 1:30
🗶Account types (Edge, Classic and Standard) are not well explained
🗶ID verification is via a separate document upload process

Blackbull Markets (10 out of 15)

✔Account manager assigned
🗶Very slow website
🗶Has leverages from 1:1 to 1:500 (elevated risk)
🗶Standard 1:30 leverage is not offered

Go Markets (9 out of 15)

✔Account manager assigned
🗶Account opening took several days
🗶Error messages received during the process
🗶Email to the account manager was required to complete the process

IG (9 out of 15)

✔Account opened immediately
🗶No account manager assigned
🗶MT4 account must be added separately
🗶Did not require any proof of ID or residency

IC Markets (8 out of 15)

✔MT4 credentials smoothly delivered
🗶No account manager assigned
🗶Unexpected errors received during the process
🗶Asked for my mother’s maiden name. No other broker required that

Admiral Markets (8 out of 15)

✔Account Manager assigned
🗶Created an MT5 account by default. MT4 accounts are opened via “Advanced Settings”
🗶Required Tax File Number
🗶The account finally opened after several days

CMC Markets (8 out of 15)

✔Account Manager assigned
🗶The knowledge test is much harder than for other brokers and is not limited to Forex
🗶Account types were not well explained
🗶Required spurious personal information

FX Pro (8 out of 15)

✔Account opened immediately
🗶No account manager assigned
🗶Automatically created a live MT4 account when you open your demo account
🗶ID document upload is only activated by changing the MT4 password

City Index (8 out of 15)

✔Account manager assigned
🗶WebTrader account is created by default
🗶MT4 account required intervention from an account manager
🗶Multiple touchpoints (help desk, account manager) are required to open the account
🗶The account opening process took days

FXCM (7 out of 15)
✔Account manager assigned
🗶WebTrader account is created by default
🗶Multiple touchpoints (help desk, account manager) are required to open the account
🗶Took 3 days to get an MT4 account
🗶Received unexpected errors during the process

Key Takeaways

• Pepperstone and Fusion Markets stood out as having the best account opening experiences.
• Other brokers all struggled to provide an easy account opening experience, either by not assigning an account manager or by having a complex or error-prone processes.

Articles for other tests we have done

• Execution Speeds of Forex Brokers
• Lowest Average Spread Costs for Standard Accounts

Next Up

Here’s a quick view of our pipeline of testing:

• Comparing order execution speeds on live accounts
• Comparing cost of trade on fixed commission (“Raw”) accounts
• Slippage monitoring across different brokers and currency pairs
• VPS latency testing on VPS configurations provided directly by brokers, and by 3rd Party providers