What is OANDA?
Co-founded by computer scientist Dr. Michael Stumm and economist Dr. Richard Olsen way back in 1996, OANDA is one of the oldest internet financial services providers.
The company, which has evolved into a full-fledged forex and crypto trading broker, was started with a firm belief in the internet and technology and the revolution it would bring to the markets of trading and currency data. After over two decades in the industry, The OANDA group has become a global award-winning and leading currency solution serving traders from all over the world.
OANDA Corporation offers a variety of services and features, including forex trading and cryptocurrency trading. The broker has partnered up with crypto service provider Paxos to enable users to trade cryptocurrencies efficiently through their app. While most crypto exchanges focus on providing a massive variety of assets, OANDA aims to only offer quality assets and instruments. You can also access several advanced tools like technical analysis, advanced charts, spread calculator, and the support of the latest MetaTrader4. To get started, you can either sign up for a demo account or sign up instantly with their app or web interface.
OANDA Corporation is regulated by the CFTC/NFA. OANDA is a member Firm of the NFA (Member ID: 0325821). CFDs are not available to residents in the United States.
OANDA CORPORATION IS A MEMBER OF NFA AND IS SUBJECT TO NFA'S REGULATORY OVERSIGHT AND EXAMINATIONS. HOWEVER, YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT NFA DOES NOT HAVE REGULATORY OVERSIGHT AUTHORITY OVER UNDERLYING OR SPOT VIRTUAL CURRENCY PRODUCTS OR TRANSACTIONS OR VIRTUAL CURRENCY EXCHANGES, CUSTODIANS OR MARKETS
Our Overall Thoughts on OANDA
OANDA is one of the most advanced and professional trading platforms that you can sign up for. The platform was originally designed for forex and commodities trading, but they have also introduced crypto trading recently. You can easily and professionally trade popular cryptocurrencies and also explore advanced tools, guiding content, analysis, and more.
The following are the three things that we like the most about OANDA:
1) Trade crypto with a user-friendly app: If advanced terms, confusing layouts, and complex options are a few of your concerns while trading, OANDA has got you covered. You can trade cryptocurrencies on the platform through their user-friendly mobile app. Be it order execution, funds transfer, or withdrawals, everything can be managed through it with ease.
2) Profound analysis and learning content: Even if you are a complete beginner in the crypto industry, you can learn and grow with the learning content and analysis OANDA provides. You can check out how to use strategies and tools to trade efficiently or visit the MarketPulse section to stay updated.
3) Very affordable to trade: OANDA charges just 0.25% commission per executed crypto trade, which is among the lowest rates in the industry. You can enjoy a very affordable crypto trading experience at OANDA that too with advanced tools and professionalism.
But there are a few downsides to OANDA, which include a limited number of cryptocurrencies and the ability to trade crypto on the desktop or web version.
Key Features and Advantages of OANDA
A quick look at the exchange’s interface would tell you OANDA offers an intuitive platform with powerful tools that are meant to transform your trading experience. With the availability of the most popular cryptocurrencies, you can diversify your portfolio and explore several opportunities to get started. One great thing about OANDA is that the platform does not restrict their users to web or desktop versions only. You can also download their user-friendly and fully functional mobile app to trade from wherever you want and anytime you want.
No markup and low fees are some of the many aspects that make OANDA a perfect choice for traders. The platform also has a world-renowned customer care service that is always available to sort your issues out and provide you with suitable solutions. OANDA also focuses a lot on the learning sector as they enable traders to use strategies and tools, learn capital management, and attend webinars to polish their skills. To know what else the platform offers, take a look below:
Negatives and Disadvantages of OANDA
With diversification, professionalism, and advancement comes a few aspects that OANDA has to work on. You can take a quick look below to see where OANDA lacks and if those aspects can affect your trading experience on the exchange:
What services does OANDA offer?
As OANDA is not a crypto-only platform, you can expect a variety of services and features that you can explore. But to some extent, OANDA targets a specific community of traders that is looking forward to personalized and advanced trading experiences rather than focusing on loads of assets or miscellaneous features. With that being said, you can trade only the popular cryptocurrencies on the platform, along with a good variety of forex pairs. You can also get your hands on advanced tools, charting options, and analytical data to trade efficiently and manage your investments.
But to make things even more convenient for the average user, OANDA offers much more services and features that you can learn more about below:
Several payment options for deposits and withdrawals
OANDA offers a variety of payment options to their users so that they can easily fund their accounts or get their cash out with ease. Note that OANDA does not allow direct funding for crypto accounts on the platform. Traders have to top up their forex accounts first and then transfer the funds over to the crypto accounts to get started.
OANDA users are usually offered payment methods available in their jurisdictions. You can deposit funds via debit card (backed by Mastercard, Visa, or Discover Card), Bank wire transfers, or Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers.
With easy, convenient, and several options to fund your account and withdraw your assets, you will not have to worry about signing up for alternate payment methods.
Most popular cryptocurrencies are available
There are a handful of popular cryptocurrencies available on OANDA that you can trade. OANDA allows direct trading against USD with four different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. You can simply transfer funds from your forex account, trade USD with any of the four assets, and kickstart your trading journey. You can also trade PAX Gold, Chainlink, Aave, and Uniswap along with the big four on OANDA.
If you are not willing to take risks with unknown or smaller crypto coins, OANDA might be able to help you with its limited choice of cryptocurrencies. With the popularity each asset possesses, you can evaluate where to invest your money.
Trade 70 forex pairs
OANDA offers a separate market for trading FX pairs where you can find over 68 instruments. The best thing is OANDA offers almost all popular currency pairs so that you can diversify your portfolio and continue your trading. With over $6 trillion trading volume daily, the forex market is considered the most liquid market in the world.
You can trade forex pairs along with crypto assets. OANDA also offers competitive rates, standard and tiered accounts, and advanced tools to help you trade.
Professional trading experience with personalized layouts
OANDA has one of the best and most professional trading layouts that you can customize and set as per your preferences.
OANDA has partnered up with the most popular charting service TradingView, which provides them with necessary solutions. Now you can trade with the industry’s most accurate and fastest charts and use countless trading features. OANDA also offers 65+ indicators that you can integrate while trading and evaluate future moves with. To take things even further, you can also create your own personalized layouts that usually suit your needs. With 11 customizable chart types, drawing tools, chart intervals, comparing features, and much more, you can enjoy a seamless trading experience at OANDA.
Such tools and features encourage traders to explore unlimited opportunities and trade in the best way possible.
User-friendly mobile applications for IOS/Android
Mobile applications play a vital role within the OANDA ecosystem, as complete crypto trading relies on them. OANDA does not allow traders to trade crypto assets from the desktop version and redirects their users to their mobile applications.
Mobile applications offered by OANDA are quite user-friendly and come with easy-to-understand features. You can simply sign in or sign up through the app and get started instantly. You can also trade forex pairs through OANDA mobile applications and use the same charting tools offered on the desktop version of the platform. You can top up your account, initiate trades, select order types, impose limits, evaluate charts, terminate trades, and withdraw funds without ever using your PC.
OANDA mobile applications are currently available for Android and IOS devices. Users can download mobile applications from the app store of their phone and start trading from anywhere in the world.
Advanced tools for better trade execution
As OANDA is working on transforming the trading industry, they also offer advanced tools to professional and experienced traders. These tools can help you make better decisions and evaluate the market movements prior to executing your trade.
You can access the technical analysis section and keep track of intraday markets using several types of indicators. Technical analysis also enables you to check performance statistics, get daily market reports, review forecasts, and spot trading opportunities earlier than many traders. OANDA has a specialized spread calculator that lets the trader calculate how much they would be paying every trade. You can simply put in the units traded, and you will get the absolute spread cost instantly.
Whether you are a beginner or an experienced trader; these types of tools can help you trade in a better environment.
Trade with MetaTrader 4
With the MetaTrader 4 premium upgrade, traders can access a whole new variety of advanced tools and customizable capabilities that can positively affect their experience. MetaTrader is an electronic trading platform that is mostly used by professionals for better exposure to the markets.
When you connect your OANDA account to MT4, you get a separate trading terminal along with a mini terminal to manage your trades. MT4 also comes with several other benefits, like an alarm manager, Excel RTD, several types of orders, session maps, and a better and even more profound analysis of markets.
You can simply download the MT4 trader from the provided link on the platform and install it on your computer to access full features. Just keep the pricing models in mind, and you will be good to go.
Stay up-to-date with MarketPulse
MarketPulse by OANDA is a separate site affiliated with OANDA that keeps traders updated with whatever is going on with the finance industry. There are hundreds of articles, news updates, guides, and analysis available that are posted every other day for traders to read.
It does not matter if you are a crypto trader or a forex trader; MarketPulse by OANDA brings the latest news for all types of traders. You can also check out reviews and thoughts of industry professionals and see what they think and how it can affect your experience.
Beginner-friendly guides and learning content
If you are new to the platform or even to the entire crypto industry, worry not. The platform offers detailed guides and learning guides that are not only beginner-friendly but well-explained, too.
With the guides and content offered by OANDA, you can learn how to get started from scratch and understand even the basic terminologies. OANDA even provides videos so that you can understand everything in a better way and have better concepts of how things work. OANDA also provides the opportunity for traders to learn about tools, strategies, capital management, and other essential things that can help them trade. Traders can also attend live or recorded webinars and events and learn in a combined environment focusing on a wide variety of topics.
So, do not hesitate to get started if you are a beginner – OANDA will help you take the first step.
Award-winning customer support
OANDA takes pride in their customer support. A reliable choice for all types of traders, the platform was awarded the highest client satisfaction award in 2021.
In case you encounter a problem in the platform, you can contact OANDA by several methods. You can either send them an email or instantly get in touch with them with live chat or phone call. You will not have to wait for hours before receiving a reply. OANDA has also provided an FAQs section that might answer your query.
What we don’t like about OANDA
From a general perspective, there are a few things that OANDA has to improve, add, or focus on.
Crypto trading is not available on the desktop
While you can trade forex on OANDA through the web or desktop platform, it is not possible to do so for the available crypto assets. All the cryptocurrencies can only be traded through the mobile applications of OANDA, which is certainly a letdown for many advanced traders. Many traders prefer desktop platforms to trade cryptocurrencies as computers allow you to analyze more charts efficiently and simultaneously, customize your layout, integrate indicators efficiently, and not compromise on such aspects.
Whereas mobile phones usually have smaller screens, restricting you to limited information which can affect your crypto trading experience. This is where OANDA has to work and bring crypto trading to the desktop or web version. Doing so will attract more crypto traders who want to trade using the full-fledged trading interface designed by OANDA for forex trading on the desktop.
Limited availability of cryptocurrencies
Joining OANDA gives you access to a handful of popular cryptocurrencies only. The platform has only brought the popular names in the industry that have good standing, a big market cap, and high trading volume. So technically, you can only trade BTC, ETH, PAX, LTC, and a few other cryptocurrencies leaving hundreds of other potentially good ones behind. While it is a significant disadvantage for traders who prefer to keep their portfolios diversified, it is a good thing for beginners who want to keep things simple.
But still, it does not change the fact that OANDA lacks a lot when it comes to the number of cryptocurrencies they support. They have to expand their list or regularly add tokens that are in demand to let more investors come in.
OANDA Fees
OANDA Deposit Fee
OANDA does not accept direct crypto deposits, so fees for external wallets are out of the question. On the positive side, OANDA does not charge for any of the other available payment methods such as Bank transfers, debit/Visa card, or direct wire transfer.
But you might be charged a service or transaction fee by the payment provider you are using. You can check with your bank or card provider if any fee would be imposed when initiating a transaction.
OANDA Trading Fee
OANDA charges a fixed fee of 0.25% for every executed crypto order, which is subject to a minimum fee of $0.01.
For forex, commodities, and CFD trading fees, OANDA has introduced two different fee models that traders can choose between. You can either go with the spread-only fee or the commission+core spread fee. When opting for a spread-only fee, you will have to pay a spread difference varying between 1.1 to 1.6 spread, depending on the pair or CFD you are trading.
When paying the fee with core pricing, traders have to pay anywhere from 0.1 to 0.5, which is also dependent on the asset you are trading.
OANDA Withdrawal Fee
There is no fee for withdrawing funds from OANDA through debit/Visa cards and bank transfers. But you might have to pay a service fee charged by the service provider.
When withdrawing funds through wire transfers, OANDA charges a fixed fee of $20 per withdrawal. A separate processing fee might also be incurred by a bank.
OANDA Crypto Withdrawal Fee
Crypto withdrawals are not supported on OANDA.
Pros
Cons
The Verdict
OANDA lacks diversity within the cryptocurrencies that some traders would want at this stage. But they have also made it easier for the newbies to get started and see how the industry works and how they can trade. With their all-new and innovative mobile app, you can spot trade cryptocurrencies whenever and wherever you want. With the guiding content, analysis, advanced tools, and indicators, you can broaden your knowledge and understand the core concepts that can help you make better trades. They even provide a great variety of payment methods that you can use and top up your account.
Furthermore, you can also trade FX. OANDA allows traders to easily transfer funds from one account to another for easy trading. If massive diversity and web trading are not any of your concerns, OANDA can be one of the best choices for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
OANDA is one of the safest trading platforms, and has been in the industry for over 25 years. The platform provides full-proof security to traders, along with several privacy options to secure their accounts.
OANDA offers a limited range of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and some others. OANDA only offers popular cryptocurrencies with good standing in the market as of now.
Yes, OANDA is available for US users. In fact, OANDA is a known FX broker in the country and serves millions of traders. You can simply register on the platform and access all trading markets right away.