Swissquote

Swissquote Group Holding company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Switzerland. Its subsidiaries are regulated in various jurisdictions by multiple authorities, including the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) the UK, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the Malta Financial Services Authority, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Its parent company has a banking license, is listed on the Swiss stock exchange, and regularly discloses its financials.

Australians will be trading under the subsidiary, Swissquote Bank Ltd, authorised and regulated by the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).  A top-tier regulator, FINMA is an independent regulatory body with authority over Switzerland’s financial institutions, including banks, insurance companies, exchanges, and investment schemes.  It also reports to the Swiss Federal Department of Finance and is headquartered in the capital city, Bern. 

Unfortunately, Swissquote does not specifically mention on its website the segregation of client capital and the offering of negative balance protection for traders. However, as per regulation, Swissquote complies with these requirements.  FINMA also requires Swissquote to restrict the leverage it offers to traders, limiting it to 1:100.

Additionally, traders receive up to 100,000 CHF in investor protection per account should the company be liquidated.  

Considering the high level of regulatory oversight, the fact that Swissquote is listed on the Swiss stock exchange, and the high level of investor protection, we deem Swissquotes a safe and trustworthy broker for Australian traders. 

Swissquote’s account-opening process is fully digital, but clients may experience long waiting times.  

All Australians can open a trading account at Swissquote, but need to meet the following minimum deposit requirements:

• Standard Account: 1,000 USD
• Premium Account: 10,000 USD
• Prime Account: 50,000 USD
• Professional Account: You have to contact Swissquote to apply for this account

Swissquote offers both corporate and individual accounts, but we will focus on opening an individual account:

1. Click on the “open your account” button at the top of the page.
2. Traders will be directed to register an account and fill in their personal information (including name, marital status, address, and contact details).
3. The next step requires clients to fill in a client profile, including employment status and tax residency.  
4. Clients are then required to fill in a form with their financial information, in addition to their preferred platform, and starting minimum deposit.
5. Once the application form has been completed, traders will be directed to authenticate the account.  This requires confirming one’s identification via video or sending the documents to Swissquote by post.
6. Once this step is complete, traders will be able to start trading.  We advise that you read Swissquote’s risk disclosure, customer agreement, and terms of business before you start trading.  

Overall, the account-opening process is mostly digital, but traders may have to wait a while to confirm their identity.  Additionally, unlike other brokers, Swissquote does not require traders to undergo an evaluation to assess their suitability for trading, which is an oversight on Swissquote’s part.

Swissquotes offers one of the largest financial asset offerings in the world, with over 3,000,000 instruments on its books. However, the Forex and CFD division is more limited, but still sufficient for most traders.  

A markets maker, Swissquote offers four live accounts with higher minimum deposits linked to tighter spreads on the Metatrader 4, Metatrader 5, and Advanced Trader platforms.

Swissquote’s accounts were assessed to compare the costs to those of other brokers.  The costs were evaluated based on the trading fees on one lot (100 000 USD) on the EUR/USD, including the spread and commission. 

When making this calculation, we use one lot of EUR/USD as a benchmark as it is the most commonly traded currency pair and it usually has the tightest spread.

All trading costs are included in the variable spreads, which get wider or tighter depending on trade volume and market volatility.

The Standard Account commences with a minimum spread of 1.7 pips or 17 USD per 1.0 standard lot, which is significantly higher than the costs on other brokers’ entry-level accounts. Premium Account-holders still face a spread of 1.4 pips or 14 USD, while the Prime Account lists spreads of 1.1 pips or 11 USD per lot of EUR/USD traded.  Additionally, the minimum deposits on these accounts are significantly higher than other similar brokers.  By any measure, these trading costs represent an uncompetitive offer.    

The trading costs on Swissquotes’ Professional account are lower than the other accounts, but this requires very high trading volumes and high minimum deposits, making it inaccessible to most traders.

Swap Fees

Another important cost to consider is the swap rate charged on positions held overnight.   Interest is paid (or received) for each night a position is held.  Swissquotes publishes the swap fees alongside each instrument on its website.  for example, the swap fees for a short position of EUR/USD is 0.00000358, and a long position is 0.00003942.

We opened and tested Swissquote’s accounts:

Standard Account

The Standard account is Swissquote’s entry-level account with a minimum deposit of 1000 USD.  Spreads are wide, starting at 1.30 pips, minimum trade sizes are 0.01 lots, and no commissions are charged on trades. 

Premium Account

Swissquotes’ most popular account, the Premium account requires a minimum deposit of 10,000 USD.  It is a commission-free account with spreads starting at 1.4 pips, which is still wider than other similar brokers.  The minimum trade size on this account is 0.1 lots.

Prime Account

Swissquote’s professional trading account, the Prime Account has a minimum deposit of 50,000 USD, standard leverage up to 100:1, and spreads of 1.1 pips, which is still wider than the spreads on other brokers’ entry-level accounts.  The minimum trade size on this account is 1 lot.

Professional Account

The Professional account is a fully customisable account option, where the minimum deposit is adjusted depending on the volume traded. A commission of 5 USD round turn/lot is charged on trades. Custom spreads and pricing can be discussed with your account manager.

Demo Account

A free demo account is available on all three platforms, offering access to over 130 financial instruments with no obligation or risk. Traders receive up to 100,000 USD of virtual funds to practice trading strategies. Demo accounts are available for 30 days, which is unusual, as most other brokers have unlimited demo accounts.

Swissquote’s mobile trading platforms are excellent compared to other similar brokers.  It offers mobile versions of MT4 and MT5, and its own proprietary mobile version of the Advanced Trader platform.  

Swissquote offers support for MT4, MT5, and the Advanced Trader mobile trading apps for Android and iOS. 

MT4/MT5 Mobile Trading

Traders should be aware that there is some loss in functionality when compared to the desktop trading platforms, including reduced time frames and fewer charting options, but traders can close and modify existing orders, calculate profit and loss, and trade on the charts.

Advanced Trader

The Advanced Trader is available as a mobile application.  It offers all the features of the desktop version of the platform, allowing traders to open and close trades, and trade on the charts.  

The platforms are compatible with Swissquote’s excellent trading tools, including Autochartist, Trading Central, Trading View, and the Metatrader Master Edition.

Metatrader 4

While not the most beginner-friendly software, MT4 has been the industry-standard platform for trading Forex and CFDs since 2005. Its intuitive interface and user-friendly environment provide essential tools and resources for successful online trading.  

MT4 allows hedging and copy trading and access to various plugins, including Autochartist, MetaTrader Master Edition, and Trading Central.  Features of the MT4 platform include automated trading and backtesting, and access to thousands of Expert Advisors.  Traders can also create their indicators or choose between 30 built-in indicators, over 2000 free custom indicators, and 700 paid indicators.   Other features of Swissquote’s MT4 platform include:

• A built-in library of more than 50 indicators and tools to streamline the analysis process.

• An impressive array of analytical tools, available in nine timeframes for each financial instrument.

• Live price streaming on live accounts and demo accounts 128-bits encryption for secure trading

• Algorithmic trading, which allows any trading strategy to be formalised and implemented as an Expert Advisor. 

• Customisable alerts

• Access to MetaTrader market and MQL4 community

While MT4 has great customizability, the platform feels outdated, and some of the features may be hard to find.  In addition, only the basic orders are available, including Market, Limit, Stop, and Trailing Stop.

Metatrader 5

Continuing its predecessor’s reputation, the MT5 platform provides traders with everything they need to trade the financial markets.  It incorporates all of the key features of MT4 and an optimised environment for algorithmic trading using Expert Advisors (EAs). As with MT4, the platform allows hedging and copy trading and access to tools such as Autochartist, MetaTrader Master Edition, and Trading Central. Other features of Swissquote’s MT5 platform include:

• 38+ preinstalled technical indicators

• 44 analytical charting tools

• 3 chart types

• 21 timeframes

• Additional pending order types

• Detachable charts

• Trailing stop

• Depth of Market

• An integrated Economic Calendar.

Advanced Trader

Advanced Trader is a JavaScript platform compatible with both PC and Mac.  The platform supports conditioned orders, and features advanced charts analyse tools, FX Insider, and an economic calendar.  Other features include 50+ intelligent charting tools, 80+ technical indicators, and a synchronised layout for multiple charts. 

Significantly, the order inputs are by notional value rather than by lot size. Advanced Trader offers a FIX API connection, and hedging on request, but it does not support EAs (Expert Advisors).  It also does not support most of the plugins available on the Metatrader platforms, nor the MetaTrader Master Edition.  However, unlike the Metatrader platforms, those using Advanced Trader have access to Trading View.  

In addition to the traditional order types, traders can execute more complex orders that are not available on other platforms, including:

• Order Cancels Other (OCO) – This feature combines a stop order with a limit order. When one is executed, it automatically cancels the other.
• IF-DONE – A two-step order in which the second step cannot be executed until the conditions of the first are met.
• If – OCO – A variation on the IF-DONE order in which an OCO is placed after the order has been executed.

Advanced Trader is also highly customisable, easy to use, and easy to set up.  

Overall, Swissquote ensures its clients have a competitive edge by maintaining three excellent trading platforms.  Additionally, it offers a broad range of excellent trading tools which integrate seamlessly with MT4, MT5, and the Advanced Trader platforms.

A well-regulated broker, Swissquote ensures that all Anti-Money Laundering rules and regulations are followed, and as such, all withdrawals are returned to the deposit source. Swissquote offers two funding methods, limited to bank wire transfer and credit card/ debit cards. Australians are not charged fees for deposits, but a withdrawal fee of 20 AUD applies for online payments.  Credit and debit cards are processed instantly or within two hours, and bank transfers are processed within one day.  Withdrawals must be made from within the ePortal.

Swisquote offers a wide range of trading account currencies compared to other brokers, and offers accounts denominated in AUD.

Swissquote offers trading in fifteen base currencies, including EUR, USD, JPY, GBP, CHF, CAD, AUD, TRY, PLN, SEK, NOK, SGD, XGD, HUF, and CZK.

Having accounts denominated in AUD is an advantage for Australians who will likely have bank accounts denominated in AUD.  This means that traders will not have to pay currency conversion fees on deposits and withdrawals.  Conversion fees can make trading expensive, and affect profitability.

However, it is still better for traders that trade in large volumes (more than 10 lots a month) to open an account denominated in USD at a digital currency bank, especially for trading on assets such as the EUR/USD. This is because when trading a USD quoted currency pair with another currency account, there will be a small conversion fee for every trade made.

Overall, Swissquote offers a broader range of base account currencies than most other brokers, and offers accounts denominated in AUD.  

Swissquote offers a set of premium tools, including Autochartist, Metatrader Master Edition, Trading View, and Trading Central. These tools help traders find trading opportunities by analysing the markets for patterns.  It also offers FIX API for traders who deposit over 50,000 USD.  

Autochartist

Autochartist is a powerful tool for traders who actively spend time looking for trading opportunities and technical trading patterns.  Autochartist continuously scans the market looking for patterns and sends alerts based on three main technical analysis options: regular chart patterns, Fibonacci patterns, and Key levels.  

Swissquotes provides a step-by-step tutorial video that shows traders how to find and set trades using Autochartist.

MetaTrader Master Edition

The ultimate evolution of the MT4/MT5 platform, MetaTrader Master Edition boasts 12 advanced tools and 15 new indicators.  It provides a correlation matrix that helps traders manage portfolio risk, and stealth order functionality that allows traders to close all positions simultaneously. It also enables traders to access all activity on the trading account on one terminal. 

Trading Central

A third-party tool, Trading Central allows traders to build trading strategies from within the MT4 and MT5 platforms and identify opportunities in real-time.  In combination with Trading Central’s Daily Market Report, it allows traders to make trading decisions based on expert analytics.  It displays forecasts, commentaries, and key levels, in addition to helping traders identify important changes in supply and demand lines to determine when to enter/exit the market.  Trading central is one of the most popular trading tools on the market, and Swissquote does well to offer it to its traders.  

TradingView

TradingView is free of charge for traders who open an account on the Advanced Trader platform.  It is an excellent tool for researching, charting and screening any instrument. Additional features of Swissquote’s TradingView tool include:

• 50+ intelligent charting tools
• 80+ technical indicators for the analytically-minded
• Synchronised layout for multiple charts 

FIX API

The Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol is an international standard for electronic trading to enable greater connectivity among market participants.  It is for institutional partners looking to deliver competitive FX pricing to their customers and private traders with custom platforms looking for optimal connectivity.   Data includes historical price quotes and other trading information, which will allow traders to get real-time data from the markets to either assist with trading decisions or as a part of algorithmic trading.  Note that to use the FIX API, traders have to deposit at least 50,000 USD into their trading accounts.

Swissquote’s analysis materials are excellent compared to other brokers.  

Swissquote is an execution-only broker. Execution-only means that they don’t offer advice on trading strategies.  

However, the Research Section of the website issues market analysis and news on subjects that affect the currency market – including in-depth fundamental and technical analyses.  

Swissquote offers quality market commentary on its website under the Newsroom section. It consists of Morning News and Themes Trading and includes daily research updated by a team of in-house analysts, a regular podcast, a magazine available to subscribers, and a blog.  Swissquote also offers a Daily Market Brief and a Daily Market Outlook.  

The education section at Swissquote consists of Courses, Webinars, Seminars, and a Trading Glossary.  Although the webinars are available in multiple languages, the courses, videos and ebooks are only available in English.

The Courses includes 31 x 2-3 minute videos on the following topics:

• Introduction to Forex
• Introduction to CFDs
• Technical Analysis
• Fundamental Analysis
• Risk Management
• MetaTrader
• Advanced Trader

Webinars are available in English, French, German and Arabic, and will help deepen your knowledge on specific markets, products, and advanced tools on the trading platforms.

Seminars are held regularly in various locations.  They present an opportunity for traders worldwide to broaden their trading horizons and discuss strategies with the most renowned experts in the field. However, Swissquote has put these on hold for the time being.  

Lastly, Swissquotes provides a trading glossary explaining all the various trading terms.

Overall, Swissquote provides a solid education for traders starting out in the forex trading space.

Toll-free numbers for some countries are available for phone contact, and the service centre is opening during office hours from 9 am to 6 pm UK time. Support is offered in 6 languages.

For the purposes of this review, the live chat feature was rarely available, even during business hours.  Additionally, the support agents were most unhelpful – providing one-word answers about topics such as regulation, leverage, and other topics.   Overall, it was a very frustrating and disappointing experience.  It is clear that Swissquote is not focused on providing a welcoming environment for beginner traders.