PROS:
✅ Long life span of a broker
✅ Trading conditions
✅ Various customer support
✅ Proprietary trading platforms
CONS:
❌ Inactivity Fee
❌ Absense of cTrader terminal
AvaTrade Review
AvaTrade is among the leading brokers and is worldwide presented. It is regulated on 5 continents and provides its clients with various trading solutions for both novice and experienced traders. AvaTrade offers different educational materials, adaptable platforms, trading tools and options.
AvaTrade operates several entities including ones in capitals like Paris, Milan, Dublin, Tokyo, Madrid, Beijing and Sydney. There are as well offices in South Africa, UAE, Chile, Mongolia and Nigeria.
Regulation
As mentioned above, Admiral Markets has entities in several countries and therefore acts according to multiple licenses. The Tier-1 regulator Central Bank of Ireland has granted licenses to AvaTrade while there are also Tier-2 and non highly trusted Tier-3 licences available. Though it lacks so popular and valued licences like FCA or CySEC.
| Feature | Condition |
|---|---|
| Foundation year | 2006 |
| Publicly Traded on Exchange | ❌ |
| Tier-1 Licenses | CBI |
| Tier-2 Licenses | ASIC, JFSA |
| Tier-3 Licenses | FRSA, BVI |
Instruments
AvaTrade offers over 250 instruments starting from FX pairs to CFDs on Commodities, Stocks, Indices, ETFs, Bonds and so far popular Cryptocurrencies. 500+ stocks worldwide are also available for trading in AvaTrade.
| Feature | Condition |
|---|---|
| Major forex pairs | ✅ |
| Minor forex pairs | ✅ |
| Exotic forex pairs | ✅ |
| Cryptocurrencies | ✅ |
| CFD | |
| Metals | ✅ |
| Energies | ✅ |
| Agricultural | ✅ |
| Shares | |
| UK shares | ✅ |
| US shares | ✅ |
| German shares | ✅ |
| French shares | ✅ |
Trading platforms
AvaTrade offers popular MetaTrader terminal (both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5) to fulfill the demands of the majority of forex traders.
As the most of brokers, AvaTrade offers MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 versions for iOS and Android.
The company has a self-developed Web Terminal and proprietary mobile application named AvaTradeGo. It has all the required functions and has a modern design in comparison to WebTerminal by MetaQuotes.
cTrader Terminal is not available at Admiral Markets though it might be interesting only to algorithmic traders that are looking for ability to make robots using C# coding language.
| Feature | Condition |
|---|---|
| MetaTrader 4 | ✅ |
| MetaTrader 5 | ✅ |
| MetaTrader 4/5 iOS/Android | ✅ |
| Proprietary Mobile Application | ✅ |
| Proprietary Web Terminal | ✅ |
| cTrader | ❌ |
Account types and conditions
AvaTrade has a single Standard account that is further devided into specified conditions for Corporate account or Islamic Account. As all the brokers there is available a Demo account to test the platform.
The Swap free accounts are available for customers of AvaTrade (Muslim specific accounts according to Sharia principles).
If you are considering yourself as an experienced trader, it is possible to request AvaTrade to open a Professional Trading account. The leverage on this account type is higher than on the Standard account. According to MiFID rules, it requires to have relevant experience in the financial sector, either sufficient trading activity in the past 12 months and hold at least €500k portfolio value which is quite much.
AvaTrade provides negative balance protection in all served countries, regardless of the regulator, which is a great plus.
| Feature | Condition |
|---|---|
| Demo account | ✅ |
| Professional account | ✅ |
| Corporate account | ✅ |
| Standard account | ✅ |
Commissions and spreads
Mainly, AvaTrade spreads are close to the industry average, just below one pip on the EUR/USD at 0.9 pips. If you qualify as a Professional trader, then spreads on the EUR/USD drops to 0.6 pips.
But during selection of the broker not only spread but also other non-trading fees should be taken into account as well as withdrawal fees or other charges that could be applied.
That is the key point because AvaTrade charges an inactivity fee which is quite a rare case nowadays.
Deposits and Withdrawals
AvaTrade broker does not charge any deposit fees. Beside the wire transfers and credit/debit cards, traders can use the following electronic wallets (though few country restrictions may be applied):
- Neteller
- Skrill
- Webmoney
- Klarna
- POLiPay (for Australians)
The minimum amount required for deposit is $100 or 100 units in other available currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, and AUD).
| Feature | Condition |
|---|---|
| Bank wire | ✅ |
| Debit/Credit cards | ✅ |
| Skrill | ✅ |
| Neteller | ✅ |
| Paypal | ❌ |
| WebMoney | ✅ |
| China UnionPay | ❌ |
Customer Support
AvaTrade follows the following communication types:
- Live chat
- Phone
Live Chat has short waiting time in the queue, the customer support could be achieved almost immediately.
The available languages beside English, are Arabic, Chinese, Italian, French, German, Russian and some more.
As other big brokers, AvaTrade has phone support. On their website, a long list of local telephone numbers could be found for the most populated countries. English support is available almost without breaks though other languages by phone are hard to be achieved.
Email answers to client’s emails could be received within a day that is fairly an industry average.
The broker offers 24/5 support so weekend queries would be received in the begining of the week.
| Feature | Condition |
|---|---|
| Live Chat | ✅ |
| ✅ | |
| Phone | ✅ |
AvaTrade Overview
Finally, AvaTrade is a broker that gained a reliable and respected reputation among the traders. Ava has a certain number of platforms including proprietarty ones, decent number of trading instruments and is fairly good regulated.
The broker has quite competitive costs and trading conditions. Though negative part is inactivity fee.
Apart from brokerage, AvaTrade is an active social member and supports numerous sport activities. One of partners is Manchester City Premier League football club.