OANDA: MAS licence Not published

US clients can reach OANDA by web chat, WhatsApp (+1 646 566 8178), Facebook Messenger, SMS or email at frontdesk@oanda.com, from Sunday 4 p.m. to Friday 6 p.m. US Eastern time. OANDA publishes no voice support line: the numbers on its contact page, such as +1 212 858 7690 in the US and +44 7537 411919 in the UK, are SMS lines. Support is offered in English, Spanish and Mandarin, though OANDA says it cannot guarantee multilingual service at all times.

OANDA's own documents disagree. For US clients, the help centre and the charges page say withdrawals are free, but a withdrawal-fee document linked from the charges page lists 20 USD on the first wire withdrawal in a calendar month and that fee plus 15 USD on each further one, and 15 USD on each debit card withdrawal after the first in a month. For OANDA Global Markets clients, the charges page gives 20 USD per wire withdrawal while the help centre gives 20 USD for the first in a month and 35 USD for each further one; Premium and Premium Plus accounts list free withdrawals.

OANDA's US pages give 1 to 3 business days for debit card withdrawals. For wires, the funding page gives 1 to 2 business days within the US and up to 5 abroad, while the help centre gives 1 to 5 business days. These are OANDA's processing times, not the time the money takes to reach you. Other divisions give their own times, for example within one business day for Neteller and Skrill at OANDA Global Markets.

The payment methods depend on the OANDA company that holds your account. US clients deposit by debit card, wire or ACH and withdraw by debit card or wire; UK clients use cards or bank transfers such as Faster Payments and SEPA; EU clients can deposit by card, iDEAL, BLIK or Przelewy24 but withdraw only by bank transfer; and OANDA Global Markets clients can use cards, Neteller, Skrill or bank transfer. Canada adds PayPal, Australia BPAY and PayID, and Singapore PayNow and FAST, with no card payments in Singapore. Withdrawals go back to the source of the deposit, and card refunds are capped at the amount deposited by card.

On OANDA's US site pricing is spread-only by default, and the US pricing page lists spreads of 1.4 pips on EUR/USD and 2.0 pips on GBP/USD. Clients with a deposit or balance of at least 10,000 USD can switch to core pricing: spreads from 0.0 pips on selected majors plus 0.70 USD per 10,000 units on each side, or 7 USD per 100,000. The US site also charges a 20 USD monthly inactivity fee after 12 months without trading and a 1.0% mark-up on currency conversion on v20 forex accounts.

The OANDA companies belong to one group. OANDA Corporation, the US company that owns the OANDA trademarks, is a subsidiary of OANDA Global Corporation, which OANDA also names as the shareholder of its Japanese company.

That depends on where you live. According to OANDA, OANDA Corporation serves US residents, OANDA (Canada) Corporation ULC serves Canadian residents outside Alberta, OANDA Europe Limited serves the UK and a few other countries including Switzerland, Norway and Liechtenstein, OANDA TMS Brokers S.A. serves the EU, OANDA Australia Pty Ltd serves Australia and OANDA Asia Pacific Pte Ltd serves Singapore. Residents of selected other countries are served by OANDA Global Markets Ltd, which is regulated in the British Virgin Islands, and clients in Japan by OANDA's Japanese company through oanda.jp.

It depends on the OANDA company that holds your account. On the US site both accounts trade 68 currency pairs, and US clients can trade spot cryptocurrencies through OANDA Paxos Mobile, a separate app offered with OANDA's partner Paxos. The global site of OANDA Global Markets lists more than 1,500 instruments, and OANDA TMS in the EU runs a CFDs account alongside a stocks account.

OANDA's US site has no minimum deposit and no minimum balance to open or keep an account. Core pricing, which charges a commission in exchange for lower spreads, needs an initial deposit or balance of at least 10,000 USD. On the global site the Standard account is available to all, while Premium needs a 10,000 USD deposit or 10 million USD of monthly notional volume.

On OANDA's US site the maximum leverage is 50:1, for example on EUR/USD, which needs 2% margin. Other pairs need more margin, such as 3% on AUD/USD. Leverage depends on the OANDA company that holds your account, so these US limits do not apply to clients of its other divisions.

OANDA offers its own platform, OANDA Trade (OANDA Web in the browser and the OANDA Mobile app for iOS and Android), plus MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 and TradingView, depending on the division. The US site lists OANDA Web, the mobile app, TradingView and MetaTrader 4, with an optional MT4 premium upgrade of 28 extra tools, but not MetaTrader 5. The global site offers MetaTrader 5, TradingView and the OANDA app, but not MetaTrader 4.

OANDA Corporation states that it is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a Futures Commission Merchant and Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer and is a member of the National Futures Association, No. 0325821. Its sister companies state licences from their own regulators: the FCA in the UK (No. 542574), ASIC in Australia (AFSL 412981), the Monetary Authority of Singapore, CIRO in Canada, the KNF in Poland, the Kanto Local Finance Bureau in Japan (No. 2137) and, for clients in other countries, the BVI Financial Services Commission (SIBA/L/20/1130), an offshore regulator. How well you are protected depends on which of these companies holds your account, and no licence removes trading risk.