After trading for a long time and having some arguments with many different traders, we found that there is no absolutely best ECN forex broker in 2018. While US and UK brokers are supposed to be more reliable than the rest of the world, Cyprus brokers are offering more attractive trading conditions such as lower spread, lower margin, better trading platforms and payment systems, etc. As a result, we can only determine which one is the best ECN broker if we know your country and your trading strategies. Before recommending the standards we think best ECN brokers should have, let us list down top 5 best ECN forex brokers in the world for you to consult.
- Exness. com : 8/10 - FxPro. com : 7.5/10 - XM. com : 7.5/10 - ICmarkets. com : 7/10 - FXTM. com : 6.5/10
Actually, there are many standards creating the best ECN brokers, but six leading criteria are reliability, lower trading cost (lower spread, lower commission, better payment systems to lower deposit and withdrawal fee), better rebate/ bonus, better trading conditions (better quotes, lower slippages, better execution speed, and lower fee swap), better trading platforms and better local supports.
1. RELIABILITY
Best ECN brokers must be reliable because most traders are big traders who often deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars. They only select best forex brokers to deposit their money and are willing to pay more for the trading cost to keep away from bad brokers.
To know which ones are reliable brokers, we have to check their regulations. Regulations are very significant as it’s not easy to get a good one.
So, what are regulations?
Regulations are profit or non-profit organizations managing regulated brokers. Each one has its own regulations followed by all regulated brokers such as maximum leverage, quotes quality, broker’s minimum operation fund, bonus, segregated accounts to protect clients, and advertising messages to avoid misleading for traders, etc.
In order to get a regulation, brokers have to complete all these standards before getting considerations from the regulation. As a result, the more reliable the regulation is, the more reliable a broker is.
Do regulations have their death disadvantages?
The answer is yes. Some common disadvantages of US and UK ECN brokers are high spread and commission, higher margin requirements, less trading platforms supported, and less payment methods, etc.
All these weaknesses are due to the regulations prevent brokers from offering high leverage. Therefore, their trading volume will be lower, which brings about the lower of their income. Besides, they have to pay regulation fee, buy insurances for clients’ fund, and put money to segregated accounts. That means they get less income and pay more cost; thus, they have to charge more spread and commission. So, it can be said that the more regulations they have, the less competitive they are.
Here, the problem is that the most reliable regulations are US and UK ones, but they don’t protect traders in the rest of the world. So it’s not a good idea for Asian and African traders to pay more for those regulated brokers but no one protects them if something bad happens.
What is my perspective about regulation?
Actually, I disagree with the idea ‘the more regulations, the better’. I know that regulation is important as it reflects brokers’ standards; however, the more regulations, the more cost. In my opinion, just one reliable regulation is enough. A broker just needs one reliable regulation to prove that they follow trusty financial standards and good financial health company.
Above I listed down top 5 best ECN brokers in the world, now I will show you what regulations they have.
- Exness. com : CySEC, FCA (UK)
- FxPro. com : CySEC, FCA (UK), DFSA (Dubai), FSB (South Africa)
- XM. com : CySEC, FCA, ASIC
- ICmarkets. com : ASIC (Australia)
- FXTM. com : IFSC
Now I will explain why these brokers are better than other US and Europe brokers.
First, they are in top largest retail forex brokers:
Exness is the largest retail forex broker with the trading volume of $400 billion per month.
XM trading volume is $300 billion per month.
FxPro trading volume is $100 billion per month.
To me, the larger the brokers are, the more reliable they are.
Second, all these retail brokers are around ten years old with no scam report. Though I read many complaints in social network, most of those cases are because beginners don’t understand the trading systems. For instance, many traders complained about Exness trading platform. They said that they got Stop Loss when the price didn’t hit stop loss prices. In fact, Exness price chart is Bid price, but that Stop Loss will be Ask or Bid price depends on your buy or sell positions.
2. LOWER TRADING COST
These ECN brokers charge the lowest trading cost.
US brokers often charge the highest spread and commission.
Example: Forex. com and FXCM charge from 1.7-2 pips for trading EURUSD, but the brokers I listed down above charge very little spread, around 50% lower than US brokers.For ECN accounts, they charge from 0.0xx pip spread and 5-7$ for each lot. Among ECN brokers, Exness charges the lowest spread which is from 0.0xx pip and sometimes zero if there isn’t big news. It only charges $5 commission per lot while ICMarket charges 6-7$, and XM charges $6.<< Check Exness spread here >>
They offer better payment systems/ methods for Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Some US, UK brokers are very good in their countries, but in other places, especially in Asia and Africa, they are quite bad. For example, now in my Asian country, if I deposit by Credit Card, the banks will charge me from 1.7 to 4 percent of my fund. It’s hard to earn 5% monthly, but I have to pay 4% just for depositing. Therefore, it’s not a good idea for me to trade in those US, UK brokers. Thus, choosing ECN brokers offering local payment systems is very significant.
So among these ECN brokers, which one has the best payment systems?
Having traded with many brokers, I suppose Exness payment system is the best one because they offer over 30 different payment methods. Moreover, they provide most of their target countries with many local payment systems which are free-charged. Usually, it will take you some hours to some days to withdraw, but in Exness it is instant. You can get your money within seconds. Also, you can withdraw to your banks within minutes. It’s really remarkable because there isn’t another broker can do that.Why is Exness payment so fast?That is because they built an auto system which finance guys won’t intervene in the processes. If your withdrawal information matches your ID, you can get your money instantly. Besides, Exness puts a lot of money to the systems like e-wallets, banks, and local payment systems, etc. to keep all transactions run automatically.
3. BETTER REBATE/ BONUS
Most experts don’t like rebates or bonuses because they invest too much money to care about it. What they care are brokers’ credibility, spread, swap and payment systems. However, rebates/ bonuses are also relevant to cost. What if you get $5 per lot? It means you are saving 0.5 pip spread (if trading XXX/USD). For me, if the brokers are trusty, their rebates/ bonuses will be extremely attractive.Among the 5 ECN brokers mentioned above, only FXTM and XM have bonus programs for beginners. Their bonuses are very attractive. You can get $30 welcome bonus when creating your first-time account. Also, you can get 100% bonus when depositing.<< Get XM $30 bonus here >><< Get FXTM $50 bonus here >>
4. BETTER TRADING CONDITIONS
Their ECN quotes are better.
I did a survey of 100 traders. The question is “What type of forex account do you think is the best one for trading?” 95% of them believe that ECN account is the best, but in reality, 80% of them are trading with Market Maker and STP accounts. So why they act differently from what they think is right?The best advantages of ECN account are low cost and transparency. However, its death disadvantage is volatility. Trading with ECN account is risky for starters as its quotes are much more volatile than STP and MM accounts. In addition, ECN slippages are higher, quotes are unstable and there are more no-quote errors and gaps. That’s because ECN is a wild market where hundreds of thousands of traders are taking advantages and cheating each other. Hence, we need ECN brokers that can provide more stable quotes and less slippage.
Why these retail forex brokers’ quotes are better?
Some people think that big forex brokers with liquidity providers will offer better quotes, but it’s not true because these liquidity providers provide quotes by themselves, which is not stable. Also, there are a lot of no-quote errors, slippages and gaps.On the other hand, top 5 brokers above get quotes from 10 liquidity providers at the same time. They select the best quotes which will be provided to retail clients. It’s much better as in case of one liquidity provider gets quote problems, they can get quotes from others.
Here are top 3 best ECN quote brokers:
Exness. com
FxPro ☞☞ Check it now
ICMarket ☞☞ Check it now
Better quotes means there are less slippage, gap and no-quote problems.
5. BETTER TRADING PLATFORMS
As you may know, MT4 and MT5 are the two most popular platforms. However, they are not perfect as they are not compatible with some operating systems like Windows Vista and XP. They also cannot install in some phones. That’s why some brokers have invested their own trading platforms which are more compatible to phones. In this category, FxPro and XM have no competitor.<< Check XM trading platform here >>
6. BETTER LOCAL SUPPORT
While most brokers only support online and in English, these brokers support more than 20 languages in average. They support by live chat, phone and also local office. They support 24/7 for top most popular languages such as English, Chinese and Thai. In the forex trading market, supporting is very significant since forex trading is so complicated, and traders hence will need many supports. As a result, if brokers can support traders by local languages, it’s much easier for them.These brokers work mainly in Asia and Africa, usually in the biggest forex markets like China, Thailand, Indonesia, South Africa, Malaysia, Vietnam, Iran, Russia, and Arabic, etc. Most of them have offices in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Dubai. For the countries that they don’t have local offices, they will support by live chat and phone. Here, I give you some examples about some brokers’ support:
Exness supports 24/7 with 13 languages.
XM supports 24/7 with 30 languages.
FxPro supports 19 languages.
To sum up, choosing the best ECN brokers is not very easy. However, with my experience of trading for a long time, I believe my article can definitely help you confidently step into ECN trading world.
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