Best Forex Brokers In UK Comparison

Range Of Financial Markets = Swissquote

There are two entities in Europe when it comes to Swissquote. The first is Swissquote Bank Ltd and as a Switzerland licenced bank, it has a range of financial instruments and markets.  Swissquote Bank Ltd is not FCA regulated and rather is licenced by FINMA

Share trading, bonds, funds, ETFs and derivatives trading

Swissquote Bank offers traditional low fee stockbroking services in markets around the world. It also offers:

• Themes Trading
• ETFs
• Swiss DOTS
• Warrants & Derivate
• Options & Futures
• Funds
• Bonds

Swissquote Ltd is FCA regulated and focuses more on trading CFD trading and forex markets than it’s European parent company.

Foreign Exchange Trading

Forex trading (also known as foreign exchange) is the core product of Swissquote Ltd with features including:

• Spreads from 0.6 pips
• No commissions on trading
• 30:1 leverage for retail traders
• 15 currencies to trade (including GBP, EUR, USD)

There are several account types with the prime account has the lowest spreads of the non-commission forex trading accounts offered but has a very high initial deposit of 5,000 Euros. On the plus-side, Swissquote is one of the few UK CFD brokers to offer negative balance protection. This means that a trader’s losses can’t exceed their deposit. This has been known to occur during extreme trading events with leverage leading to large losses which for some other brokers needs to be repaid.

Precious Metals and Commodities

Like forex markets above, precious metals can be traded against currency pairs. This includes Gold (XAU), Silver (XAG), Platinum (XPT) and Palladium (XPD). Commodities, on the other hand, are easily impacts by external factors from the global output, technology advances and economic development. Examples of crude oil include Crude Oil (#USOIL) (#UKOIL), Natural Gas (#NG) and Copper (#HGC). Both precious metals and commodities have higher spreads than foreign exchange trading and lower leverage.

Stock Indices And Bonds

As an indicator of an economy’s health, stock indices help traders benefit from broad movements in markets. Example of indices are the #SP500 which is the market-weighted top 500 US shares while the #NAS100 focuses on the top 100 technology and bio-technology shares from Amazon to Facebook. The #DE30 focuses on the top 30 shares on the Frankfurt Exchange while the #SMI focuses on the smaller Swiss market.

Bonds, on the other hand, are viewed historically as a risk management tool. Leverage helps magnify these relatively small movements which are primarily influenced by interest rate movements. Many traders based on this use bonds as part of their hedging strategy. The primary bonds are the US Treasure Bonds (US T-Bond), Gilts issued by the British government (UK Long Gilt) and the Bund which focuses on obligations (long-term) of the German government (German Bund)

Training Across All Markets

What makes Swissquote one of the best brokers is their education across their range of markets including online training (including videos), online seminars and offline training across Europe. Below shows an example of videos created by Swissquote to educate traders on forex markets. There are a number of local numbers outside of the UK if you are travelling such a Cyprus which the number is 800 96595.

View the completed Swissquote review to learn more about the CFDs online broker.

Social Trading = eToro

high risk

bitcoin

start trading

eToro is regulated by several authorities around the world including the:

• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) 583263
• Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission (CySEC) 109/10
• Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) 491139

Range Of Forex Trading Platforms = IG Markets

retail cfd accounts

trading app

retail investor accounts

Spread betting

Trade forex

Best Beginner Forex Brokers = City Index

City Index is the best UK forex broker for beginner forex traders based on their low spread only account. Below compares City Index to comparable spread only CFD brokers that don’t charge a commission on trades. Not only does City Index have the lowest spreads but also a low minimum deposit of £100.

City Index has the Financial Conduct Authority Licence 113942 and the parent company is Gain Capital which is regulated in 8 jurisdictions.

More About UK Regulation

All the forex brokers displayed on this United Kingdom page are locally regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The authority is independently formed by the government and funded by membership fees. Forex brokers are required to hold a minimum of £1 million in operating capital in the UK by the FCA. This increases based on a formula aligned to the number of traders an fx broker has. Other requirements include:

• Segregating clients accounts from brokers so they can’t use it for operational expenditures
• Processing instantly withdrawal requests.
• Submitting to the FCA annual audited reports.
• Submitted periodic statements that show capital holdings ensuring capital ratios requirements are met.
• Meeting strict regulations for marketing and advertising their financial products
• Resolving customer complaints mutually and allowing any failed resolution to be arbitrated by the UK financial ombudsman.

The FCA has a compensation scheme to guarantee forex broker UK client funds. This is called the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The objective of the FSCS is to compensate CFDs traders when a broker has insolvency issues with protection up to £50,000. When a solvency issue occurs and liquidation occurs the FSCS provides CFDs traders with:

• 100% of funds back up to £30,000
• Up to 90% of funds back for amounts between £30,000 to £50,000

To make a claim a CFDs trader needs to make an insurance claim through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme website. Make sure the firm is listed on the FSCS website as compensation is only available when the body deems the broker’s assets are frozen or it’s in liquidation.

To avoid a scam broker it’s strongly recommended to choose a regulated broker. It may also be worth keeping up-to-date with the regulator’s website as recently a CFD like FXTM lost it’s Financial Conduct Authority licence in the United Kingdom.