ActiveTrades is a Forex and Contracts for Difference (CFD) broker currently headquartered in London, UK. Its headquarters were established in Switzerland in 2001 before relocating to the UK.
The brokerage firm provides trading services in a wide range of markets including forex, shares, ETFs and cryptocurrencies.
In this review, we will highlight how ActiveTrades works, its key features, advantages, disadvantages, and why you should use it for trading before giving our final verdict.
how it works
Being a forex/CFD brokerage firm, ActiveTrades differs from crypto exchanges in that it requires clients to create an account and deposit fiat money for use in trading. Crypto exchanges allow customers to hold only crypto assets in their accounts
Its product portfolio includes stock indices, commodity CFDs, ETF CFDs, bond CFDs, futures CFDs and a range of cryptocurrencies. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, ActiveTrades only offers Crypto-USD pairs, which are traded similarly to Forex.
The account opening process is easy and fast and it takes 24 hours for the account to be verified. The process begins with selecting the country of residence, then adding personal information, selecting the trading account type and base currency, and finally uploading documents that include ID or passport, bank statements or utility bills and photographs. Huh.
The main thing to note here is that there are countries where ActivTrades does not accept clients and you will not be able to create an account if you are from any of those countries. These countries include USA, Canada, Serbia, Guinea, Iran, Belarus, British Columbia, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Japan, Poland, Syria, Afghanistan, US Virgin Islands, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
key features
- Active Trader Platform – This is ActiveTrade’s native trading platform that clients can choose to use in addition to the usual MetaTrader trading platforms (MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5).
- special add-ons , TeaThese are the add-ons that ActivTrades clients use in their trading platform. These add-ons include SmartOrder 2, SmartLines, SmartCalculator, SmartTemplate, SmartPlatform, SmartForecast and Pivot Points Indicator.
- Negative balance protection. , ActiveTrades offers negative balance protection to its retail clients with its Balance Protection Policy.
- webinar , ActivTrades offers a lot of webinars which are constantly updated. These webinars include guest speakers and other experts.
- account type – ActiveTrades offers three types of real accounts which include personal account, institutional account and Islamic account.
- order type – ActiveTrades allows clients to place market orders, limit orders and stop orders.
- order deadline – The broker allows clients to use Good Till Cancel (GTC) and Good Till Time (GTT) order time frames.
Pros and Cons of ActiveTrades
professionals
- ActiveTrades offers free demo accounts where clients can test out the trading platform and test new trading strategies.
- It offers low trading fees.
- It does not charge any fees for depositing and withdrawing funds.
- Withdrawals usually only take one day to be processed.
- The account opening process is seamless and completely digital, taking only a few minutes to complete and 24 hours to be verified.
- ActivTrades offers a well designed user friendly mobile trading platform.
- This allows traders to use fully automated trades.
Shortcoming
- This requires a very high minimum deposit, especially for personal accounts that require an initial minimum deposit of $/€/£/CHF 500.
- It has a slim product portfolio, especially when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
- It only offers USD trading pairs.
- It charges an inactivity fee for any account that is not used for more than a year. The inactivity fee is £10 per month.
- It is not available in some countries including the United States.
Why should you trade using ActivTrades?
In addition to decades of experience in the industry, ActivTrades allows you to trade cryptocurrency CFDs in a simple user-friendly platform. The broker is a go-to trading partner, especially for cryptocurrency traders looking for something different from what is offered by centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges.
Some of the things you might find interesting with ActiveTrades include competitive spreads, top educational tools, negative balance protection policy, and customer funds insurance by Lloyds of London.
final call
ActivTrades is a CFD/Forex broker that has been around for many years. In addition, it also allows trading of cryptocurrency CFDs which is not common in many CFD/Forex brokers and crypto exchanges.
Apart from offering a limited product portfolio, it has proven to be a reliable and reputed broker.
The education tools make ActivTrades a good broker for all traders; Be it beginners or experienced.