Plus 500

Plus 500 offers a broad range of trading instruments – more than 2000. This includes forex pairs (majors, minors and some exotic pairs); shares from popular companies like BT, Hugo Boss, Netflix, etc.; commodities like oil, coffee, gold, silver; EFTs; options and cryptocurrencies. PLUS 500 offers 14 cryptocurrencies for trading at this time. This includes the veteran of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and others like Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, etc. In addition to this, PLUS 500 offers new cryptocurrencies like EOS, IOTA and NEO.

Opening an account with Plus 500 was very easy and straightforward for us. The broker follows standard KYC procedures for opening an account and requests standard documents like proof of identification (ID card or passport), proof of address (utility bill) as well as your email and phone number.

Plus 500 offers its clients 2 account types: Standard account and Professional account. The broker operates with ECN/STP execution which means it has no dealing desk (NDD broker). This eliminates conflicts between the brokerage firm and the trader. There are several base currencies that the broker supports for depositing money.

• Standard account: No trading experience needed to be eligible. The minimum deposit is $100, spreads are variable and there is no commission – the trading fee is levied into the spread.
• Professional account: This type of account requires the trader to have some advanced skills in trading – for example, experience of working in the financial sector, $500K minimum and at least 10 trades of significant size done in the last quarter. Professional accounts may have leverage up to 1:300.

Plus 500 does not allow accounts from the US, Cuba, Canada, Syria, Iran and a few others. In addition to this, the broker does not offer swap-free (Islamic) accounts which are accounts that do not charge overnight fees when left open – interest is forbidden in Islam.

One of the best features of Plus 500 is its very low trading fees the broker offers. Plus 500 offers very competitive fees among other FX brokers. The broker does not charge any commission and in addition to this, it offers very low spreads. The non-trading fees at Plus 500 are very minimal too: for example, there is a low inactivity fee of $10 after 3 months of not using your account and very low withdrawal fees. The broker does not charge and deposit fees.

The financing fees of PLUS 500 are quite high. These kinds of fees occur when the trader holds position overnight or over the weekend and accumulates ‘interest’ which is also known as swaps.

Traders can deposit funds into their accounts through various methods like bank transfer, credit/debit cards as well as e-wallets like Skrill, iDEAL, BPAY, SOFORT, giropay and others. We found depositing and withdrawing funds to be swift and easy.

PLUS 500 has developed its own proprietary platform that is available on browser and on mobile. We found the platform to have a nice, simple design that is modern looking. It is very easy to navigate thanks to its convenient search function as well as the many languages it is available in – over 30 languages like English, Italian, Greek, Danish, Arabic, Turkish, Swedish, etc. For login security, the platform offers two-step authentication. The mobile app for the platform was quite good too and works quite efficiently as well as fast. We also were pleasantly surprised that the platform had some risk management features that help eliminate losses.

While we found the platform of Plus 500 to be quite good, we were disappointed that the popular MT4 (MetaTrader 4) and MT5 (MetaTrader 5) were not available. The MT4 and MT5 are highly customizable platforms that offer users a lot of additional features such as tools for automated trading (Expert Advisors).

We were disappointed to see that Plus 500 does not have a lot of research or education tools. The platform does have a great interactive chat that contains technical indicators. Unfortunately, the broker does not offer market news or trading articles. PLUS 500 has a good Economic Calendar that updates traders on major events that may affect financial markets.

Plus 500 does not offer any educational materials such as e-books, webinars, etc. While the website does have an economic calendar, there are no market news or research tools that could help users with trading except charting. Expert Advisors are not offered by Plus 500, but they do offer a demo account to try out the platform.

We found that Plus 500 have decent customer support. The team is multilingual, and the broker supports more than 30 languages. The support team can be reached through email and live chat but unfortunately Plus 500 does not have telephone support. Support is available on a 24/7 basis which is very useful. The customer support team at PLUS 500 did revert back to us quickly and provided fairly relevant answers. There is an extensive amount of information on the FAQ section which was very helpful.

In general, we were pleasantly surprised by PLUS 500. The broker offers very low spreads which would result in a more lucrative trade for most brokers. We were a bit disappointed in the fact that the broker does not offer better education tools, however, the spreads that they offer are very attractive. Advanced traders, who do not seek education or research tools, will definitely find these spreads beneficial and profitable.