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Editor Rating
- 5/5 – Excellent
- Plus500 review
- Website:
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Review Summary:
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Plus500 is an impressive broker and they give you the feeling they really want your business with all their offered bonuses. However, for some odd reason, they do not offer live chat, something that raises a red flag and is magnified by the fact that they do not take phone orders. Even despite this, they are the market leader for a reason and their platform is excellent.
Table of contents
Plus500.com is a brokerage based within the United Kingdom. In return they are regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA). As with many of the online brokers, they offer trading within Forex, CFD, Commodities and stocks as well; offering their users a wide variety of trading options. With the open options, they are quickly becoming one of the largest and fastest growing brokers in Asia and Europe alike.
Their website is very clean and easy to use. For those that do not find the website interface as user friendly, there are many different training tools that will show you the best ways to maneuver through the website. Each category is displayed within its own tabs, meaning you can keep your stocks, CFD’s and Forex trades separate and organized.
So with that said, lets get started.
Top Features of Plus500
When considering the reliability of a broker, one of the most important things is to check if they are regulated or not. In this respect, it is reassuring to see that Plus500 is regulated by the FSA in London. The FSA is one of the most important financial regulatory bodies not only in the City of London but also within the European Union (EU).
As for funding the trading account, Plus500 make things easy by providing several methods of depositing funds. Fund transfer can be done with major credit cards, wire transfer and MoneyBookers. PayPal is not supported although one might suspect that this has to do with the high service fees charged by PayPal.
The trading platform (emphasis on just one) can be used either on the PC, tablet or smartphone. The platform works seamlessly between all the different versions and thus making the switch from one version to another version effortless. Despite the fact that MetaTrader 4 is the leading trading software for Forex, Plus500 is still able to capture a sizeable market due to the fact that they focus on a straight forward trading.
Many traders prefer to trade without the headache of suffering from informational overload. The trading platform just provides the essential information needed for a trade in one screen. Traders don’t have to switch from one window to another searching for critical information. No doubt this is a great help to those who find themselves frantically rushing through the information.
Plus500 Prices
One added bonus of signing up with Plus500 is the free twenty euros that comes without making a deposit. There are no tiers of accounts which is good and bad. For those who are looking to invest small do not miss out on any extra privileges. On the other side of the coin however, there are no extra incentives for those whom are looking to invest a hefty deal more than the minimum one hundred dollar deposit.
Plus 500 provide very tight fixed spreads and does not charge any commissions or other costs. These low spreads are available also for low volume traders, which means that Plus 500’s prices are very favorable in comparison with other brokers.
You can apply a leverage of up to 200:1 to your trades. This means that you can for example enter a trade with a value of twenty euros with a deposit of only euros. Of course, this provides opportunities for higher gains but we always have to keep in mind that leverage comes with the risk of higher losses as well.
Plus500 – Who we are
Plus500 is owned by Plus500UK Ltd. A UK based company with its main offices located in the city of London. The company is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to offer Contracts For Difference (CFD). The company is a rapidly growing CFD provider in Europe and Asia and currently offers its portfolio of over 1000 instruments to over a million clients.
The Downsides of Using Plus500
While Plus500 is regulated by the FSA and has a straight forward trading platform, it does have a few downfalls. One major downside is the lack of incentives for traders looking to deposit larger sums of money. When the company offers the same incentive for a hundred euro deposit as a five thousand euro deposit, there may be issues with getting the large investors.
Plus500 Customer Support
If there was a department within a brokerage that should never be lacking, it is the customer service department. Unfortunately for Plus500, their customer service does not meet the rest of the industry standards. The main concern is the absence of a live chat. Many traders are looking to chat with experts or get some answers relatively quickly.
The customer service is restricted to email only. They state that the answers are generally delivered within thirty minutes, but there are many reports that it can take some time longer. And with each question that arises it is another thirty minutes of waiting rather than getting immediate answers via live chat.
The good news is that the email customer service is available twenty four hours a day, which means if you are trying to get answers during off hours, they should be answered quickly.
Conclusion
Plus500 is an impressive broker and they give you the feeling they really want your business with all their offered bonuses. However, for some odd reason, they do not offer live chat, something that raises a red flag and gives you the impression that they might want your business, but they do NOT want to talk to you about it, a theory magnified by the fact that they do not take phone orders.
Luckily their platforms are easy to use and are very straight forward. If you know what you are doing and are not looking for any help, than this is an excellent brokerage for you. If you are relatively new or not confident in your knowledge as a trader than you may want to look elsewhere for a brokerage.
