Best Forex Brokers in the Netherlands 2019

eToro

FXTM

FBS

Plus500

Forex Brokers in the Netherlands Comparison Table

Introduction to Forex Brokers in The Netherlands

The Dutch financial services industry is a tightly regulated industry. It comes under the jurisdiction of the Autoriteit Financielle Markten (AFM) or in English, Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets. The financial industry in the Netherlands like in many other major European economies is still reeling from the after effects of the financial crisis that swept across Europe in 2008. As a result, the industry is tightly regulated. Given the Netherlands close physical proximity to other major economies in Europe, the bulk of the Dutch forex brokers serving the forex trading industry in the Netherlands are based in other European Union (EU) member states.

Regulations

The financial industry in the Netherlands falls under the jurisdiction of the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets or AFM as it is often known. It was established in 2002 to replace the Stichting Toezicht Effectenverkeer – STE (Securities Board of the Netherlands). Although the AFM is an autonomous body, it comes under the responsibility of the Dutch’s minister of finance. It is the regulatory body that issues licenses to homegrown brokers that wish to participate in the retail forex trading industry. And under the EU’s MiFID rules, it also provides authorization to forex brokers from other EU states “passporting” their authorization issued from their home states to operate legally in the Netherlands. The key requirements for the Dutch forex brokers to operate in the Netherlands are:

• Submit regular financial reports to the AFM to disclose the state of their operations including clients’ trading data and trading volume.
• Disclosure of changes in issued capital by more than 1%.
• Offshore brokers are required to establish local branches and obtain authorization of their local branches.

All these requirements are in line with the AFM’s main objectives which include:

• Improving access to the financial markets
• Encourage the smooth operations of the financial markets in the Netherlands
• Instill confidence in the Dutch financial markets

Trading Platforms & Software

Since the majority of the Dutch forex brokers are branches of leading brokers that are established outside the Netherlands, the trading platform that most Dutch forex traders will encounter is the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) trading platform. The MT4 platform is in fact considered the forex industry trading platform due to its widespread adoption by the majority of the forex brokers in the industry. Other common trading platforms that many Dutch forex traders will encounter are the cTrader and Sirix WebTrader. These platforms are also popular among forex traders from all over the world and not just in the Netherlands. While there are forex brokers who offer their own proprietary trading platforms, these are few and rare in the Dutch forex trading scene.

Commissions & Spreads

In the forex trading industry, it is standard practice for forex brokers not to charge their traders any commissions on the trades that they make. Commissions are only charged when the broker offers clients raw spreads from the liquidity pool through the Electronic Communication Network (ECN). Instead of commissions, forex traders are required to pay a small spread on the trades that they make. The spread is the difference between the BID and ASK price.

Account Types & Deposit Methods

It is the norm for retail forex brokers to try and capture as much as possible of the forex trading industry market share by offering their clients more than one type of trading account. These trading accounts can be categorized as:

• Micro/Mini account

Micro/Mini accounts are typically for beginner traders as they allow traders to trade in lots smaller than the standard size lot (100,000 units).

• Standard account

For the standard account, the minimum lot size in 100,000 units.

• VIP account

VIP accounts are typically premium accounts that have extra perks and benefits over other types of trading accounts.

In addition to these types of trading accounts, brokers who offer ECN trading access will often provide a separate type of trading account called the ECN trading account.

Customer Service

Brokers that are serving forex traders in the Netherland will normally have their website translated into Dutch as well. In addition, the support staff are usually multi-lingual and able to converse in Dutch and the company should have a localized Dutch phone number.

Conclusion

Because the forex trading industry is an extremely competitive industry, it is rare to find forex brokers solely serving clients from a particular country. Instead, brokers target a particular region that compromises of several countries in order to reap the benefits of the economies of scale.

Understanding that it is often difficult to find the right broker without any previous trading experience or knowledge of the industry, we have compiled a list of the best brokers that we have scrutinized closely from our research and are confident that they will be able to cater to the trading needs of Dutch forex traders.