Best Forex Brokers in The Netherlands 2020

Many forex brokers want to capture a slice of the retail forex trading business in the Netherlands. That means there’s a great choice for you the trader. But how can you know who is the best forex broker to work with? We have done the legwork and carried out research to compile a list on the best brokers, which takes into consideration product, service and reliability.

The brokers below represent the best Forex Brokers for trading in the Netherlands

Vantage FX

Vantage FX was founded in 2009 in Australia and is the brand name of the Vantage International Group which is regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) and advertises the segregation of client funds which are held with Australia’s AA rated National Australia Bank (NAB).

The broker offers services that are designed for both beginner and professional traders with access to Forex ECN trading, as well as CFD trading on Indices, Commodities and U.S and Hong Kong Shares on the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 trading platforms for Mac, PC, iOS and Android as well as social trading platforms such as MyFXbook and Zulutrade.

FP Markets

FP Markets was founded in 2005 and is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), offering segregation of client funds and top tier liquidity. FP Markets is a group of companies that includes First Prudential Markets Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.

FP Markets also offers a range of education and market analysis resources through the Traders Hub which includes technical analysis and fundamental analysis articles and videos, as well as, trading ebooks and video tutorials. Users can access live support via telephone, email and live chat 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.

ForexTB

ForexTB was founded in 2012 and is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) under the name ForexTB Ltd. The broker, due to regulatory requirements offers negative balance protection for retail clients.

Users can choose from 4 different account types called Basic, Gold, Platinum and VIP. Each one has different minimum deposits and trading costs and comes with different additional services such as live webinars, access to Trading Central, better withdrawal fees and more.

With ForexTB, users can trade on more than 300+ financial CFD instruments covering Forex, Stocks, Commodities, Indices and Cryptos. The broker offers the globally recognised MetaTrader 4 trading platform as well as its own simple to use web platform and various research and education tools.

IC Markets

IC Markets was founded in Sydney, Australia, in 2007 and is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), as well as the Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The broker offers three core trading accounts called Raw Spread (cTrader), Raw Spread (MetaTrader) and a Standard Account (MetaTrader). Spreads start from zero pips on the Raw Spread accounts with commission-payable. The Standard Account offers commission-free trading with spreads from just one pip. The broker also offers demo trading accounts and Islamic swap-free accounts.

While the broker offers services and features designed for both beginner and professional traders, the company promotes themselves as the ‘go-to’ choice for high volume traders, scalpers and trading algos due to their New York Equinix NY4 data centre – processing over 500,000 trades per day. The broker also offers additional trading features such as social trading integration with ZuluTrade and MyFXbook.

Plus500

Plus500 is a leading CFD trading platform with support for stocks, indices, cryptocurrencies, and Forex. This commission-free brokerage charges very low spread-rates and offers fast trades on a great platform. Plus500 supports complex trades, includes negative balance protection, and makes trading an educational and hopefully profitable venture.

You can start with a free demo account to test the platform and any trading strategy. Real money accounts offer leverage of up to 1:30. This broker is based in Israel and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK.

FXTM

FXTM is an ECN/STP broker that was established in 2011 to offer Forex and CFDs and is highly regulated in the UK by the FCA among other regions. They offer the trading of over 250 assets through the MT4 and MT5 platforms.

MT4 is available through WebTrader, download client or mobile. The ECN Zero and ECN accounts on FXTM are operated with MT4 bridge software. Therefore, the same MT4 features are available to traders with these accounts as well as the regular accounts.

eToro

eToro is an online trading platform that was founded in 2007 by the Assia siblings and their friend David Ring in Tel Aviv, Israel. Formerly known as RetailFX, eToro is the pioneering online broker for social trading. Their Openbook social trading platform in fact changed the nature of the way beginner online traders can trade the financial markets. It made the markets accessible to everyone, no matter what their level of experience by creating a user-friendly environment and allowing traders to copy the trades of other traders’ strategies automatically.

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.

Read More:

• How To Choose the Best Forex and CFD Broker
• What are the Different Types of CFD brokers?
• Forex Brokers Regulations
• Using Win/Loss Ratio in Trading
• Developing your Trading Strategy