Exness Review 2023

Trust

In our trust category, we place most importance on how a broker is regulated. So let’s dive in and take a look at how the different entities of Exness across the globe are regulated and how this impacts you as a trader. We rate regulators on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 reflecting the highest level of trust.

• Exness (UK) Ltd. is an Investment Firm, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom under the Financial Services Register number 730729. We rate the FCA as a Tier 1 regulator.
• Exness (Cy) Ltd. is a Cyprus Investment Firm, authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) with licence number 178/12. We rate CySEC as a Tier 1 regulator.
• Exness ZA (PTY) Ltd. is authorized by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) in South Africa as a Financial Service Provider (FSP) with FSP number 51024. We rate FSCA as a Tier 2 regulator.
• Exness (SC) Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA) with licence number SD025. We rate the FSA as a Tier 3 regulator.
• Exness B.V. is a Securities Intermediary authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten with licence number 0003LSI. We rate Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten as a Tier 3 regulator.
• Exness (VG) Ltd is authorised by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) with registration number 2032226 and investment business licence number SIBA/L/20/1133. We rate FSC as a Tier 3 regulator.
• Tortelo Limited is authorised by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in Mauritius with registration number 176967. We rate FSC as a Tier 3 regulator.

Why is it important to know where your broker subsidiary (entity) is regulated?

Different regulators provide different levels of protection. For example, Exness clients in the United Kingdom benefit from the oversight of the FCA. The FCA requires that clients have negative balance protection, which means that they cannot lose more than their deposit. Client funds must be held in segregated accounts, which are protected in the event of a broker going bankrupt.

In addition, when trading with a broker authorised by the FCA, client funds are also protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The FSCS protects investments of up to £85,000 if a firm becomes insolvent. By contrast, a trader working with a broker entity regulated offshore would not have these benefits guaranteed to them.

In the table below we break down the mandated protections and benefits by entity, regulator and region.

Regulatory requirements are subject to change. The data listed above was gathered in February 2022.

Stability and Transparency

In our tests for the Trust category we also cover factors relating to stability and transparency. Here, we focus on how long the broker has been in business, the size of the company and how transparent they are in terms of information being readily available.

Exness has a substantial operating history of 14 years. According to their LinkedIn page, the company is headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus and has over 1,000 employees in offices located in Asia and Europe.

In our research, Exness showed an average level of transparency in their regulatory status, with a listing of all their entities and their regulators on their Regulation page. However, with so many offshore entities it is not clear which entity you would be assigned to if you open an account. Trading costs are covered in detail on the Fees page.

We would have liked to see more information on the background and history of the company on the website, as there is no page dedicated to this. The Client Agreement document is available on the Legal Documents page.

Fees

In the Standard Account, Exness earns money mainly from spreads (the gap between the bid and offer prices of an asset).

Trading Fees

We tested the spreads at Exness across different asset classes in a Standard Account using the Trading Terminal platform. The test was done at 8AM GMT and at 3PM GMT on February 22nd 2022. We made our tests at two different times to allow greater perspective. 8AM GMT is the London open, when there is a great deal of liquidity in the forex market and therefore tighter spreads in currency pairs. 3PM GMT is a quieter time, shortly before the opening of the New York stock exchange.

Spreads in forex, stocks and commodities are relatively competitive within the industry. However, the spreads in indices are rather wide.

Swap Fees

Exness does not charge swap fees for stocks, crypto, indices, gold along with some popular currencies depending on your account settings.

Exness has two swap-free levels: Extended and Standard. The difference is in the amount of instruments you can keep overnight without being charged.

With the standard swap-free level, no swap fees are charged for XAU/USD, indices, cryptocurrencies or stocks. Swaps are charged for all other instruments.

With the extended swap-free level, no swap fees are charged for AUD/NZD, AUD/USD, EUR/CHF, EUR/USD, GBP/JPY, GBP/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CAD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY, USOIL, AUD/CHF, AUD/JPY, EUR/AUD, EUR/CAD, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, EUR/NZD, GBP/CHF, GBP/NZD, NZD/JPY, NZD/CAD, XAU/USD, indices, cryptocurrencies, and stocks. Swap fees are charged for all other metals, minor pairs, exotic pairs and UKOIL.

To get the extended swap-free level, you need to trade mostly within the day and keep a small amount of overnight positions.

We measured the cost of swaps in EUR/USD and GBP/JPY and recorded the overnight charges/credit as follows.

Non-Trading Fees

Exness does not charge an inactivity fee and there are no deposit or withdrawal fees.

Are Fees at Exness Competitive?

Fees at Exness are somewhat competitive and this broker deserves credit for keeping swap fees and non-trading fees to a bare minimum.

Platforms and Tools

Exness Terminal Web Platform

The Exness Terminal has an intuitive interface and popular features such as watchlists, 1-click trading and trading from the chart. Charting provided by TradingView is robust, with 50 drawing tools, 100 indicators, 9 time frames and 7 chart types. Available order types include market orders and pending orders (buy limit, buy stop, sell limit, sell stop, buy stop limit, sell stop limit, take profit and stop loss). Trailing stop orders and time in force orders (such as GTC) are not available.

The platform has some unique features such as a sentiment indicator which tells you the percentage of buy and sell orders that were recently opened by traders using Exness.

MetaTrader

Exness offers the popular MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms for desktop, which include advanced functions such as copy trading and automated trading.

MetaTrader 5 is available in 31 languages. The platform provides popular features such as:

• Alerts. This feature allows traders to be updated when an instrument reaches a specific price level. Alerts can be delivered via audio, an email, or a push notification to a mobile device.
• Watchlists. Traders can set up a list of their favorite instruments and follow live quotes in a panel called Market Watch.
• One-click trading. This feature allows traders to execute orders with a single click and no secondary confirmation. Being able to place a trade with a single click saves time and is especially useful for short term traders.
• Trading from the chart. MT5 also allows users the convenience of trading directly from the chart.

Order Types

MetaTrader also delivers when it comes to the range of available order types. The following order types are available:

• Market Order. This is an order to buy or sell an instrument at the current best available price.
• Limit Orders. This is an order to buy or sell an instrument at a specified price or better.
• Stop Loss Order. This is an order to buy or sell an instrument that is triggered when price reaches a specified level.
• Trailing Stop Order. This is a stop loss order that can be set at a defined percentage or dollar amount away from an instrument’s current market price. It is used to secure profits when you are in a winning trade, while not having to exit the position.

Time in force conditions such as Good ‘Til Canceled (GTC) can be applied to pending orders.

Charting

Charting features are robust. MetaTrader offers:

• 38 technical indicators. These include classic trend indicators, volume indicators and oscillators.
• 44 analytical objects. These include lines, channels, Gann and Fibonacci tools.
• 21 time frames Each instrument can be displayed in nine time frames, from one minute to one month.
• 3 chart types. Traders can choose between Bar Charts, Japanese Candlestick Charts and Line Charts.

Mobile Trading

Exness offers their proprietary mobile app, Exness Trader, as well as MetaTrader 4 and 5 for mobile.

Available for iOS and Android, the Exness Trader app provides access to over 200 instruments. The app has a user friendly interface designed specifically for beginners. Instant deposits and withdrawals and 24/7 customer support are available via the app.

Charting within the app features two chart types (line and candle), 7 timeframes (M1, M5, M15, M30, H1, H4, D1) and classic indicators such as Moving averages, Bollinger Bands and Parabolic SAR. Order types within the app include market orders and pending orders such as limit orders and stop loss orders. The Exness Trader app also features an economic calendar, market news and trade ideas from Trading Central.

Order Execution

Exness is a dealing desk/market maker broker, meaning that they set the bid (buy) and offer (sell) prices internally and automatically take the other side of a clients trade.

Tradable Instruments

CFDs (Contract for Differences) are financial derivative products that allow traders to speculate in various markets without owning the underlying assets. Tradable instruments at Exness include the following assets:

• 97 Currency Pairs. A currency pair combines two different currencies, with the value of one currency quoted against the other. For example EUR/USD, which reflects the value of the euro measured in dollars.
• 10 Indices. An index is a basket of trading instruments that is used to gauge a market sector, stocks within an exchange or the economy of a country.
• 35 Cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are digital currencies that are secured by cryptography.
• 90 Stock CFDs. A stock is a security that represents partial ownership of a corporation. Keep in mind that when trading stock CFDs you are speculating on the price of a stock without actually taking ownership of the underlying company.
• 6 Commodity CFDs. Commodities are raw products, such as gold and oil.

In the tables below, you can see a selection highlighting the variety of instruments available at Exness:

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.

In the category of Tradable Instruments, Exness is strongest in forex and has a relatively sparse offering in commodities and stocks.

Customer Support

Chat support at Exness begins with a bot. If the bot cannot answer your question you are assigned to a live representative. Live support was helpful and the wait times were usually less than a minute. For email inquiries it took several days to receive a response.

We tested support with a variety of questions. These ranged from the basic, for example, ‘what is the maximum leverage available’ to more complex inquiries such as ‘how are orders executed at Exness?’. Overall we received a good quality of response.

Deposits & Withdrawals

Deposits

Available deposit methods at Exness range from bank transfer to credit card, cryptocurrency and digital wallets.

* Bank transfer deposits are not available in all countries.

Withdrawals

A wide range of withdrawal methods are also available, from bank transfer to credit card, cryptocurrency and digital wallets. Many withdrawals are carried out with no manual processing, including on weekends.

Account Types and Terms

Account Types

At Exness, there are two Standard Accounts available: Standard and Standard Cent (designed for new traders, this account is denominated in cents). The table below covers key account features.

Professional Accounts (Raw Spread, Zero and Pro) are designed for experienced traders, including scalpers, day traders and algorithmic traders.

Accounts can be denominated in 45 different base currencies.

Leverage

One of the reasons that traders are attracted to the forex and CFD markets is the high degree of available leverage. Leverage is the use of borrowed funds to increase the size of your trading positions beyond what would be possible using only the cash in your account.

The default leverage at Exness is 1:2000. This is a very high level of available leverage. It means that with an account of $1,000 you can control up to $2000,000 worth of positions in the market. Leverage is often described as a ‘double-edged sword’ as it can hurt you as much as it helps you. Traders must remember that it can amplify both their profits and their losses.

In some instances Exness offers unlimited leverage. To access unlimited leverage the trading account must have equity of less than $1,000. In addition, the trader must have closed at least 10 positions (excluding pending orders) and 5 lots (or 500 cent lots) across all real accounts.

Demo Accounts

Exness offers demo accounts for both the Trading Terminal platform and MetaTrader. This is especially important for beginners as it enables them to practice their strategies and get comfortable with the trading platform without risking any real money.

The demo account features live quotes and simulates live market conditions in assets such as forex and CFDs on commodities, indices and stocks. Once you have got up to speed on a demo account, you can easily switch over to a live account.

Islamic Accounts

Exness does offer swap free Islamic accounts but only for residents of Islamic countries.

Supported Countries

In mainland Europe and the UK, Exness focuses on B2B financial services exclusively offered to Professional institutions. Exness accepts retail clients from the majority of countries outside Europe.

Exness does not accept clients from the United States of America, American insular areas (American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Island, Kingman Reef, Northern Mariana Islands, Midway Islands, Wake Island, Palmyra Atoll, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Navassa Island, United States Minor Outlying Islands), Vatican City, Puerto Rico, Marshall Islands, US Virgin Islands).

Exness also do not accept residents of the following countries: New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Vanuatu, Seychelles, Russia, Israel, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestinian Territory, Iran, North Korea, Malaysia, all EU countries, Gibraltar, Curacao, the United Kingdom and others. However, nationals of these countries are accepted if they live in any allowed country.

Research

Traders can stay on top of key economic events with the economic calendar on the Exness website. The calendar shows the expected impact of the economic release, the actual figure, the analyst forecast and the figure from the prior release.

Market news is available within the Exness personal area. This real-time feed of market news includes the latest updates from the FXStreet Insights Team. Stories feature key takeaways from economic data and technical insights such as major support and resistance levels.

Trading signals by Trading Central are also available within the personal area in a section called Analyst Views. Here you can select the market that you would like to view, including forex, stocks, indices and commodities. The analysis draws from technical data such as ‘The MACD is below its signal line and positive’. Along with this, clear cut forecasts are given, for example ‘USD/ZAR may rise 1214 – 1674 pips’. These trading ideas can be filtered to cover the short term (intraday) or longer term time frames such as daily and weekly.

Trading Central WebTV is also available via the Exness website. Daily videos provide market commentary and trading ideas, along with news coming directly from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Education

The Exness Education portal offers 3 courses:

• How Trading Works (11 short video lessons and 11 articles). Geared towards beginners, this course covers basic topics such as ‘What are CFDs?’ and ‘Margin and Leverage’.
• How to analyse (10 short video lessons and 10 articles). This course is made for intermediate level traders and includes segments on ‘Support and Resistance’ and ‘Sentiment’.
• Managing risk: the basics (7 short video lessons and 7 articles). This course is for intermediate level traders and features lessons on ‘The Psychology of Trading’ and ‘Managing Risk with Stops and Targets’.

There is a quiz at the end of each course to test your understanding of the material.

There is also a Knowledge Base section that has over 30 in depth articles covering subjects such as the stochastic oscillator and strategy trading. The section also includes videos covering basic topics such as pips and points. The Market insights area which featured market analysis articles has not been updated since May of 2021.

The Bottom Line

Exness is a large and well established forex and CFD broker with a unique offering. Features such as instant withdrawals, limited swap fees and social trading capabilities differentiate this. With their own intuitive platform, strong education and research materials Exness is a good broker for beginners. The availability of massive leverage, tight spreads and advanced tools may appeal to advanced traders. Retail clients are overseen by offshore regulators and should be aware of the limited protections guaranteed to them.

FAQ