For a broker to become the utmost choice of traders and investors, it must regularly update its service ad move hand in hand with advancing technology. It must cater to changing and altering needs of its clients. And when the broker has been in the market for many years, we expect swift functioning and trust. Well, we wished XTB was somewhere near the above criteria. The broker has been in the market since 2002, and it looks like it has frozen its services in the same year. Are you think of trading with XTB? Is XTB a scam? Read this detailed review to know why the broker is not the right choice.
Table of Contents:
What is XTB?
Is XTB Scam or Safe?
Also, there is no investor protection amount offered for clients outside of Europe.
At the same time, the broker does not provide any security features and softwares like SSL and Firewalls. This means your transactions and data are not encrypted.
Account Types
- The broker does not provide any variations in the trading account depending on the level of the traders. It just provides one standard account. This undermines the whole of the distinction based on features, functionalities, etc. More competent brokers like HFTrading and T1 Markets offer multiple account types that are highly customizable depending on the trading level.
- The account services are the bare minimum, which cannot suffice even the average trading levels. There is no negative balance protection or free VPS offered. One can only trade stocks via CFDs.
- The professional account involves high cost without any reasoning. And even though the broker claims leverage of 1:500 on a professional account, the leverage goes to the lowest on most of the securities when looked closely.
Ambiguous account opening process
The whole XTB login and account opening process seems pretty confusing and ambiguous. When you visit the account registration page on the website, you come across a pop-up page asking you to fill in personal details like your name, email, address, and then they ask you to create a password. Nothing else is mentioned about how the process may pan out. Many diligent brokers say the whole account opening process on their website to keep things clear and direct. Well here, XTB fails miserably.
High Trading Charges
Commission: On most of the securities and products, the commission is charged per lot. This increases the overall commission and can eat up a significant part of the trader’s profit. The commission charged can be as high as 3.50 dollars per lot.
Spreads: Spreads start from as high as 0.35 pips. The spreads seem incredibly high as many brokers start their spreads from just 0.03 pips.
Other charges include overnight and rollover fees, inactivity fees, and swap rates. The inactivity fee is charged at 10 euros. For electronic wallets, a fee of 2 percent is charged. If the trader pursues a withdrawal below 100 dollars, a fee of 20 dollars is applicable. All these fees combined together can come up as immensely huge and can put a tough stain on the trader’s earnings.
Trading Platform: Poor user interface
While many brokers bank on the ever-famous MetaTrader platforms for providing the most effortless navigation and trading services, XTB goes with its own “xStation”. The xStation does not seem to match up the MetaTrader platforms’ standards (MT4 and MT5). The whole interface of mobile, as well as web trading, seems hugely complicated and convoluted. The tabs are placed on to each other without any system or structural mapping.
Trading products and instruments
The broker offers to trade in instruments like cryptocurrencies, stock CFDs, forex, and more. But the assets and securities under each category of instruments are less and dissatisfactory. Such small numbers will not be able to garner an adequate diversification and mitigation of risks in the portfolio. At the same time, one may lose out on many profitable trading opportunities.
Deposit and Withdrawal
The methods of deposit and withdrawal are conventional and outdated. Moreover, there are high fees charges for withdrawal below 100 dollars. At the same time, withdrawal can take up to days to get processed. So if you want to withdraw some of your earnings in case of emergencies, you will be let down while trading with XTB.
Research and Education
For research and educational purposes, the broker offers minimal and conventional material and tools. Most of the material needs a serious upgrade. This depicts how less the broker cares about the growth and education of its clients. Research and educational tools constitute a crucial part of trading and can help profusely in enhancing the trades and profits.
Poor Customer Service
XTB claims to offer 24/7 customer support and service, but none of the support methods works actively when tested in practicality. The response time for calls are pretty elongated, and emails are not replied back for days. There is a live chat feature available on the broker’s website, but it seldom functions appropriately.
Cons of trading with XTB
Here is a list of all the reasons we think that broker is not worthy of your money.
- A high minimum deposit of 250 dollars
- High trading charges
- No MetaTrader
- Limited education and research tools
- Poor user interface
- Limited trading products
Conclusion
XTB has been in the market since 2002, but the services of the broker have not advanced as we entered the year 2021 now.
We do not think trading with XTB is a wise decision on any trader’s part. The broker is just trying to mint money wherever it is possible without providing any proper operations and trading services.
Other more competent brokers like HFTrading, T1 Markets, and TradeATF render better services and features at lesser trading costs and minimum deposits.
FAQs
What is the minimum deposit of XTB?
To trade with XTB, one has to open an account with a minimum deposit of 250 dollars.
What are the disadvantages of trading with XTB?
Here are some major disadvantages of trading with XTB:
- High commission and spreads
- Low leverage
- High minimum deposit
- Poor user interface
- No MetaTrader
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