Saxo Bank Review – Top Findings in 2021

Saxo Bank Review 2021

• Saxo Bank: Top Key Points
• Saxo Bank: Are they safe?
• Account Types available at Saxo Bank.
• Commissions and Fees at Saxo Bank
• Saxo Bank: Deposits and Withdrawals
• Platforms and Tools available at SAXO BANK
• Research Tools
• Educational Resources
• Mobile Trading
• Our Verdict
• Author

Overview

• Saxo Bank: Top Key Points
• Saxo Bank: Are they safe?
• Account Types available at Saxo Bank.
• Commissions and Fees at Saxo Bank
• Saxo Bank: Deposits and Withdrawals
• Platforms and Tools available at SAXO BANK
• Research Tools
• Educational Resources
• Mobile Trading
• Our Verdict
• Author

Saxo Bank is one of the most trusted online trading and investment services providers, it’s recognized among industry experts for its wide selection of tradeable instruments (40k+), brilliant research tools, and low-cost trading services. Saxo bank is a globally regulated broker, licensed and authorized by 15 international jurisdictions including 6 top-tier regulatory institutions, currently serving over 650k+ clients from all over the world. One thing should highlight that it doesn’t support e-Wallets, and the minimum deposit is $600 to $10000 depends on your entities. If minimum deposit is not a concern for you then Saxo Bank can be a brilliant choice.

In today’s review, we are going to bring all the features of Saxo Bank broker offerings, safety, platform and tools, research tools, and share all the important information about this broker, which will help a trader to choose the right broker.

Saxo Bank: Top Key Points

• Founded in 1992, 3 Decades of Market Experience. Licensed and authorized by multiple top-tier regulatory institutions
• 40,000+ tradeable instruments, including 182forex pairs
• Trading cost is very competitive to industries average
• Advanced proprietary trading platform and the user interface is extremely easy to use, suitable for both beginners and professionals.

Saxo Bank: Are they safe?

Saxo Bank is regulated by some of the strictest regulatory jurisdictions including FCA, FSA, and more, so it’s considered a low-risk broker, It was founded in Denmark in 1992, serving clients from all over the world for almost 3 decades, In this long period it survived various financial crises. We consider 3 decades of operation a solid track record. Saxo Bank is not publicly traded (not listed on any stock exchange), and operates a bank. However, it provides negative balance protection to EU retail clients only, institutions aren’t covered.

Client money, including cash, margin, and unrealized gains, are kept in distinct client money accounts at reputable banks and are clearly separated from Saxo Banks’ own funds. They don’t lodge retail client money towards margins with their hedging counterparties.

Additionally, Saxo bank disclosed financial data regularly to top-tier regulators, which increase Saxo’s safety.

Saxo Bank broker is authorized by the following regulators:

• The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• Saxo Bank is authorized by the following tier-1 regulators:
• Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC)
• Securities Futures Commission (SFC)
• Japanese Financial Services Authority (JFSA)
• Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)
• Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA)

Account Types available at Saxo Bank.

featuring main Three types of trading accounts: Classic, Platinum, and VIP account. On major currency pairs spreads start from 0.8, 07, and 0,6 in classic, platinum, and VIP accounts respectively. VIP account holders have access to the lowest pricing, but it doesn’t come cheaper. You have to deposit a minimum of $1,000,000 dollars (amounts vary from country to county).

Classic account: The classic account offers industry-average entry prices. To have access to the primary account type (classic) you need to deposit a minimum of USD 10,000 in most cases, but this amount varies from country to country like from the UK the minimum deposit is only 500 pounds. Classic account type is very useful for entry-level traders with a small balance. The other two account types make classic accounts less attractive.

Platinum account: The Platinum account holders will receive up to 30% lower prices, priority local language support 24/5, and much more. To have access to the Platinum account, you need to deposit a minimum of USD 200,000 or 300,000 SGD,  AUD 300,000 (amount varies from country to country). Luckily, there is another way you can upgrade from the Classic to Platinum account for 12 months if you trade more than $40 million.

VIP account: Saxo Bank’s VIP account comes with few rare features like VIP holders will get the VIP treatment with the best pricing Saxo has to offer (tightest spreads and lowest commissions), priority customer support, direct access to our trading experts 24/7, Personal expert meetups where you directly discuss market movements with the Saxo Bank’s Experts, exclusive event invitations. VIP accounts are reserved for elite investors who deposit at least USD 1,000,000 or 1,500,000 SGD (amount varies from country to country). Also, you will be upgraded to the VIP account for 12 months through Saxo Bank Loyalty Program, if you trade more than $167M in a calendar month.

Commissions and Fees at Saxo Bank

Fees in forex trading fees are generally of two types. One is a Trading fee and a Non-Trading fee.

1. A trading fee is charged every time when you open a position. Training fees include spreads, commission fees, swaps, and currency conversion fees.
2. Non-trading fees include deposit and withdrawal fees, and inactivity fees.

Trading Fees: Saxo Bank offers commission-free trading, The only trading cost you have to pay spreads, and the commission fee is built into spreads with no hidden fees charges, fully transparent about commissions and fees. Trading cost is average compared to industry-leading brokers. The fee structure is different depends on account types. Saxo Bank offering a total of 11 trading and investment assets where 4 investment products stocks, EFTs, Bonds and Mutual funds, and 7 trading products are Forex, CFDs, commodities, futures, Forex options, listed options, and cryptocurrency trading. There is a different fee structure for each of them. However, Saxo Bank has a high bond, options, and futures fees compare to the industry average.

Below are some of the main points described:

Stock fees: Saxo Bank office a wide range of stock selection, you can have access to 19000 + stocks across core and emerging-market on 37 exchanges worldwide. There is no commission on US stocks and no fee for transferring stock from another provider. Overall Saxo Bank has average stocks commissions.

EFTs Fees: You can access more than 3,000 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from 30+ exchanges around the world. EFTs trading cost is average compare to other competitors. Although they offer a volume-based fee structure, there is a minimum fee for those who trade small volumes.

Bond Fees: Saxo Bank features 5000+ government and corporate bonds in Europe, US, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America. Bonds fees structure contains high fees, standard commission rates start at 0.20% and drop as low as 0.05% as you trade more.

Mutual funds: you will get access to more than 500 top-rated mutual funds from the world’s largest investors. There are no commissions, no custody fees, and no platform fees. The only fees you pay is your account management fee when you invest in mutual funds with Saxo Markets.

Forex Trading Fees: There are plenty of opportunities to diversify your portfolio between 40000+ instruments. Currently, it offers 182 Forex pairs including major, minor, cross, and exotic pairs. Overall, Saxo Bank’s Forex trading fees are lower compared to other industry leaders like IG, CMC Markets, Paperstone brokers. Spread starts from 0.4 pips and no commission applied in VIP account and even lower for active traders.

CFDs fees: Saxo Bank provides highly competitive pricing with tight spreads and low commissions while trading CFD instruments. There are 9000+ CFDs available at Saxo Bank including single sticks, forex, indices, commodities, options, and bonds. You can trade US stock CFDs from 3, and US Wall St 30 from only 1.4 points.

Option trading fees: At Saxo Bank option fees are high. You can access 44 Forex options and the trading duration is 1 day – 1 year. Please note: You can open extremely short period of time trade, starting from 1 min duration but there is so many complain about withdrawal from other popular options broker like IQ Option and Expert Options.

Cryptocurrency Trading Fees: You can trade with only major cryptocurrencies with Saxo Bank including Bitcoin, LITECOIN, ETHEREUM and more. There are mainly two types of crypto trading ways available, these are short-term with Crypto FX and long-term with Crypto ETPs. With Crypto FX you can trade short-term using leverage and open long or short positions.

And with Crypto ETPs, you can’t use leverage. In this way, you can buy and hold cryptos just like you would with stocks. So, you can’t lose more than you invested.

Futures fees: Trading Futures with Saxo Bank contains very low costs. For 1 standard lot, it costs only $ 1.25 for VIP account holders and $ 6 for classic account holders. You can access 200+ futures from 23 global exchanges, covering equity indices, energy, metals, agriculture, rates, and FX.

Saxo Bank: Deposits and Withdrawals

Saxo Bank supports multiple deposit and withdrawal options including credit/Debit cards and Bank transfers. Unfortunately, there are no E-wallets options by Saxo. (Netteller or Skrill). We guess it because electronics wallets are so risky, there are so many complaints about e-wallets especially Skrill and Neteller, and also for making big transaction e-wallet are more costly than bank transfers.

Saxo Bank requires at least 600 GBP in the UK or $10,000 in US minimum deposit amount depends on your regulatory entities.

Platforms and Tools available at SAXO BANK

Saxo Bank offers an advanced proprietary web trading platform “SaxoTrader Go” and the Desktop platform “SaxoTrader Pro”. The trading platform comes with robust trading tools, a lot of great research tools, and it professionally made for high-volume traders. Its user interface is very neatly arranged which is very useful for both a beginner and an advanced trader. No doubt, Saxo’s web trader platform is one of the most featured trading platforms available in the market now.

SaxoTraderGO (web): Saxo’s flagship web trading platform is SaxoTraderGO, you can use this platform from any browser, looks and feels are the same as its desktop trading platform SaxoTraderPRO. They try to keep their web trader design modern and minimalist yet delivers advanced trading capabilities. You can multiple charts in the adjustable window like MetaTrader 4 and 5 platform which is very handy if you work with multiple charts. Also, you can use different indicators and drawing tools for custom chart setup and save them as presets to save time.

Saxo also features some exclusive options like “OpenAPI for Excel” where you can manage your portfolio directly from Excel spreadsheet. Also Google’s TradingView charts with market analysis, backtesting opportunity.

Advanced Oder Panel

Saxo Bank supports multiple advanced order types:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop limit
• Stop
• Trailing stop
• One-cancels-the-other (OCO)

There are also several order time limits available:

• Good-till-canceled (GTC)
• Day Order
• One week
• One month
• End of week
• End of month
• End of Year
• Good-till-date (GTD)
• Immediate or cancel (IOC)

Saxo is always very transparent about its trading cost. while opening new positions its order Ticket panel shows every single detail related to this order.

New Order Ticket Panel

Charting: With this next-generation, webTrader (SaxoTraderGO and SaxoTraderPro) platform charting became quite handy. Especially when there are 58 technical indicators, 20 drawing tools, and candlestick patterns, chart patterns that are easily attachable. Charting tools are auto-adjustable so when you are using different time frames chart patterns are auto-adjust with your setup.

SaxoTraderPRO (desktop): Saxo Bank’s desktop platform is called SaxoTraderPRO features the same functionality as Saxo’s web-trader (SaxoTraderGO). SaxoTraderPRO provides high-performance tools built to manage and execute orders, with in-depth market analysis features.

MetaTrader (third-party): Saxo’s flagship proprietary platforms are no less than MetaTrader platform, needless to say in some aspects Go and Pro is better. We don’t think you need MetaTrader over Saxo’s GO and Pro platforms. Still, if you want to use the MetaTrader platform because you are familiar with the MetaTrader. Yes, you can use third-party trading platforms besides MetaTrader through Saxo’s API, remember these functions don’t come cheaper. You have to deposit a minimum of $20,000 in your account and spend at least $2,000/month.  We recommend you to use Saxo’s web trader.

Demo Account: Yes, it features Demo account but it’s limited to 20 days. The good news is you can have real trading experience with feeling the full potential from the Demo account.

Research Tools

Saxo Bank has a strong foundation for research tools. They provide in-house and third-party high-quality content and market analysis. Saxo Bank provides market updates from their own experts and third parties like Dow Jones, NewsEdge, and RanSquawk. Contents are high-quality and contain so much useful information that helps a trader to take the next trading decision. Research tools including Insights News, Webinars, market call podcasts, trading signals, market scanner, latest news covering all hot topics.

Educational Resources

Saxo Bank offers industry-leading educational resources. Wide range of collections including written articles, podcasts, live webinars, and video updates.

Article Contents: They have already published so much written content in the Insights section about forex trading and related topics basics and beginner articles. Contents are published by Saxo’s in-house expert’s team called “Saxo Strats”.

Video content: Besides written articles, you will found 41 tutorials video about market analysis, account risk-management these kind of topics. These contents are published by Saxo’s in-house experts and CME group.

Mobile Trading

Saxo Bank offers its proprietary mobile trading app SaxoTraderGO able to trade, modify, or close position directly from your phone. It synchronizes seamlessly from the WebTrader platform. The mobile app looks and feel is almost similar to its WebTrader version. The SaxoTraderGO comes with multiple research tools, charting tools, educational content, and much more.

Synchronization: The WebTrader and the SaxoTraderGO mobile app are always synchronized. So, any changes happened on WebTrader that sync automatically with the mobile app. For example, if you create a watch list through a WebTrader, it will be synchronized with your mobile app, so you can trade directly from there.

Charting: Their SaxoTraderGO mobile app featured 58 indicators including candlestick, spread, and Heikin-Ashi and 20 drawing tools. You can have a good charting experience using these indicators. You can save different chart layout settings as preset for setting up your chart quickly next time.

Our Verdict

Overall Saxo Bank has 3 decades of market experience, offering lower-cost trading with over 40,000 trading instruments, including 182 currency pairs make it way ahead of its competitors. Their web trader platform interface is extremely beginner-friendly ease of use. The only drawback we found is its minim deposit amount, if the minimum deposit is not a concern for you then Saxo Bank could be a perfect brokerage for all short of traders.