Forex Leader

OANDA has a long history of innovative market firsts with its FXTrade platform.

• The first forex trading platform to show price movements in graphical form, making currency trading more understandable to more traders.
• The first and only platform to provide true 24/7 trading, even on weekends.
• The first and only platform to calculate and pay interest by the second.
• The first platform to introduce pipettes (fractional pips).
• See the big list of OANDA innovations.

Low spreads

OANDA offers low spreads to all traders with no discrimination.

• We lead the way on low spreads — with a 0.9 pip spread on the EUR/USD.
• Spreads matter to your bottom line, and under normal market conditions OANDA is committed to offering the tightest spreads possible.
• During non-standard trading hours such as weekends, spreads are widened to reflect illiquidity in the market.
• During periods of high volatility such as news events, spreads may be widened temporarily to respond to liquidity issues in the market.

Reliability

OANDA has offered online currency exchange information since 1996 and forex trading services since 2001.

OANDA is registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) and is a member of the National Futures Association (NFA # 0325821).

• As at November, 2007, OANDA holds 15 times more than the required regulated capital (in excess of $140 million as at September 17, 2007).
• Our investors are industry and technology leaders confident in OANDA's technology and its use of that technology to redefine currency trading.
• We manage risks with sophisticated hedging algorithms and strict hedging policies. Any net exposure above predefined thresholds is hedged with third-party banks at the current market spread. Hedging mechanisms are real-time, fully automated and always on.
• OANDA is never exposed to customer losses.The FXTrade platform automatically closes positions with a margin call before a customer’s losses can exceed their balance. Customers will never owe us money (we guarantee it in our customer agreement).
• OANDA is a trusted partner in the forex market. We are the go-to source for forex rates, trusted by financial institutions and the big four accounting firms. Our FXTrade technology is a proven white label forex platform for financial institutions.

Flexibility

OANDA offers the flexibility to tailor trading and hedging to your own needs.

• Trade 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
• Trade any amount you want—say 1 unit or maybe 9,321,641 units—all at the same tight spread. You decide your trade size and are not locked into a specific “lot size”. No minimum balance is required.
• Trade all the majors and many exotic currency pairs and metals, including USD/CNY (Chinese Yuan), USD/INR (Indian Rupee), USD/TRY (Turkish Lira), gold and silver.
• Trade anywhere there's an Internet connection (only a standard Java-enabled browser is required).
• Continuous interest means you trade when you want, with no rollover swaps.
• Open an account in any one of seven major currencies. You can select your account’s home currency and wire funds to OANDA in your home currency, eliminating bank exchange rates when opening a forex trading account.

Open Forex

OANDA is committed to creating an open forex community with full transparency.

• OANDA FXMessage is an open community created by people interested in the forex market. Our customers (and others) use these forums to talk about forex and forex market conditions, and to raise issues relating to OANDA. Their complaints and compliments are available for anyone to read and comment about. This type of open community is unprecedented in the forex market space.
• OANDA’s costs are openly published for all to see: current spreads, past spreads, spread comparisons, interest rates.
• Open positions and open orders for major pairs are available for all to see, not just a select few. This information can be an indicator of the client price expectations that are contributing to natural resistance and support levels.
• Traders get free access to forex tools and professional forex news (including Thomson Financial News, 4cast, and UBS Analysis).
• We provide our practice platform for free, with no time limits. Beginning traders, students, and others can trade for as long as they likeunder real market conditions—with real prices and real spreads.