Plus500 Review 2020

Plus500 is an online broker that focuses on covering a number of different financial markets with a low-cost structure. It first started out in the sector back in 2008 and it is under the watchful eye of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK. As Plus500 is also a publicly-traded company on the London Stock Exchange, this provides further credibility to its offering. 

In total, there are more than 2,000 different instruments for you to trade through this platform and it is constantly adding new options. This Plus500 broker review will look through the different parts that make up the Plus500 offering, allowing you to ultimately decide if this broker is a good fit for your needs.

Across the board, Plus500 is committed to providing a low-cost offering for traders. This is something that it manages to deliver, with the free structure being very transparent. You will not have to pay any fees for making deposits, getting real-time forex quotes, dynamic graphs and charts, for rolling positions, opening or closing a trade to get live CFD pricing.

The way in which Plus500 makes its money is through the buy/sell spread. This fee is already integrated into the price that you see quoted. For an S&P 500 CFD for example, you will have an average spread cost of 0.45, which is low for the sector. The average spread for the EUR/USD pair is 0.6 pips on average, which is at the lower end of the sector as a whole.

Some of the other fees that you need to consider include overnight funding, currency conversion fees, guaranteed stop orders and an inactivity fee that kicks in if you have not logged into your Plus500 for a three month period.

The WebTrader platform that is available on Plus500 is a way to easily streamlining your trading through an easy to use and consistent platform. It can be used through popular web browsers, so there is no need to download any software. You can access a wide range of different charting tools and there are over one hundred technical indicators on offer.

While there is no MetaTrader 4 offering on Plus500, the WebTrader offering is similar in many ways. One downside is that WebTrader is a closed system, which means that third-party tools are not able to be incorporated.

There are also Plus500 mobile apps for Android and iOS users. These contain all of the same functions that you can access via the desktop experience. More than one hundred technical indicators can be checked out, as well as having charting capabilities.

This is in contrast to a lot of mobile apps in the broker space that are very limited when compared to their desktop alternatives. With the Plus500 app, all the same trading instruments are on offer, and all of the research capabilities are also on offer. You will be hard-pressed to find a better mobile app trading offering in the space today.

While Plus500 is a global broker, there is a list of certain countries from which traders cannot sign up for an account. There is only one type of account on offer at Plus500 for retail traders, with this requiring you to deposit at least £100 if you are using a debit or credit card or an e-wallet. For bank transfers, the minimum deposit rises to £500.

Professional investors can access leverage, with the size of leverage varying depending on the asset class. There is also client money protection, negative balance protection and best execution for orders for professional accounts.

There is a decent array of banking options at Plus500 and you do not have to pay any fees for doing so. The easiest method is using a debit or credit card to add funds to your account. This only covers cards offered by Visa or MasterCard. Popular e-wallets like Skrill and PayPal are also on offer.

Finally, you can use a direct bank to bank transfer if you wish to do so, with this option having a £500 minimum required deposit. This minimum deposit drops to £100 for e-wallets and card deposits. In total, there are ten different base currencies to choose from on Plus500.

If you are making a withdrawal, you can use a credit card, e-wallet or bank transfer to do so. You can make as many as five withdrawals in a given month for free. You have to withdraw at last £50 if using PayPal and at least £100 if withdrawing via card or bank transfer. If you are looking to withdraw a lower sum, there will be a £10 charge. Generally, it will take a couple of working days for your withdrawal to process and for the funds to hit your account.

There is a detailed FAQ section that can prove to be very useful if you have a question about the Plus500 Offering or your account on the platform. Otherwise, you can use a few different methods to directly contact the support team. You will be able to use the live chat option for simple questions that need an instant reply.

Otherwise, you can email more detailed questions to the team. Finally, Plus500 also offers a Whatsapp support option. Unfortunately, there is currently no phone option whereby you can ring the team. Thankfully, the customer support team at Plus500 works on a 24/7 basis, allowing you to always get your issue addressed in a reasonable time frame.

Plus500 is regulated by one of the most respected authorities in the world, the FCA in the UK. It is also licensed in numerous other areas, such as through the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), as well as by authorities in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore and Israel. Therefore, you can rest easy that the Plus500 offering is fair and transparent.

For UK clients, you will have £85,000 worth of funds protected through the respective investor protection scheme. All client funds will also be segregated from the operational funds of Plus500, meaning that these funds will be kept safe in case Plus500 went insolvent.

The platform itself utilizes the best in encryption technology to ensure that client data is kept safe and sound throughout the entire experience.