A. Willson
As a trusted multi-asset broker, XTB offers traders outstanding customer service and an excellent trading experience overall thanks to the xStation 5 trading platform.
Top Takeaways for 2021
Here are our top findings on XTB:
- Founded in 2002, XTB is publicly-traded and regulated in one tier-1 jurisdiction, making it a safe broker (low-risk) for trading forex and CFDs.
- XTB’s xStation platform suite provides excellent usability alongside a robust selection of trading tools, research, and advanced features. XTB is also a viable option for cryptocurrency trading.
- XTB provides outstanding customer service and won our award for #1 Phone Support. In 2020, XTB finished 1st place (out of 22) in our national testing from locations across the United Kingdom.
Is XTB Safe?
XTB is considered low-risk, with an overall Trust Score of 95 out of 99. XTB is a publicly traded company that is authorised by one tier-1 regulator (high trust), two tier-2 regulator (average trust), and one tier-3 regulator (low trust). XTB is authorised by the following tier-1 regulator: Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Learn more about Trust Score.
Offering of Investments
XTB provides traders access to CFDs on 3900 stocks and ETFs, 22 commodities, 42 indices, 25 cryptocurrencies, and 49 forex pairs. Furthermore, the broker also provides nearly 7800 cash equities (i.e., non-leveraged), including 150 ETFs, as part of its securities offering. The following table summarizes the different investment products available to XTB clients.
Cryptocurrency: Cryptocurrency trading is available through CFDs and through trading the underlying asset (e.g. buying Bitcoin). Note: Crypto CFDs are not available from any broker’s UK entity, nor to UK residents.
Commissions and Fees
XTB offers two account types: Standard (spread-only) and Pro (commission-based). Bottom line, pricing at XTB is in line with the industry average.
Average Spreads: XTB lists target spreads on the EUR/USD for its various account types, 0.949 pips on the standard account, and 0.349 pips for the commission-based Pro account, as of August 2020. During the main session (00:00-08:00) averages spreads were slightly better at 0.859 (Standard) and 0.259 (Pro) during the same period. Using data from Q2 2020, XTB average spreads on the EUR/USD stood at 0.086, while the Pro account spread averaged nearly 0.03 (or 1.1 pip after including the commission-equivalent of $8 per round turn standard lot ($4 per side). One final point is that I found the MT4 account spreads to be slightly higher than when using XTB’s flagship platform xStation 5.
Standard vs. Pro accounts: With minimum deposits at XTB that start at 250 base currency (i.e., £250, €250, or $250), the Pro account is similarly priced to the Standard account when trading higher volumes. Meanwhile, for smaller amounts, the Standard account appears cheaper. My choice for retail traders would be the standard account, which had an average spread of 0.86 pips during Q2 2020 for the EUR/USD pair.
Active trader discounts: For active traders (and those in the EU who meet the definition of elective professionals), XTB will rebate a portion of the spread (from 5% to 30%) back to you when you reach certain volume thresholds, starting from 20 lots per month to as much as 1000 lots for the full 30% discount. This active trader program is known as XTB’s lower spread group and helps the company compete with similar offerings from FXCM, FOREX.com, and CMC Markets.
