Global Prime Broker Review

Written by Emmanuel Ifeanyi

Emmanuel Ifeanyi

Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ekwomadu is a financial content writer specialised in Forex, Stock and Crypto trading. He is the person behind most of the brokers reviews that you will find on BestBrokers.com

, | Updated: November 19, 2024

Global Prime is an online trading broker that is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. The broker offers traders access to over 80 markets across Forex, Metals, Energies, Hard and Soft Commodities, and Equity Indices. It provides both institutional and retail traders with competitive trading conditions, including ECN execution, low latency connectivity to tier-1 bank liquidity, and an unrivaled trading experience.

In this broker review, we will pay attention to the critical aspects of Global Prime, which you may need to consider before deciding whether to trade with this online brokerage. Global Prime has achieved an excellent 4.5-star rating on Trustpilot from 153 consumer reviews. An overwhelming 72% of all customers rate Global Prime as a 5-star brokerage as opposed to 7% who assigned it a 1-star rating.

Key Pros and Cons

Let us first briefly look at Global Prime’s merits and demerits.

Company Information

Global Prime Group is comprised of the following corporate entities with their respective regulated offices:

• Global Prime Pty Ltd, regulated by the ASIC: office address: Suite 504 35 Grafton Street Bond Junction, Australia
• Gleneagle Securities PTY Limited, regulated by the VFSC: office address: Govant Building, BP 1276, Port Vila, Vanuatu
• Global Prime FX Ltd, regulated by the FSA: office address: Seychelles

Note that Global Prime does not offer its services to residents of certain countries, such as North Korea, Iran, the USA, Puerto Rico, Ivory Coast, Ontario (Canada), and other regions.

Why Trade with Global Prime?

Now, let us provide a quick list of the key features that we like about Global Prime.

Regulation

Global Prime Group of companies is authorized and regulated in various jurisdictions:

In Australia, where the broker has its headquarters, Global Prime operates as Global Prime Pty Ltd, which is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). It holds an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) to carry on a business in Australia, limited to the financial services covered by its AFSL no.385620.
Gleneagle Securities PTY Limited, trading as Global Prime FX, is a registered Vanuatu company (Company Number 40256) and is regulated by the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC).

Global Prime’s international operations are handled by Global Prime FX Ltd, a registered Seychelles company (Company Number 8426189-1) that holds a Securities Dealers Licence SD057 issued by the Financial Services Authority of Seychelles (FSA). However, this regulation by FSA is not as solid as ASIC.

A breakdown of the various regulatory regimes is presented below.

The regulation from ASIC is strict, thus giving the broker a fairly solid regulation status.

However, the broker is not regulated by the CFTC, and as such, cannot provide its services to citizens or residents of the United States.

Also, the absence of an FCA regulation indicates that UK-based clients trading with the broker are not covered under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if the broker fails to meet its financial obligations.

KYC Procedure for Account Creation and Depositing

Opening a Global Prime account is simple. You need to click on the ‘Start Trading’ tab on the homepage and complete your application form. You would need to upload some relevant documents to complete your account application. Generally, the entire account creation process complies with the industry-standard procedure and follows these steps:

1. Creating your secure login: First, you enter a valid email and choose a password
2. Completing the application form with your details: Here, you input your names, date of birth, city of residence, address, postcode, and phone number
3. Choosing your trading account: You have to choose your preferred trading platform and account type (ECN accounts)
4. Confirming your suitability status: You will be required to disclose information about your employment status and sources of income, as well as your trading experience. Based on your answers, if you are approved, you can proceed to the next step of the process; however, if any of your answers do not match the broker’s internal requirements, your application will be rejected;
5. Accepting the terms: You have to tick the box at the bottom of the account registration form to indicate that you accept Global Prime’s Terms and Conditions
6. Verifying your documents: Here, you provide your proof of ID (Passport, national ID card, or Driver’s License) and proof of residency (utility bill or bank account statement that is less than three months) for Global Prime to verify your account.

While the account creation is swift (can be completed within a few minutes), it may take up to 24 hours to verify your trading account. Upon verifying your account, you will have to fund it via any of the allowed payment methods before you can start trading.

Account Types

Global Prime offers both retail and institutional traders ECN accounts, which features the following:

• ECN ‘Best Execution’, routing orders to 26+ liquidity providers
• Low latency period, from as low as 1ms
• Commission fees of $3.5 per side ($7 per lot round turn)
• No minimum deposit
• Super-tight, variable spreads
• Automated trade receipts for the ultimate transparency

Retail accounts are of two types: the commission-free account and commission-based account

Islamic Account (Swap-Free)

Global Prime offers swap-free trading on the ECN account. The swap-free accounts are designed for traders who cannot receive or pay swaps due to religious beliefs. While this account type does not incur any swaps or interest charges on overnight positions, the account holder is charged an administration fee on trading positions.

Demo Account

The broker provides traders with an MT4 demo account, which traders can use to practice their trading strategies on multiple financial instruments without risking real money. The demo account comes preloaded with virtual for practice purposes.

Trading fees and other costs

Every trader should always consider a broker’s trading fees and other costs before choosing a broker. As a CFD and Forex broker, Global Prime charges two types of trading fees, namely:

• Trading costs – spreads, commissions, and overnight financing rates;
• Non-trading costs – account management fees, deposit and withdrawal fees, non-activity fees.

Let us take a quick look at the trading fees that are available at Global Prime.

Spreads

Global Prime offers two main account types, and their spreads are as follows:

• Commission-free Account — Spreads start from 0.4 pips with no commissions
• ECN Commission-based Account — Tight ECN spreads (starting from 0.0 pips) and a commission of $7.0 per round turn.

Let us take a look at the average spreads offered on the ECN account types:

From the above, we can see a mark-up spread of 0.55 pips to the average spread on Global Prime’s Commission-free Account to cover the costs of trading.

Now, let us compare the trading costs of the two account types. We will use a 1 Lot trade on EUR/USD (where one pip movement equals $10) and assume that the trade is opened and closed at the same price. By using the average spreads, the trading costs for the three accounts will be as follows:

Commission-free Account

• Spread – 0.71 pips
• TOTAL COST – 0.71 x $10 = $7.10 per side and $14.20 per round turn

ECN Commission-based Account

• Spread – 0.16 pips
• Spread cost – 0.16 x $10 = $1.60 per side and $3.20 per round turn
• Commission – $3.50 per side and $7.00 per round turn
• TOTAL COST – $3.20 + $7.0 = $10.20 per round turn

So, the ECN Commission-based Account offers cheaper trading costs and is the preferred option for high-volume traders.

Finally, let us compare Global Prime Commission-free Account average spreads with what other major brokerages offer on the most actively traded Forex pairs.

From the table above, the spreads offered by Global Prime Commission-free Account are similar to that of their top competitors in the industry, such as IC Markets and Fusion Markets.

Commissions

At Global Prime, there is a commission-free account that charges no commissions, and there is also the ECN Account that charges a commission fee of $7 per round turn.

This means that on the ECN Commission-based account:

• for a 1 Standard Lot trade (100,000 units), you will pay a $7.0 commission to open and close the position;
• for a 1 Mini Lot trade (10,000 units), you will pay a $0.7 commission to open and close the position;
• for a 1 Micro Lot trade (1,000 units), you will pay a $0.07 commission to open and close the position.

A $7.0 commission for a 1 Lot trade is similar to what other brokers such as IC Markets will charge, but it is not the lowest in the industry. An equivalent trade on the Zero Spread Account with Fusion Markets will incur a $4.50 commission per round turn, which is, at present, among the most competitive offers within the industry.

Financing charges

This refers to swap fees charged for holding a position overnight. Global Prime’s financial institutional partners calculate the daily released swap rates using risk-management analysis. As a result, each forex currency pair has its forex swap charge, and interest is typically paid on currency sold and received on currency bought.

You can see the swap charges for a currency position by logging into their MT4 platform and taking the following steps:

1. Locate your product in the ‘Market Watch’ window. Right-click and select ‘Symbols.’
2. Select the product you wish to view from the list. Select ‘Specifications’.
3. Here, you can view the Forex swap rates for long and short positions.

Deposit fees

Just like most online brokerage firms, Global Prime will not charge any deposit fees. This is standard practice for brokers.

Withdrawal fees

Global Prime will also not charge any withdrawal fees on all allowed payment options. However, international wire transfers may attract intermediary transfer fees from either party, which are independent of Global Prime.

Inactivity fees

Global Prime will not charge an inactivity fee on dormant accounts. This is unlike most financial firms that would charge a certain sum on trading accounts after a prolonged period of inactivity.

Overall on Fees

Global Prime offers tight spreads for the ECN commission-based account type, but the commission-free account has marked-up spreads. The commission fees are competitive, and there are no additional fees on top of overnight financing charges. The absence of non-trading costs is largely beneficial for traders.

Overall, Global Prime deserves a good pass mark on fees: their commission fee of $7.00 per round turn stands closely to the fees of their competitors, such as IC Markets.

Desktop Trading Platforms

Global Prime provides traders with popular trading platforms, including:

MetaTrader 4

The broker provides traders with the MetaTrader 4 trading platform. The MetaTrader 4 platform, MT4 for short, remains the benchmark for retail trading platforms and is still the most popular among retail Forex traders globally. It has transformed how retail traders access global markets. This advanced trading platform was launched in 2005 by MetaQuotes, a Russian software company, and is replete with useful trading tools and features, such as one-click trading, multiple timeframes, various technical indicators, thirty inbuilt indicators and analytical tools, alert notifications, expert advisors, multiple charts, nine different timeframes, MQL4 programming language, live quotes, and drawing tools.

To ensure the ease of accessing the platform, the broker makes the MT4 trading platform available as a desktop application for Windows and Mac computers, a web trading version, and a mobile app that is compatible with Android and iOS devices and can be downloaded from the respective app stores. The web version of the MT4 runs directly on modern web browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox, without the need to first download and install an application. The mobile app is best suited for traders who wish to place trades and check trading positions while on the go as long as there is an internet connection.

The Global Prime’s MT4 trading platforms will also grant traders access to:

1. Forex VPS: The broker makes the virtual private server (VPS) available to eliminate the trading hitches that come with downtimes. It allows traders to run their trading platform 24/7 without switching their computers. They are often used to run expert advisors (EAs) and maintain a trading server’s connectivity. The Forex VPS uses an external server to manage your trading connectivity to ensure that your EAs run non-stop.
2. Forex Signals in MT4: These signals allow traders to follow professional traders and benefit from their trading decisions in real-time.
3. Forex robots (Expert Advisors): The MetaTrader forex robots allow traders to automate their trading strategies.

Trader Evolution

The TraderEvolution platform caters to professional traders who seek more advanced functionality than is currently available through most retail trading platforms. TraderEvolution comes equipped with the same market-leading pricing and execution on the MT4 platform, but it includes Level 2 pricing, DoM trading, and Volume analysis. It is built with a fully customizable user interface, allowing users to tweak it to suit their individual trading preferences.

The platform also has a live depth of market (L2) for all products and multiple trading panels for checking the liquidity depth. Strategies can be developed with its EvoCode tool. The Trader Evolution platform is available as a desktop application for Windows and Mac computers, a WebTrader that runs directly on modern web browsers, and a mobile app that is developed for mobile devices running on Android and iOS.

Copy-trading with Global Prime

Global Prime offers various copy-trading tools, and they include:

1. ZuluTrade: This social trading platform allows traders to subscribe and copy other traders’ trades directly into their Global Prime trading accounts. Subscribers can select the traders they want to copy using ZuluRank, a Performance Table that algorithmically ranks traders based on many performance factors and based on the feedback of ZuluTrade’s knowledgeable community.
2. Myfxbook Autotrade: MyFxBook AutoTrade is an automated social trading service where traders can subscribe to and copy other traders’ signals directly into their trading accounts. It is hosted on internal servers, eliminating the need for downloading or installing additional software. The broker’s clients can link their trading accounts to the MyFxBook AutoTrade. The platform allows users to view and filter the historical results of systems to compare track records. Traders may also offer their systems for signal copying if they fulfill a strict screening process that requires a substantial trade history over a sustained period.

Mobile Trading Platforms

Global Prime’s traders can trade with the mobile versions of the MT4 and Trader Evolution gold trading platforms. This enables traders to access their trading accounts and place trades on the go, as long as they are connected to the internet.

Interestingly, when they trade with the mobile versions of the MT4 and Trader Evolution trading platforms, there is nothing to lose since the mobile app offers the same features and functionalities as the desktop platforms. The mobile platforms are best suited for traders who wish to place trades and check trading positions anytime and from anywhere in the world. The mobile trading platforms are available as mobile apps that can be downloaded from the Android and iOS app stores.

Trading Instruments

Global Prime offers over 80 markets, spread across Forex, Metals, Energies, Hard and Soft Commodities, and Equity Indices. Their range of available financial assets compares fairly to other big brokers, such as IC Markets and Fusion Markets.

Let us now take a closer look at the product list.

Forex

Global Prime offers access to the most liquid global FX markets, allowing traders to trade over 50 forex pairs. At Global Prime, forex can be traded on the MT4 and Trader Evolution trading platforms with a leverage of up to 1:200.

The broker offers favorable trading conditions, including leverage of up to 1:200, tight ECN spreads, and competitive pricing due to its deep liquidity pools. For example, you can trade major Forex pairs with spreads of as low as 0.1 pips on Global Prime’s ECN Account and commission charges of $3.50 per lot per side.

Indexes CFDs

Global Prime allows traders to trade the world’s most liquid Stock Exchange indices — S&P 500, DAX, FTSE, DJ30, and more — through the MT4 and Trader Evolution trading platforms. The broker uses specialist non-bank market makers to derive a fast and sharp price across their range of Index CFDs. Traders will easily see one of the tightest spreads in the world on the DAX and Dow, two of the most popular indices for CFD traders.

Global Prime’s Indices CFDs allow traders to take a view on the world’s largest and most important global stock markets without trading or owning the underlying instrument. CFD trading implies speculating on the price movements alone to profit when the price moves in your favor. Indices such as the DJIA index (US30) represent a basket of the 30 largest companies listed on US stock exchanges.

At Global Prime, all indices trading styles are welcome, including scalping, hedging, swing trading, and position trading, and you can use any Expert Advisor (EA) that suits your trading style. The indices CFDs are designed for institutional traders, and as such, traders enjoy zero commissions, transparent prices, leverage of up to 1:200, and ultra-sharp spreads.

Cryptocurrency trading is not available on Global Prime unlikely other major Bitcoin brokers. Unfortunately you won’t be able to buy or sell some of the most popular Cryptos such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum.

Commodities

Global Prime offers a selection of over 18 commodities, including Gold, silver, WTI crude, Brent crude, platinum, palladium, copper, natural gas, cotton, corn, coffee, sugar, orange juice, soybean, wheat. The broker uses a combination of the world’s fastest tier-1 banks, non-bank market makers, and ECNs to ensure that traders get super-tight spreads across their range of metal and energy commodities products.

Trading commodities with Global Prime is very much like trading FX, but instead of buying or selling an amount of base currency against a counter currency, you buy or sell units of a commodity against the US dollar. For example, one contract of XAUUSD buys or sells 100 ounces of Gold using the USD, while one contract of XTIUSD means trading 100 barrels of West Texas Intermediate crude oil using the USD. Commodity CFDs can be traded 24/5 on the MT4 and Trader Evolution trading platforms. They also have overnight financing and do not expire. However, Global Prime offers modest leverage to commodity traders with a margin call at 120% and a margin stop at 100%.

Stock CFDs

Global Prime allows you to trade the world’s largest companies listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ stock exchanges, offering superior execution and tight pricing. You can trade with leverage of 1:20 if you trade with the CFD broker’s entity that is under the VFSC/FSA and 1:5 if it’s the entity under ASIC. Stock CFD trading is exclusively available on the TraderEvolution platform.

Global Prime’s stock CFDs give you the ability to trade the world’s most popular companies such as Amazon, Apple, or Facebook, to name a few. When you trade a Share CFD at Global Prime, you are able to speculate on the price movement of the stock without owning it, and you can trade in either direction (buy or sell) seamlessly. Shares in publicly listed companies like Amazon are typically traded without leverage and through a stock exchange, but CFD trading allows you to use some leverage to increase your profit potential.

Bonds

Global Prime allows traders to benefit from the bonds markets by offering CFDs in various government bonds. Since bonds trading is through CFDs, it is only a bet by investors on whether the bonds will increase or decrease in value.

Global Prime’s Bond CFDs give you the ability to speculate on the world’s most liquid, popular, and largest government bonds from the US, UK, Europe, and Japan. The broker offers a low minimum deposit requirement, no commissions, and competitive margins. The Bond CFDs at Global Prime can be accessed from the MetaTrader 4, TraderEvolution, and TradingView platforms. TradingView will also allow you to track all major markets and stocks from across the world.

Trade Execution

Global Prime operates both the STP and ECN models of execution. Both models allow access to the interbank market. On its commission-free account, the broker uses the STP model, which offers real market price quotes but with marked-up spreads. The broker’s ECN Commission-based Account uses the ECN model of execution, offering direct market price quotes with raw interbank market spreads.

As a true ECN/STP broker, Global Prime uses top-tier liquidity providers (LPs) to ensure deep liquidity, fast trade execution speeds, and tight spreads that start from just 0 pips. The broker’s extensive and diverse liquidity mix — comprising three prime brokers, 20+ tier-1 banks, and non-bank market makers — ensures its spreads rank among the best in all the products it offers. In addition, the broker holds its trading counterparties to a high standard. By maintaining fill ratios with their liquidity providers, the broker executes your trades in record fast time, which allows for reduced slippage on your trades. This is because the broker executes all orders through a single tag so the liquidity providers see one client — Global Prime.

Global Prime’s trading servers include the Equinix (NY4) Financial Trading Hub, a state-of-the-art network of exchanges, buy and sell-side firms, bank and non-bank market makers, and HFTs trading servers located at Equinix’s high-performance data centers. The broker offers direct cross-connects via optical fiber to all trading counterparties and technology providers within the Equinix NY4 ecosystem.

Global Prime also makes various virtual private server (VPS) providers available to traders. VPS hosting ensures your platform keeps running 24 hours a day, so you can set up expert advisors to take advantage of every opportunity that arises in the market. Using a VPS hosting service with Global Prime reduces latency to the broker’s trade servers, ensures 100% uptime during market hours, and allows you to install third-party applications, such as the MT4 platform and expert advisors. One of Global Prime’s VPS partners is ForexVPS, which allows users to log in to their servers through any stable desktop or mobile device.

With Global Prime, you will benefit from super-fast trade execution and interbank grade ECN spreads with no dealing desk intervention. The broker offers institutional trading conditions to retail traders, offering access to the same level of transparency as institutional traders, such as which bank filled your trade, the slippage, speed, order book, and tick charts showing market impact.

The Global Prime ECN offers cutting-edge and high-performance technology while leveraging on ten years of trading relationships to give you direct and anonymous access to a truly unique and diversified mix of liquidity. The broker offers access to the same level of transparency as institutional traders, including; which bank filled your trade, the slippage, speed, order book, and tick charts showing market impact.

Deposits

Global Prime supports different deposit methods to enable traders to easily fund their accounts and trade. The broker does not charge any deposit fees, and it allows clients to open accounts and deposit funds in the multiple base currencies: USD, AUD, GBP, EUR, CAD, and SGD.

Global Prime does not accept payments from third parties as well as payments in cryptocurrencies. Traders should ensure that all deposits into their Global Prime trading account come from a bank account in the same name. Payments from a joint bank account will be accepted if the account holder is one of the parties on the bank account. The minimum deposit is $200.

The broker offers a generous selection of deposit methods, including:

Currently, there are no deposit bonuses available with this brokerage.

Withdrawal Methods

Clients can withdraw funds online by logging into the secure Global Prime client portal and selecting the withdraw tab from the menu. All withdrawal requests are processed via the payment method that was used to make a deposit. For instance, Debit/Credit Card withdrawal can only be used for accounts that made deposits using a Debit/Credit Card.

Global Prime does not charge any internal fees for deposits or withdrawals. However, international wire transfers may attract intermediary transfer fees from either party independent of Global Prime.

Due to AML/CTF laws, Global Prime cannot deposit funds to third parties. As a result, all money withdrawn from your account must go to a bank account in the same name as your Global Prime trading account.

Customer Support Contacts

Global Prime offers a knowledgeable client support team that is polite and responsive. The support is available 24 hours a day, from Mondays to Fridays, five days a week. You can contact the broker’s support team through any of the following channels:

1. Live Chat: This efficient channel allows you to chat directly with the broker’s support team live. The live chat function is available as a “Chat” icon at the lower-right corner of the website. When you click on the icon, you will be required to input your name and email address. Next, type your message in the bigger box to interact with the customer support team live.
2. Telephone contact: You can also contact the broker’s support team over the phone from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday – Friday through any of the following phone numbers: +61 (2) 8379 3622, +61 (2) 8379 3622.
3. Email Contact: You can send specific inquiries to the following email addresses:
   • Accounts: accounts@globalprime.com
   • Institutional: institutional@globalprime.com
   • Compliance: compliance@globalprime.com
   • Partners: partners@globalprime.com
   • Marketing: marketing@globalprime.com

   After emailing the support team during business hours, we got a reply to our queries within a few hours.

   In addition to the above contact channels, you can also find answers to common questions from the broker’s FAQs page

4. FAQs: This is a comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions. They answer some of the most common questions traders have. The questions are arranged in the following categories: about Global Prime, account application, account management, fund management, trading with Global Prime, and trading platforms.

Research and Educational Materials

Global Prime offers a good selection of learning resources to help traders make knowledgeable trading decisions. Their range of educational resources include the following:

1. A selection of educational videos can improve traders’ knowledge and skills. Topics covered include technical analysis, fundamental analysis, trading tools, and more.
2. Educational Guides that are designed to help traders improve their knowledge of the financial markets.
3. A section that is replete with frequently updated articles covering various market analyses in great detail — from technical and fundamental analysis to valuations and bias.
4. A newsletter section that delivers educational guides, daily market insights, and analysis direct to your inbox.
5. The Global Prime Discord chatroom, where traders discuss their daily trading activities. You can share trading analysis and ideas and also have your questions answered by the broker’s in-house experts. Currently, the Global Prime Discord chat room has more than 2,500 subscribers, with thousands of logins every month.
6. Ebooks on various trading topics

Security and Money Guarantees

At bestbrokers.com, we are committed to ensuring that traders trade with only regulated online brokers, and Global Prime is one of such. Our key findings include:

• Over a decade of business history and growth
• Top-tier ASIC regulation
• Multiple regulations

The broker’s regulation by ASIC indicates a reputable broker that keeps to regulatory and ethical requirements. As a Tier 1 regulatory authority, ASIC also mandates that all client funds are kept fully segregated from the broker’s corporate accounts in client trust accounts at top-rated banks. This way, the risk of fraudulent behavior by the brokerage is kept at a minimum.

Conclusion

Putting it all together, our team of experts at BestBrokers.com believe that Global Prime offers some of the best trading conditions for Forex trading among peers. Our reasons are as follows:

• Competitive trading costs
• High liquidity from top-tier liquidity providers
• Flexible leverage of up to 1:200
• Innovative trading technology
• Lightning-fast execution via the MT4 and Trader Evolution trading platforms
• Award-winning customer service
• Free education to sharpen your skills
• Fully licensed and regulated since 2010

Written by E. Ifeanyi