Swissquote 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 20, 2024

Swissquote is an online financial services provider that is based in Gland, Switzerland. The firm was launched in 1996 and has grown to become one of the leading online trading brokers in Switzerland, with over 700 employees and serving more than 340,000 clients across the globe. Swissquote is committed to providing retail and professional clients with competitive trading conditions to help them get the most out of their trading journey.

The broker offers multiple financial instruments across different asset classes, including Forex, Commodities, Cryptocurrency, Stocks, Shares, Indices, Metals, Energies, Options, Bonds, ETFs, and CFDs. In this broker review, we will pay attention to the critical aspects of Swissquote, which you may need to consider before deciding whether to trade with this online broker. Swissquote has achieved an average Trustpilot score of 3.8 out of 5 stars based on 2,869 consumer reviews in total. As much as 43% of all customers have assigned a 5-star rating to Swissquote, compared to 18% who gave it a 1-star rating.

Key Pros and Cons

First, let us briefly look at Swissquote’s main strong points and weaknesses.

Company Information

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

• SwissQuote Bank Ltd, regulated by the FINMA and SFBC: office address: Chemin de la Créteaux 33 1196 Gland, Switzerland
• Swissquote Ltd, regulated by the FCA: London, United Kingdom
• Swissquote MEA Ltd, regulated by the DIFC: office address: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Swissquote Asia Ltd, regulated by the SFC: office address: Hong Kong, China.
• Swissquote Financial Services, regulated by the MFSA: office address: Mriehel, Malta

Note that Swissquote does not offer its services to residents of certain jurisdictions, such as North Korea, Japan, the United States, Canada, and other regions.

Why Trade with Swissquote?

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

Regulation

Swissquote is authorized and regulated in various jurisdictions.

In Switzerland, SwissQuote Bank Ltd. is regulated by the Swiss Federal Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). SwissQuote Bank Ltd. is also a Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) member.

In the UK, Swissquote operates as Swissquote Ltd., a subsidiary that is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom. FCA is a strict regulatory authority that ensures that brokers abide by highly ethical, secure, and transparent standards.

In Dubai, Swissquote operates a subsidiary known as Swissquote MEA Ltd. It holds a category four license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).

The Asian arm of Swissquote has a type 3 license (Leverage Foreign Exchange Trading) from the Securities & Futures Commission (SFC) supervision in Hong Kong.

However, Swissquotes’s operations in other parts of the world are handled by Swissquote Financial Services (Malta) Ltd, which is regulated under the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) supervision with a category four license.

A breakdown of the various regulatory regimes is presented below.

The broker’s regulation in multiple jurisdictions — FINMA, FCA, DFSA, SFC, MFSA, and more — offers a good level of trust as the broker is expected to comply with the regulatory standards of the various regulators.

The FCA is a strict regulatory authority that ensures that UK-based clients are covered under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if the broker fails to meet its financial obligations in the United Kingdom.

However, CFTC regulation is absent; therefore, Swissquote cannot provide its services to citizens or residents of the United States.

KYC Procedure for Account Creation and Depositing

Opening a new live account with Swissquote can be completed in a few minutes. Upon completing the account application process, you can fund your account and start trading. Overall, the SwissQuote account creation process involves the following steps:

1. Creating your secure login: You enter a valid email and choose a password
2. Completing the application form with your details: You input your names, date of birth, city of residence, address, postcode, and phone number
3. Choosing your trading account: Choose your preferred trading platform and account type (Standard, Premium, Prime, and Professional account)
4. Checking 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, but if any of your answers do not match the broker’s internal requirements, your application will be rejected;
5. Agree to the terms: You need to tick the box at the bottom of the account registration form to indicate that you agree to Swissquote’s Terms and Conditions
6. Verifying your documents: When your online application is approved, you will be required to upload some relevant documents, such as 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) to verify your account.

While the account application process can be processed within a few minutes, account verification may take up to 24 hours to be completed. Also, you will have to fund your account using any available payment methods before starting to trade.

Account Types

The broker offers four main live account types: Standard, Premium, Prime, and Professional accounts. All the account options allow you to trade all the available trading instruments. The major differences between the account types can be seen in the spreads, minimum deposit requirements, and minimum allowable lot size. Now, let’s take a look at each of the available trading account options:

Islamic Account (Swap-Free)

Swissquote offers swap-free trading on the available trading account options. The Islamic account is best suited for traders of the Muslim faith who cannot pay swaps due to their religious beliefs. However, while the Islamic account does not incur any swaps or interest charges on overnight positions, the account holder is charged an administration fee on the trading positions.

Demo Account

The broker provides traders with the demo account; it is a special account type that comes preloaded with virtual funds for practice purposes. The demo account allows traders to test their trading strategies before implementing them on the live account.

Trading fees and other costs

As a trader, you will always have to consider a broker’s trading fees and other costs before deciding whether to trade with them. As with other CFD brokers and forex brokers, there are main types of trading fees to keep in mind when trading with Swissquote, and they include:

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

Let us take a look at a breakdown of those two categories and see how Swissquote has positioned itself on this front.

Spreads

Swissquote offers relatively high spreads across all its account types as follows:

• Standard STP Account — Spreads start from 1.7 pips with no commissions
• Premium Account — Spreads start from 1.4 pips with no commissions
• Prime Account — Spreads start from 1.1 pips with no commissions

Let us take a look at the minimum spreads offered on the three account types:

Since the broker does not charge trading commissions, it makes its money from the spreads alone, so it marks up the spreads to cover the trading costs.

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

Standard STP Account

• Spread – 1.7 pip
• TOTAL COST – 1.7 x $10 = $17.0 per side and $34 per round turn

Premium Account

• Spread – 1.4 pip
• TOTAL COST – 1.4 x $10 = $14 per side and $28 per round turn

Prime Account

• Spread – 1.1 pip
• TOTAL COST – 1.1 x $10 = $11.0 per side and $22 per round turn

So, the Prime Account offers the cheapest trading cost.

Finally, let us compare Swissquote Standard Account minimum spreads with those other major brokerages offered on the seven major Forex pairs.

* Minimum spreads on Standard Accounts

From the table above, the spreads offered by Swissquote Standard Account are quite higher than those offered by the big names in the industry — IC Markets, Fusion Markets, and IG Markets. So, Swissquote is pretty much expensive to trade with when compared to others.

Commissions

Swissquote does not charge any commission on trades. The broker only marks money through the spread, which it had already marked up to cover its trading charges.

When trading EUR/USD, for example, you will notice that the difference between the buy rate and the sell rate is higher with this broker than it is with other brokers. This shows that the trading costs have been added to the spread, which is why they don’t charge separate commission fees. The marked-up spread is how the broker is compensated for their services.

Financing charges

Forex Swap rates are affected by market conditions and the interest rate of the relevant countries of the chosen Forex currency pair.

Swissquote’s financial institutional partners calculate the daily released rates using risk-management analysis. As a result, each Forex currency pair has its Forex swap charge, and interest is 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, Swissquote does not charge any deposit fees. This is standard practice for brokers.

Withdrawal fees

Swissquote does not also charge any withdrawal fees on all payment options available. However, payments to and from overseas banking institutions may attract intermediary transfer fees from either party, which are independent of Swissquote.

Inactivity fees

Swissquote has introduced an inactivity fee, which applies if you have no open positions and have not traded on your account(s) for 6 months or more. The fee is set at a maximum of 10 units of your base currency (CHF, USD, EUR, or GBP) or the equivalent of your remaining balance, whichever is lower. The inactivity fee will be deducted monthly until you resume trading, close your account(s), or your balance is reduced to zero.

This fee will not take your balance into the negative but can bring it down to zero if no further trading activity occurs. For accounts in other currencies, the fee will be equivalent to CHF 10.

The inactivity fee only applies to retail clients. Clients such as introducing brokers, money managers, institutional clients, and corporate clients are exempt from this fee.

Overall on Fees

Swissquote offers marked-up spreads on its various trading account options. However, they charge zero commission on those account types. The broker now imposes an inactivity fee after 6 months of no trading activity, capped at 10 units of your base currency.

Overall, while Swissquote offers zero commission fees, their spreads are higher than their competitors, such as IC Markets and Fusion Markets. The addition of an inactivity fee may also be a point to consider for long-term inactive traders.

Desktop Trading Platforms

At Swissquote, all Forex and CFD trading activities are carried out using three main trading platforms: MT4, MT5, and the Advanced Trader trading platforms. However, there are other platforms for trading stocks and derivative products.

MetaTrader4

The MetaTrader 4, MT4 for short, is an advanced trading platform that was developed in 2005 by a Russian software company known as MetaQuotes. Thanks to its ease of use, the MT4 is reputed for being one of the choicest trading platforms among forex and CFD traders.

The platform has an abundance of trading tools and features to satisfy even the most demanding traders. Some of the essential features of the MT4 trading platform include a one-click trading panel, drawing tools, technical indicators, expert advisors (EAs) for automated trading, and many other features. The MT4’s extensive charting suite also includes 30 built-in indicators, 24 analytical objects, nine timeframes, and a range of order types.

Interestingly, the MT4 trading platform is available as a desktop application for Windows and Mac computers, WebTrader, and a mobile app for Android and iOS devices. The WebTrader can be accessed through all popular web browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge.

MetaTrader 5

Following the wide acceptance of the MT4 trading platform, the MT5 was introduced in 2010 to succeed. MT5 maintains all the core features and functionalities of the MT4 trading platform but has other advanced trading features and functionalities — expert advisors, multiple timeframes, nine chart types, and more — to take your trading to the next level. The extra tools of the MT5 allow for greater flexibility.

MT5 has a good selection of technical indicators to detect trends and help forecast price direction. Users can choose from the 80+ built-in indicators or create their own in the MetaEditor. MT5 charts are fully customizable with 21 timeframes to choose from compared to 9 timeframes in MT4. The MT5 trading platform is available in desktop, web, and mobile versions.

Advanced Trader

Swissquote provides traders with the Advanced Trader platform, a proprietary trading platform that is developed in-house by the broker’s team of fintech experts. The platform is replete with a suite of powerful built-in trading tools, such as over 40 technical indicators (Moving Average, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Stochastic, RSI, Heikin-Ashi, etc.) and an integrated real-time news feed from Bloomberg and Swissquote. The platform is suitable for all levels of traders, thanks to its intuitive user interface that makes it suitable for traders of all levels of experience. It is designed to meet clients’ ever-growing demands in a fully customizable environment for convenient and efficient trading. The platform supports multiple order types, including a stop order and a limit order.

You can download the Advanced Trader desktop version from the broker’s website. The mobile or web versions of the platform can be very useful if you need to trade while on the move. The mobile version is available for all iOS and Android devices from the relevant app stores. The web version allows you to trade directly within your web browser without the need to download and install an app first.

Other Trading Platforms

1. eTrading Platform

   This is a multi-asset trading platform that is developed to help traders reach their investment goals with ease. The eTrading platform features a whole series of functions — widgets, integrated watchlist, trend radar, financial news, and quick search function — to optimize your overall trading experience.

2. Swiss DOTS

   Swiss DOTS (Swiss Derivatives OTC Trading System) is an exclusive platform that allows Swissquote clients to trade thousands of leveraged products directly with the issuer. You can easily create a Swiss DOTS trading account, whether you are a Swissquote customer or not.

3. Themes Trading Platform

   Swissquote offers a Themes Trading system that allows its clients to align their investments with ideas that they understand. You can use this system to target influential global trends, such as green energy movement or metaverse, while maintaining the potential for producing high returns.

Mobile Trading Platforms

At Swissquotes, all the provided trading platforms — MT4, MT5, and Advanced Trader — are available in mobile versions. The mobile platforms are available as mobile apps that are compatible with Android and iOS devices. The mobile apps can be downloaded from the relevant app stores. They can be used to place trades and check trading positions while on the move, as long as you are connected to the internet.

Swissquote’s Advanced Trader mobile app is easy to use, and it even has a good selection of over 25 educational videos. However, the Advanced Trader mobile app lacks charting features. The MT4 and MT5 trading platforms bring a whole new level of convenience to the entire trading process as traders can access their trading accounts and place trades on the go. They come with charting features, including 30 indicators and nine timeframes to choose from, and support panning and zooming.

Trading Instruments

Swissquote offers a generous selection of trading instruments across various asset classes, including Forex, stocks, cryptocurrency, bonds, and indices.

This is comparable to what its competitors, such as IC Markets and Fusion Markets, offer.

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

Forex

Swissquotes offers access to the most liquid global FX markets, allowing traders to trade over 130 forex pairs, including all the major pairs, plus several minor and exotic forex currency pairs. It offers leverage of up to 1:100 — this means that with as little as $100, you can carry a trade worth $10,000. However, EU retail traders are limited to only 1:30 leverage.

Being a market maker, the broker offers ultra-fast trade execution, but the spreads are on the high side. For example, the spreads for major Forex pairs start from 1.7 pips on the Standard account, which is quite high when compared with those of other big brokers.

Stocks

Traders who are looking to profit from some of the world’s most popular stocks can consider trading stock CFDs with Swissquote. Currently, Swissquote offers 60 stocks of some of your favorite companies. You can speculate on some of the largest companies from the United States, the UK, and Europe. The broker offers favorable trading conditions, such as zero commission charges, but the spreads are marked up. The broker also provides traders with real-time pricing feeds on major exchanges and a Stock Finder with daily market analysis

ETFs

At Swissquote, traders are allowed to make a choice from more than 9,000 Exchange Traded Funds. This financial asset is best suited for clients who qualify as professional traders. The available ETFs include over 300 IShares by BlackRock, 90 ETFs from LYXOR by Société Générale, VANGUARD, UBS, Amundi, ComStage, and many more.

Commodities

Commodities at Swissquotes are raw products, such as gold and oil. The broker allows clients to trade several commodities, such as Gasoline, Gold, Heating Oil, Natural Gas, Oil, Brent Oil, Palladium, Wheat, Soybeans, and more. You can use the leverage of up to 1:100 to trade your preferred commodities; this also means that you can start trading with as little as $100 to gain the effect of $10,000 capital.

To manage your trades, you can also use the available tools, such as ‘Close at Profit’ (Stop Limit) or ‘Close at Loss’ (Stop loss). And to avoid slippage, you can also set a Guaranteed Stop.

Cryptocurrency

At Swissquotes, you can trade some of the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and more. In addition to zero commissions and flexible leverage, Swissquote offers competitive spreads to keep trading fees minimum.

Options and Futures

Trading options & futures at Swissquote comes with the following benefits:

• Exhaustive offer: Direct access to nearly a million derivatives
• Trading desk at your disposal for advanced strategies
• Extended trading hours: Trade anytime, 5 days a week

Fund

Swissquotes allows clients to invest in funds, which means investing in a basket of assets together with other investors. Investment funds are a great option for traders who seek long-term passive capital growth. The funds offered by Swissquote are managed by highly experienced professionals. The broker offers more than 20,000 funds from over 200 renowned investment banks and financial institutions.

Trade Execution

Swissquote is a market maker, and as such, they have lower entry requirements than ECN brokers who benefit from a higher volume of trades and typically have larger capital and minimum trade requirements. Market makers typically have a lower minimum deposit, smaller minimum trade requirements, and no commission on trades.

As a market maker, Swissquotes acts as the counterparty to your trades. They charge zero commission on trades. But the spreads are marked-up, so they have wider spreads than those of ECN brokers. Since the broker uses a market-making model, trades are executed very fast with minimum slippage.

Swissquote quotes two-sided markets in a particular security, providing bids and offers along with the market size. The broker earns a profit by spreading the securities bid and offers price. The broker’s network of Tier 1 banks and regional non-bank liquidity providers enables them to easily channel their excess orders to the market when they have to.

In addition, Swissquote’s proprietary hybrid agency/principal execution model offers the best of both worlds to their clients, who benefit from the most competitive market conditions. The broker has the technological infrastructure, with trade servers in premium locations, to ensure that you experience the lowest latency and fastest execution.

Deposits

The broker allows traders to fund their trading accounts in the following currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, CHF. The different currency options allow traders to avoid incurring currency conversion fees.

The available funding options at Swissquote are designed with your convenience and security in mind. This is why the broker allows both bank wire transfers and credit/debit cards for depositing into trading accounts. While Swissquote does not charge any account deposit fees, you should remember that some fees may accrue when you fund your account using an international bank transfer.

The time taken to process transactions varies with the payment method used. Bank transfers, for example, may take a few business days to clear, while credit/debit card deposits are processed instantly. The minimum deposit amount is dependent on the account type you are trading with; for instance, the Standard account requires a minimum deposit of $1,000.

Swissquote strictly does not accept third-party payments. As a result, all funds deposited into your trading account must be under the same name as your Swissquote trading account.

The broker offers various deposit methods, including:

Please note that the broker does not offer any deposit bonus at the moment.

Withdrawal Methods

At Swissquote, all the payment methods — bank wire transfers and credit/debit cards — used for funding your account can also be used for withdrawals. The best bet is to use the same payment method for both account deposits and withdrawals.

To initiate a withdrawal request on your Swissquote trading account, you should log in to your secure client area and select 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.

Swissquote does not charge any internal fees for deposits or withdrawals. However, payments to and from overseas banking institutions may attract intermediary transfer fees from either party independent of Swissquote.

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

The broker does not guarantee the same-day receipt of funds, as processing times are dependent on the payment method used. In most cases, the processing times are subject to the receiving bank processes, which is outside Swissquote’s control. For instance, bank wire transfers may take between 1–2 days.

Swissquote offers the following withdrawal methods:

Customer Support Contacts

Swissquote has a multilingual support team with offices in London, Gland, Zürich, Bern, Dubai, Malta, and Hong Kong. The support team is available to respond to clients’ general, technical, and account-based inquiries. The team is available 24/5 and can be reached via the following contact channels: live chat, telephone, and email.

1. Live Chat: This support channel allows you to chat directly with the broker’s support team. It offers real-time answers to your trading inquiries. The live chat function is available as a “Live 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 provided on their website:
   • Switzerland: +41 44 825 88 55
   • International: +41 44 825 88 88

   When we contacted the broker’s Switzerland office during local business hours, we got a response within a few minutes. The response from the customer support team was polite and offered all the information we were looking for.

3. Email Contact: You can send specific inquiries to this email address: robo-support@swissquote.ch
   From our experience, the support team responded within a few hours when we contacted them via email.
4. FAQ: This is a comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions. They answer some of the most common questions traders have, and they arrange in the following categories: Swissquote profile, account application, account management, fund management, trading with Swissquote, and trading platforms.
5. Social Media: In addition to the various available contact channels, the broker’s support team can be reached through specific social media channels, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. These social media channels come with the added advantage of allowing the clients to easily interact with the support team through the comment sections of the various social media channels.

Research and Educational Materials

To help traders improve their knowledge, Swissquote makes available a good selection of learning resources on its website. These educational materials cover several aspects of trading, including market analysis, trading strategies, and how to use the various platforms provided by Swissquote. The educational resources are available in the following formats:

1. Trading Videos

   The Swissquote learning center has a section dedicated to trading tutorials covering various topics with a series of well-explained and visually appealing videos. These videos are available in English and cover everything from trading tools, trading platforms, market analysis, risk management, and more. There are also some PDF user guides available within this section.

2. Webinars

   Swissquote offers frequent live and on-demand webinars run by experts. The webinars enable you to increase your trading knowledge from the comfort of your chosen location. They are available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Arabic.

3. Market Analysis

   Swissquote has a team of expert analysts and researchers who conduct live daily and weekly market reports. These exclusive market insights can be used as part of an overall technical and fundamental analysis.

4. News

   The broker’s website contains a news section that is dedicated to informing traders of the latest happenings in the financial market. The news is arranged in chronological order with the latest news articles at the top, keeping traders with the latest events as they happen.

5. Magazine

   Swissquote publishes its magazine, which contains interviews and in-depth articles on key market players from around the globe, allowing the reader to draw upon a range of innovative ideas for their investment strategy.

6. Swissquote Pulse

   This is a social networking platform that allows traders to share market news and analysis. Pulse is displayed as a feed, and it supports mobile push notifications.

7. Ebooks

   The broker offers various Ebooks covering specific trading topics. These ebooks are available in various easily accessible formats, such as PDFs.

Security and Money Guarantees

Here at bestbrokers.com, we focus on ensuring that our traders only trade with reputable brokers who are well-regulated by top financial authorities. It is impressive to note that Swissquotes is one of such brokers, thanks to its strong regulatory standing and full compliance with its numerous regulators. Here are the key findings we made about Swissquote:

• Over two decades of business history and growth
• Top-tier FCA regulation
• FSCS compensation for UK clients

The brokers’ regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom shows that it is a reputable broker that keeps to regulatory and ethical requirements. Also, Swissquote’s regulation in multiple jurisdictions is a strong indication that the broker can comply with the regulatory policies in various jurisdictions and can be trusted by clients from different parts of the globe. Traders’ funds are kept in segregated bank accounts so that the broker doesn’t use them to fund their operations. The data on the broker’s website is secured using SSL encryption technology, which ensures that the risk of fraudulent behavior by the brokerage is kept at a minimum. However, the broker is not regulated by the CFTC, so it does not accept clients from the United States of America.

Conclusion

Overall, it is safe to say that Swissquotes is a good choice for beginners and professional traders who are more interested in security than favorable trading fees. Apart from its relatively high cost of trading, the broker competes well in other aspects. Some of the reasons to use this broker include:

• Regulation in multiple jurisdictions
• Advanced trading technology
• Sophisticated trading platforms: MT4, MT5, and the proprietary Advanced Trader
• Responsive customer support team
• A good selection of learning resources
• Over two decades history of growth

Written by E. Ifeanyi