Vantage FX: Review and Guide to Getting Started

Vantage FX aims to give their customers a “true institutional trading experience.” They have an Australian company that’s been around since 2009, and pride themselves on offering “superior access to global FOREX markets.” They’ve invested heavily into technologies that help them do just that. 

They also provide themselves on offering “complete transparency in an often cloudy industry.” They state that they stand for ethics and accountability in all that they do, and have developed a reputation for integrity that seems to be well-deserved.

They’ve won numerous awards, including:

• The Fintech 2021 Excellence in Customer Service award
• The M&A Today 2020 Financial Trading Services Provider of the Year (Australia) award
• The Global 100 2020 Best MT4/MT5 Broker & Lowest Trading Costs award 
• The CV Magazine 2019 Financial Trading Services Provider of the Year award

Their track record for winning awards stretches all the way back to 2011. Recently Economy Watch named it as one of 2021’s best online trading platforms as well. 

With lots of features and markets to choose from, Vantage FX has a lot to offer. Is it the right choice for you and your trading needs? Here’s what you need to know. 

Account Types Offered

Vantage FX offers three trade types: the Standard STP account, the Raw ECN account, and the Pro ECN account.

All three accounts give you access to MT4 and MT5 as suits your preference, as well as access to all markets. 

You can start a standard STP account with a minimum deposit of $200. It’s a commission-free account that offers spreads starting at 1.4 pips. 

The Raw ECN account is the most popular. You’ll need a $500 minimum deposit to opt into this account. Spreads start at 0.0 pips and commissions start at $3 per lot per slide. It is considered to be the most cost-effective Forex trading solution the platform offers and maybe one of the most cost-effective in the entire industry thanks to the ability to trade on institutional grade liquidity.

Finally, there’s the Pro ECN account. You’ll need a $20,000 minimum deposit to start this account. Spreads start at 0.0 pips and commissions drop to $2.00 per lot per side.

The competitive spreads and commissions on all three account types ensure that traders should be able to manage their profits and losses with ease. 

Islamic traders may take advantage of the Vantage FX Swap-Free account, which means there are no swaps or interest charges on overnight positions. Instead, the account holder is charged an administration fee on positions deducted from the balance of the account.

Another option worth considering is the Vantage FX Introducing Broker program. This is a program for professional traders who work on behalf of clients. IBS earns generous rebates.

Trade Types Offered

Vantage FX offers a wide variety of trading instruments. 

• 40+ Forex pairs, including popular pairs like GBP/USD, USD/JPY, and more.
• 15 major indices including the S&P 500, DAX, FTSE, DJ30, and more.
• Energy trading including oil, natural gas, and gasoline.
• Soft commodities like cocoa, coffee, and cotton.
• Precious metal CFDs like gold, silver, and copper.
• CFDs on blue chip stocks like Apple, Google, and CocaCola, as well as European and Australian blue chips.

In short, the over 300 trading instruments that Vantage FX offers create enough of a variety to allow for diversification, and enough to accommodate a wide variety of strategies.

Trading Platforms & Tools

Vantage FX offers lightning-fast trade execution on all instruments. They’ve forged a strategic partnership with Equinix which means they can offer trade speeds that are 78% faster than some of their competitors. 

Their fiber optic network solution connects trading servers worldwide, ensuring that lag doesn’t cut into your profits or derail your strategies. They are stable at 99.99% MT4 uptime. The servers are located in six different countries (located in New York, London, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney) to help minimize latency issues.

They also have invested in the oneZero™ MT4 bridge, a price aggregator with a bandwidth of up to 100 GB/S. It’s able to handle large numbers of market orders even at very high speeds.

Vantage FX traders can choose between MetaTrader4, MetaTrader5, and web trading, as well as multiple mobile trading apps. 

Vantage FX also offers access to social trading. Zulutrade is one option, allowing clients to gain access to a pool of professional traders whose trades they can copy. There are over 10,000 professional Forex traders to work with. It’s one of the largest social trading communities. 

Autotrade is another option. It’s a similar copy trade platform that gives you access to in-depth statistics so you can start to see the “why” behind the trades that you’re copying. You can also customize the strategies once they are copied, tweaking them to better match your own needs. 

Finally, there’s Duplitrade which lets you gain access to a folio of hand-picked prop traders. 

Vantage FX also offers a variety of free tools to help traders make the most of their service. For example, the Smart Trader Tools package lets you create correlation matrixes, receive alerts, and watch sentiment trends. A session map lets you watch price movements across several time zones. Economic calendars let you keep an eye on market mover events that might impact your trades. Several free calculators give you tools to help manage your profit or loss. 

The Sentiment Indicator displays the ratio of long to short percentages among all of Vantage FX’s traders, giving another layer of analysis to traders. 

Pro Trader Tools includes next-gen AI market news, a buzz meter, featured ideas, analyst views, and more.

Thanks to the wealth of tools available, most traders should have no trouble analyzing their trades in a variety of ways and developing a strategy that works for them. 

Customer Support

Vantage FX has an award-winning, 24/7 customer support team. It can be reached by phone at +44 2080 363 883 or by email at support@vantagefx.com. They also offer a live chat feature on their website, as well as an extensive FAQ and help center for the most commonly-asked questions. 

Deposits & Withdrawals

Vantage FX offers a wide variety of methods for deposits and withdrawals, including wire transfers, Visa, Neteller, Skrill, Fasapay, and several others. They don’t charge internal fees for deposits or withdrawals, though individual financial institutions may charge fees of their own. 

Withdrawals are typically processed within 24 hours and must return to the funding source you used to deposit the money in the first place. Different withdrawal methods may take different amounts of time to get the money to you. 

Spreads, Commissions, & Fees

On certain accounts, Vantage FX gives customers access to interbank grade, RAW ECN spreads starting at 0.0 pips. Spreads on other accounts are reasonable and are some of the most competitive in the industry. 

Negative balance protection is available.

Regulation

Vantage FX is regulated under the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) and the Securities Investment Business Law (SIBL) in the Seychelles. They’re also regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). They’re also licensed under the VSFC in Vanuatu and the FCA in the United Kingdom.

While CIMA, VSFC, and SIBL aren’t very strong regulatory bodies, ASIC is one of the strongest in the world. They offer the kind of tough regulatory body we’d like to see when recommending brokers to our readers. So, too, does London’s Financial Conduct Authority. 

Reputation

Vantage FX has managed to create an excellent reputation among its customer base. They have a 4.3-star rating on Trustpilot across over 1,339 reviews. Of those reviews, 69% are rated Excellent whereas only 9% are rated at “Bad.” 

Their customer service team and the user experience both receive high praises. Here are a few examples.

“Honestly this broker is where I made a lot of progress, and this broker provided me with the necessary resources to experience and achieve my financial goals. Vantage has very good customer service with quick responses. Everything is easy to use and user-friendly. One of the best brokers available today. Vantage is always improving in every way possible.” –Geovanni Nembhard

Here’s another.

“Make money easy. Over 70% return within weeks/days. Well, simply, a month ago I placed USD 100 into my new account, and today after about 100+ trades, I have an 87% success rate and have a balance of over $2,700 after withdrawing USD $400. It’s what I like, and don’t get greedy.” -John Hawthornwaite

And finally:

“I don’t give reviews easily but been with VFX for 5 years now. Customer service is the best. I have not ever received any problems and if there was anything the chat is right there and someone would reply fast. Plus they also have a RAW ECN account which I am on.” -Jefferlyne Parsons

They have had a little trouble in the news this year. They just had to pay a $4 million Ontario Settlement for improperly selling CFDs to Ontario investors. This seems to be a result of some sort of failure to adhere to local Ontario trading laws, which is something that could happen in a global company. 

Yet they’ve also had their shares of positive coverage, such as a TechBullion article called How the Vantage FX App has Revolutionized Stock and CFD Trading in 2021.

In short, they mostly have a very positive reputation.

Accepted Countries

Vantage FX Is available in numerous countries, but you can’t trade with them in the United States or Canada. 

Alternatives

Compare Avatrade and FXCM for similar copy trade functionality. Compare Pepperstone for a company with a similarly stellar reputation. Compare Forex.com for a reputable broker that’s accessible to traders in the United States of America. Compare AXI for a broker with a similar depth of educational resources. 

Bonuses & Promos

Vantage FX offers each trader a 50% welcome bonus on the initial deposit up to a $500 credit, plus an additional 10% credit bonus for deposits over $1000 up to a limit of $19,500. 

They also offer a referral program: $150 for you and $100 for your friend after all terms and conditions are met. Traders may share their “refer a friend” link as many times as they like with no cap on the number of times they may earn the bonus.

Traders may also earn rebates with an active trader’s promotion. Clients who have funded their account with a minimum of $10,000 and maintain an account balance of $10,000 or more can now earn rebates as cashed paid directly to their MT4 account or as a gift like an iPhone or Gift card. You’d earn up to $8 per standard forex lot traded.

FAQs

Is Vantage FX a safe, legitimate trading platform?

Vantage FX is a legitimate trading platform regulated in multiple countries. Of those, the strongest are ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, and the FCA, the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom. These are both excellent signs of a trustworthy broker. Traders should have lots of recourse if they find Vantage FX is doing anything untoward. In addition, traders can trust Vantage FX with their money knowing that this company gets audited on a regular basis.

They have an outstanding reputation with their customers, which is not something that is easy to achieve in an industry where many customers inevitably take massive losses.  They have longevity and a solid track record on their side.

In short, this platform is probably one of the safest you could possibly trade with. 

What is Vantage FX’s minimum deposit? 

You can get started with Vantage FX for as little as $200.

Is Vantage FX good for beginners?

Vantage FX seems to be an excellent choice for beginners. They offer a huge variety of on-site manuals, videos, and webinars to help traders get educated. The copy trader social platforms they’re involved with certainly give traders a chance to learn from a wide variety of experts who have already become successful. 

We especially like the section on psychological trading, which helps traders come to understand some of the pitfalls that their own emotions can create. This section stresses the importance of having a system and sticking to it. 

They offer a demo account for each of their platforms, and the chance for beginners to play around with that account so as to solidify their strategies and test their understanding of core concepts.

The platforms themselves are user-friendly, intuitive, and lightning-fast. 

Thus, Vantage FX is a solid option for traders who are learning the ropes. 

What leverage does Vantage FX offer?

Vantage FX offers leverage of up to 500:1 on some products. The leverage may vary on some trading products. 

Who runs Vantage FX? 

The CEO of Vantage FX is David Bily, who has been deeply involved with the company for nearly ten years. He began as a Senior Account manager in November of 2011 and moved through the ranks. 

This kind of stability is a good sign, indicating a company that will continue to operate more or less the same way without throwing their customers any major curveballs.

Is Vantage FX a market maker?

Vantage FX offers a hybrid model, a mix of a market maker or an ECN. Here’s what they have to say about their model.

“Vantage FX is not a broker but an issuer of the product to you. Vantage FX has market-making authorization on its license, same as all other providers, however, since Vantage FX sources its liquidity from the top tier investment banks and other liquidity providers, and offers direct access to the raw pricing to its clients with no dealing desk intervention, we do not consider ourselves a true market maker.”

“Our pricing model can be considered as true ECN. The pricing we receive is raw however there is a mark-up applied depending on the account that you may be trading, in the same manner, all other providers mark up the raw prices, there is no dealing desk intervention at all.” 

In short, Vantage FX does not appear to be trading against its customers. 

Is Vantage FX right for me?

Vantage FX has a lot to recommend it: plenty of instruments, multiple trading platforms, lightning-fast trade execution, and an intuitive interface. It combines all of this with a solid reputation both among industry experts and current customers, throws in excellent educational resources and tools, and tops it all off with outstanding customer support. 

They’ve submitted to tough regulatory oversight and have a long track record of success in this industry. They’re not going anywhere any time soon and we predict they will only continue to earn market share and customer loyalty. 

We believe that they mean what they say when they say they’re committed to honesty, integrity, and transparency. On top of all of that, they have fantastic bonuses and promotions that are hard to say “no” to.

In short, yes, we believe Vantage FX will be a great call for many traders and encourage you to try it for yourself.