Skilling: Review and Guide to Getting Started

Skilling is a Scandanavian fintech company whose mission is to make trading simple and accessible to everyone in a safe, secure environment. They’re based in Seychelles, in Cyprus, in Malta, and in Spain. It’s been around since 2016, which makes it one of the younger brokers but still gives it some comforting longevity. They have offices in Spain, Malta, and Cyprus. 

The company does offer a number of scholarships and sponsorships, indicating a commitment to some form of corporate social responsibility. 

It has yet to win any major awards, and it seems to have been plugging quietly along without making too many waves one way or the other. So far Skilling seems to have less than 10,000 users, essentially making it an industry bit player. 

It offers a stable, reliable trading platform, though one with a few key issues worth looking out for. One of their corporate goals is the creation of a platform that is comprehensible to all users, and in this, they have mostly succeeded.

Is Skilling right for you? Here’s all the information you might need to make an informed decision.

Account Types Offered

Skilling offers four account types: the Standard, the Premium, the MT4 account, and the MT4 Premium account. The trading platform you’ll use, the commissions you’ll pay, the spreads you’ll pay, and the starting deposit are all dependent upon your account type, with the standard account and the MT4 account starting at 100 EUR and the other two accounts types starting at 5000 EUR.

All four accounts offer Micro Lot trading, access to all or most trading products, and the ability to engage in a scalping strategy should you choose to do so. All four accounts also offer negative balance protection, which is something we like to see. 

Skilling also offers a corporate account for professional traders who do so in the name of a legal entity. These may either be Standard, Premium, or MT4 accounts. 

Trade Types Offered

Skilling offers access to over 800 instruments. These include Forex pairs, shares, indices, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. 

Skilling focuses on offering the most popular Forex pairs. Those who want to trade on shares will be able to do so on some of the hottest instruments around, including Apple, Google, Amazon.com, Facebook, and Tesla motors. These are CFDs on shares rather than the shares themselves. 

Popular index opportunities are also on offer, including the S&P 500, the NASDAQ 100, the DOW JONES 30, the Germany 30, and the UK 100. 

Commodities include gold, silver, oil, and natural gas, just to name a few. Again, these are CFDs on the commodities rather than the commodities themselves. 

Crypto options include Bitcoin, Bitcoincash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and more.

In short, you should find everything you need to build a diversified trading strategy with Skilling, and more than enough options to keep the trading exciting and fresh. 

Trading Platforms & Tools

Skilling offers access to several trading platforms. Retail clients may choose between Skilling Trader, Skilling cTrader, or MetaTrader4.

Skilling Trader is Skilling’s proprietary trading platform. It’s designed for traders at every level of skill. It offers full web and mobile support along with rapid order execution. This is the platform to reach for if you’re looking for the least complicated, most user-friendly, and most jargon-free experience. 

Skilling Trader is browser-based and highly visual. Yet don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s too simple to build a strategy with. It offers 70 indicators for technical analysis, multiple chart styles, and the ability to completely manage your profile through the browser app. You can even analyze historical trading patterns vs. other portfolios, which is an exceptionally useful feature.

If you decide to use Skilling Trader then pay close attention to The Watchlist. This is a unified trading dashboard where you can track a variety of trading instruments. You can get information about them such as their country of origin and how popular they are. The dashboard is also somewhat customizable so you can monitor the trades that matter most to you. 

You can also use the “Explore Markets” feature to watch risers, fallers, volatility, and volume list. 

CTrader and MetaTrader4 are, of course, common platforms used by a wide variety of brokers. CTrader allows for algorithmic trading with C# and .net; MetaTrader4 is the most established platform in the industry and allows for automated trading with Expert Advisor robots. 

Skilling’s “One Account, Two Platforms” capability will let traders move between cTrader or Skilling Trader if they so desire or if it suits their trading strategy. 

Traders who use Skilling will be able to take advantage of a wide variety of risk management tools, including stop losses, trailing stops, and take profit orders. This is a plus. Negative balance protection is also available. 

Customer Support

Customer support is open weekdays from 8 AM to 9 PM. It’s not the 24/7 or even the 24/5 support offered by many of Skilling’s competitors, but it’s adequate to get the job done. Phone support may be reached by calling +44 208 080 6555. 

You can also email support@skilling.com. 

Deposits & Withdrawals

Skilling works with a variety of payment services for both deposits and withdrawals. These include:

• Visa
• Mastercard
• Neteller
• Trustly
• Klarna
• Skrill
• Swish
• Astropay
• Pagsmile
• Fasapay
• PayTrust
• PayR
• TransactWorld
• Directa

There are a few other services listed as well. Deposits and withdrawals are usually processed within 2 to 3 business days, though your bank or payment method may have policies on their end which makes the actual acquisition of your money take quite a bit longer.

Spreads, Commissions, & Fees

Spreads are competitive and start as low as 0.1 pips on premium accounts. On standard accounts, you’ll still start at a low 0.7 pips. There are no commissions and all fees are clearly displayed when you go to make a trade so that you may make informed decisions about your potential profits and losses. 

Commissions are assessed per million USD traded and around $30 for most trade types, though silver trading commissions are higher at $60. 

Skilling does charge a small value fee of 0.006%.

Skilling also charges swap or rollover charges if you maintain open positions at the end of the trading day, though in some cases the cost will be positive or negative depending on the direction of your trade and the applicable rate. Traders should check their trade tickets as the trading day draws to a close to deciding if it is more profitable to hold on to their positions or to close them. 

If your account goes inactive you can expect to pay a 10 EUR fee, but Skilling waits longer than almost any other platform before declaring that an account has gone inactive. They give you 12 months before they start assessing the fee. 

All spreads, commissions, and fees are kept transparent and easy to understand. 

Regulation

Skilling is regulated by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority, also known as SIBA. This is a regulatory body that doesn’t really have very much authority to impose sanctions on companies that misbehave. It’s a country that’s friendly to big business in a way that sometimes leaves the small trader exposed. 

When recommending brokers to our clients we always prefer to see brokers who seek out membership in strong regulatory authorities. SIBA barely fits the bill. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Skilling is a danger to client traders it does add an additional element of risk when deciding whether or not to do business with this broker. 

At one point it looked like Skilling may have been regulated by CySEC. Yet as of this writing SIBA is the only regulatory body they’re displaying licenses for on their website. While CySEC is not a particularly tough regulatory body either it is a tougher body than SIBA, so one wonders why Skilling is either no longer with them or choosing not to publicly claim that they’re being regulated by them. Unfortunately, there’s no way to answer that question without engaging in unnecessary speculation. 

Reputation

Evaluating Skilling’s overall reputation isn’t easy as they seem to barely have made a name for themselves. They have just 2 reviews on Trustpilot as of this writing, one Excellent, and one Great. Here is the text of the Excellent review. 

“The help, advice, and guidance that I have always received from Skilling have always been exemplary. The problems I seem always to suffer from are concerned with not knowing my way around the Skilling app. It is very feature-full and comprehensive, but I do not understand it. From the answers that I very quickly received from the Skilling support staff, it would seem that to some extent, they have the same problems! Why can’t I just straightforwardly sell some of the shares I currently hold? Despite the support staff’s very timely response, I still do not understand why, and apparently neither do they, fully! I have every faith in the support staff, but  more information on how to use the myriad functions in the app would be an absolute godsend.” –David Tarbox Cooper

It does not look like Skilling has attracted many news scandals. Most of the stories seem to be about its rapid expansion. It seems to be a company that is, for the time being, on a positive upswing. 

Accepted Countries

Skilling is accepted in over 188 countries around the world, mostly in the EU and EEA, including:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• The Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Liechtenstein
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia 
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• The United Kingdom
• Norway
• China
• Russia
• Thailand
• The Cayman Islands
• The Philippines
• Vietnam

Traders in the United States and in Canada will need to find other brokers to work with. 

Alternatives

Compare Pepperstone for a more established broker with a stellar reputation and a long list of industry awards. Compare Forex.com for a reputable broker based out of, and regulated by, the United States. Compare Avatrade and FXTM for similar copy trade functionality.

Bonuses & Promos

SIBA will not allow Skilling to run any bonuses or promotions. Traders will have to be content with the low spreads and commissions instead.

FAQs

Is Skilling a safe, legitimate trading platform?

Skilling is a real business that’s been around long enough to demonstrate its stability. So far their customer base seems happy. They’ve invested in their cybersecurity infrastructure and have taken the appropriate steps to protect customer funds. Trader funds are kept segregated in Tier 1 banks, which is exactly what we want to see. 

We don’t love the light regulatory environment they’re operating under. They’re hardly a scam, but traders who choose to work with Skilling will be doing so at their own risk as there will be little legal recourse to help them should a problem arise at any point. 

So Skilling is legitimate, but “safe” might be a stretch.

What is Skilling’s minimum deposit? 

You can get started on Skilling for as little as 100 EUR.

Is Skilling good for beginners?

Like most reputable brokers, Skilling does offer demo accounts where beginners can learn the system and refine their strategy. 

There are no educational resources on-site. You won’t find any articles. You won’t find an extensive library of ebooks or webinars. You won’t find so much as a basic how-to.

It does, of course, run on very popular trading platforms, so you could also seek out that education yourself, elsewhere, and then return to Skilling to use the platform, which is not so complicated that a novice couldn’t figure it out after doing their own research. In addition, Skilling’s proprietary, the in-house platform does eschew jargon in favor of easy-to-understand trading terminology, which can significantly smooth the path for beginners of every stripe. 

In addition, the “Skilling Trade Assistant” was built for beginners. It’s a trade wizard that you can use to make a trade and learn while you do. It provides visuals and questions about the trading process that you’ll answer. It will then suggest the right trade based on your answers. The entire process takes place across a series of easy, simple-to-follow steps.

Thus, the answer is “it depends.” If you’re a trader who is comfortable doing your own research and you want to use tools like the Trade Assistant and copy trading to learn then Skilling can be an excellent option. If you were hoping for a platform where a lot of educational resources would be available right at your fingertips then you might want to consider other options. 

What leverage does Skilling offer?

Skilling offers leverage of 1:500. Be careful when using leverage, and make sure you understand exactly what you’re doing before making use of it. Leverage is where a lot of traders get into trouble and can result in you owing lots of money to Skilling instead of you making it big as a day trader.

Who runs Skilling?

Skilling’s CEO is Michael Kamerman. Kamerman had 15 years of experience working for FXCM prior to coming over to Skilling, where he served as the Vice President of Sales and Financial Services. He spent most of his career there, though he did a brief 3-month stint as a Public Affairs Intern at the U.S. Department of State. He’s a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia and attended to Universitat d’Alacant. 

Kamerman’s track record in the industry seems to make him a solid, stable choice for leading Skilling into the future. 

Is Skilling a market maker?

Skilling is a market-making broker, which means they are indeed profiting every time you lose out on a trade. This doesn’t mean that anyone at Skilling will be actively paying attention to your trades or working against you, but it does mean that they win when you lose. Skilling can’t manipulate market prices without risking the loss of their license, even in Seychelles. 

It’s also the reason why they’re able to offer such low commissions, tight spreads, and low initial deposits. Being a market maker lets them do these things while simultaneously allowing them to remain in business. 

Is Skilling right for me?

So far, customers seem to have found a great deal to enjoy about Skilling. The customer service seems to be excellent, as does the user experience. The solid variety of trading instruments and the copy trade functionality offered by the platform do make it an attractive option for traders based in any of the countries where Skilling legally does business.

As mentioned it does offer very little in the way of educational resources, making it problematic at best for beginners. At the very least, beginners should go into Skilling aware that they will have to do their own research and seek out their own resources. Yet we wouldn’t tell beginners to write off Skilling entirely. They offer too many in-platform tools with beginners in mind. 

All told, we can see no major issues with using this platform other than their light regulatory environment, which seems to stand as the only real black mark against them. This may be offset by Skilling’s own apparent commitments to transparency and customer service.