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Best ASIC Regulated Forex Brokers

BrokerNotes.co

Written by BrokerNotes.co

August 29, 2023

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has gained a reputation as one of the toughest regulatory agencies in the world of financial trading. It has strengthened regulation of the financial services industry in Australia, aided in recovery of funds for duped investors and also prosecuted errant operators within the industry.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) is the agency tasked with the regulation of the financial markets in Australia and territories under Australian control. ASIC is headquartered in Sydney and is present each state and territory in Australia as well. ASIC regulates companies, entities and financial professional professionals working in the Australian financial system.

In other words, ASIC is the regulator for corporations, financial markets and financial services. The all-encompassing role ASIC plays in the Australian financial services industry sets it apart from other regulators around the world who carry out more limited functions.

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 74% and 89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Best ASIC-Regulated Forex Brokers

  • IG
    - 9.9/10 Overall
  • FOREX.com
    - 9.3/10 Overall
  • City Index - 9.2/10 Overall
  • eToro - 8.8/10 Overall
  • AvaTrade - 8.6/10 Overall
  • FXCM
    - 8.5/10 Overall
  • Plus500 - 8.5/10 Overall
  • XM Group - 8.4/10 Overall
  • Pepperstone - 8.4/10 Overall
IG
9.9/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit£250.00
Tier-1 Licenses8
Tradeable Symbols (Total)19537

Year after year, IG has shown itself to be the best broker in the forex industry and a fantastic choice for forex traders. Highly trusted and regulated across the globe, IG delivers a wide variety of rich features, market research, and powerful trading tools. Fans of copy trading will appreciate IG’s seamless integration of trading signals into its web platform.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
Visit Site

Join 239,000+ traders worldwide.

(Trading forex carries a high level of risk.)

FOREX.com
9.3/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$100
Tier-1 Licenses7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)5500

FOREX.com is a highly trusted brand with a long history of offering forex in the U.S. and across the globe. FOREX.com offers its own flagship trading platforms for web and desktop, as well as the full MetaTrader suite. Though its pricing is higher than average, FOREX.com is a balanced choice for traders of all experience levels.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)Yes
Visit Site

A Global Market Leader!

(Trading forex carries a high level of risk.)

City Index
9.2/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit£100.00
Tier-1 Licenses7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)13500

City Index, part of StoneX Group, is an award-winning, highly trusted broker with a long history of offering forex and CFDs across its global offices. City Index delivers a well-designed mobile trading app and a powerful web platform, as well as a large range of tradeable markets (though pricing is just average).

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
eToro
8.8/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$10-$10,000
Tier-1 Licenses3
Tradeable Symbols (Total)3479

Best known for its copy trading platform suite, eToro is a highly trusted broker offering a large selection of cryptocurrency products, CFDs, shares, forex pairs, and a wide range of powerful trading tools. It’s worth noting that eToro is not a discount broker (though it offers zero-dollar commissions for U.S. stocks).

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)No
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
AvaTrade
8.6/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$100
Tier-1 Licenses4
Tradeable Symbols (Total)1260

AvaTrade is a well-rounded, highly trusted broker that offers excellent educational resources for beginners and great tools for copy trading. AvaTrade's commissions and market research are about average, and traders gain access to AvaTrade's proprietary platforms and the full MetaTrader suite.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)Yes
FXCM
8.5/10 Overall
Minimum DepositStarts from $50
Tier-1 Licenses4
Tradeable Symbols (Total)440

FXCM is a highly trusted brand that offers multiple trading platforms for algorithmic trading and social copy trading, along with a proprietary platform suite and access to MetaTrader 4. FXCM is great for beginners due to its wide range of educational content. It's worth noting that pricing at FXCM is just average.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
Visit Site

$0.00 Commissions and Low Spreads.

(71% of retail CFD accounts lose money)

Plus500
8.5/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit€100
Tier-1 Licenses6
Tradeable Symbols (Total)2800

Plus500 is a highly-trusted broker that delivers share trading via the Plus500 Invest platform and a good selection of CFDs via the broker’s separate Plus500 CFD platform. Though Plus500 doesn’t offer MetaTrader, we found its proprietary trading platform to be intuitive and easy to use. Plus500 is still a great choice for less demanding traders.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)No
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
XM Group
8.4/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$5
Tier-1 Licenses4
Tradeable Symbols (Total)1429

XM Group is a trusted broker known for its robust educational materials and quality market research. Traders at XM Group gain access to the full MetaTrader platform suite along with trading tools provided by Trading Central. That said, XM Group doesn't offer any proprietary platforms, and its range of markets and trading costs could improve.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformNo
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)Yes
Pepperstone
8.4/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$200
Tier-1 Licenses3
Tradeable Symbols (Total)2342

Pepperstone is a highly trusted broker that offers a growing number of tradeable markets and support for third-party platforms such as TradingView, cTrader, a variety of copy trading platforms, and the MetaTrader suite. Traders at Pepperstone also gain access to high-quality research content in both written and video format.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformNo
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)Yes

About ASIC

ASIC was setup under the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act of 2001, and also carries out most of its corporate regulation under the Corporations Act of 2001. ASIC is therefore mandated by the relevant laws to:

  • Strive to continuously improve the performance of the Australian financial system and all entities operating within it.
  • Ensure that investors and consumers within the Australian financial system participate actively in an informed manner.
  • Administer the provisions of the ASIC act and also provide enforcement of the laws.
  • Ensure that information about companies and other entities in the financial space is publicly available in a timely fashion.

Functions of ASIC

ASIC regulates companies, financial services entities, professionals working in the financial services industry as well as the financial markets. Financial services covered by ASIC regulation include all investment vehicles, deposit-taking businesses, insurance, superannuation and loans.

As a Consumer Credit Regulator

Acting as a regulator of the consumer credit industry in Australia, ASIC regulates individuals and corporate entities that work in the business of providing consumer credit. Therefore, banks, credit unions, finance companies, mortgage brokers and finance brokers are covered by this regulatory function. This regulatory function is covered by the National Consumer Credit Protection Act of 2009.

As a Markets Regulator

The ASIC also conducts regulation of the Australian financial markets and all entities that provide services within it. In other words, ASIC determines which financial derivative instruments and markets can operate within Australia, assess how effectively these financial markets comply with existing regulations and determine if these markets are fair, orderly and transparent. ASIC therefore has the power to license new instruments and markets for the purpose of investment or trading. ASIC also regulates and supervises the domestic equity, derivatives and futures markets.

As a Financial Services Regulator

ASIC also functions as a regulator of financial services. Therefore, licensing and monitoring of financial services businesses is carried out by ASIC to ensure that they operate in a manner that is honest, efficient and fair. Regulated financial services include fund management businesses, stock trading, derivatives trading and insurance business.

How the ASIC Protects Traders

ASIC performs its consumer protection in several ways. This it does by ensuring that businesses operating in the financial markets, consumer credit and financial services sectors are licensed o do so. Typically, ASIC grants these entities an AFS license. By definition, the following entities must operate with an AFS license:

  • Providers of financial products such as managed funds services or financial advisory services
  • Market makers
  • Operators of managed investment schemes
  • Providers of trustee company management services
  • Companies dealing in financial products i.e. brokers in various financial markets

Therefore, if a company claims to be offering insurance, financial brokerage, margin lending, derivatives trading or similar services, then such a company must have an AFS license and is required to state this clearly on its website. So the first level of protection for traders is to check to see if the company has an Australian Financial Services (AFS) license. This ensures that the entity the trader or investor wants to do business with is answerable to a regulatory body (in this case ASIC) and that there is a pathway to recourse if the trader or investor feels wronged in any way by an entity.

A second level of protection is the presence of a register.

ASIC maintains three registers. These are the registers for business names, professional registers and a register of companies and business which are regulated and licensed to offer services to consumers in the Australian financial system.These registers are available on the ASIC website and a trader, investor or consumer of financial products in Australia can perform a search of a company or financial professional on any of the registers to determine their status with ASIC. We show an example with Plus500, a Cypriot forex brokerage company that also operates in Australia.

After entering the search parameters (search by name or AFS license number), the trader can see the results of the search as shown below, which indicates that Plus500 is licensed and in good standing.

ASIC can also apply sanctions on companies, professionals and those in management of errant companies. This is another level of protection for consumers and is carried out in response to complaints made by consumers as well as problems detected during routine supervision of these companies by ASIC. We see an example shown here where ASIC applied a permanent ban to a financial adviser.

By making such information publicly available on its web portal, ASIC protects the investing public and ensures that they do not do business with banned professionals. ASIC has also undertaken the business of recovery of funds where there has been embezzlement of investor funds, as well as criminal prosecution of those implicated in any such schemes.

A case in point is that of David Paul Mudge, a former financial advisor with Windsor Gardens, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 27 months in prison for deceiving a client into signing documents that authorised Mr Mudge to withdraw money from the client’s accounts. ASIC was able to recover $99, 315 out of $216, 767 Mudge was ordered by the court to repay his duped client.

BrokerNotes.co 2023 Overall Rankings

To recap, here are our top forex brokers for 2023, sorted by Overall ranking.

Company Accepts AU Residents Overall Rating Minimum Deposit Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard Trust Score Tradeable Symbols (Total) Read Review Visit Site
IG logoIG check 9.9 £250.00 0.86 99 19537 IG Review Visit Site
Saxo Bank logoSaxo Bank check 9.7 €2,000 0.9 99 70000 Saxo Bank Review
Interactive Brokers logoInteractive Brokers check 9.7 $0 0.6 99 8500 Interactive Brokers Review
CMC Markets logoCMC Markets check 9.6 $0 0.51 99 12074 CMC Markets Review
TD Ameritrade logoTD Ameritrade check 9.5 $0 1.25 99 0 TD Ameritrade Review
FOREX.com logoFOREX.com check 9.3 $100 1.4 99 5500 FOREX.com Review Visit Site
City Index logoCity Index check 9.2 £100.00 1.4 99 13500 City Index Review
XTB logoXTB check 9 $0 1.07 96 6010 XTB Group Review
eToro logoeToro check 8.8 $10-$10,000 1 90 3479 eToro Review
Swissquote logoSwissquote check 8.7 $1000 N/A 99 472 Swissquote Review
AvaTrade logoAvaTrade check 8.6 $100 0.92 94 1260 AvaTrade Review
FXCM logoFXCM check 8.5 Starts from $50 1.38 95 440 FXCM Review Visit Site
Plus500 logoPlus500 check 8.5 €100 0.8 (August 2021) 99 2800 Plus500 Review
Capital.com logoCapital.com check 8.4 $20 0.65 87 3119 Capital.com Review
XM Group logoXM Group check 8.4 $5 1.6 88 1429 XM Group Review
Pepperstone logoPepperstone check 8.4 $200 0.77 95 2342 Pepperstone Review
OANDA logoOANDA check 8.4 $0 1.26 93 124 OANDA Review
Admiral Markets logoAdmiral Markets check 8.3 $100 0.8 93 6942 Admiral Markets Review
FP Markets logoFP Markets check 8.3 $100 AUD 1.2 87 10000 FP Markets Review
IC Markets logoIC Markets check 8.2 $200 0.62 84 3583 IC Markets Review
Markets.com logoMarkets.com check 8.2 $100 1.9 96 2179 Markets.com Review
FxPro logoFxPro check 8.1 $100 1.51 90 2249 FxPro Review
Tickmill logoTickmill check 8.0 $100 0.51 83 725 Tickmill Review
Fineco Bank logoFineco Bank check 8.0 $0 N/A 95 126 Fineco Bank Review
BlackBull Markets logoBlackBull Markets check 7.9 $0 0.827 77 26000 BlackBull Markets Review
DooPrime logoDooPrime check 7.8 $100 N/A 83 10000 DooPrime Review
Vantage logoVantage check 7.8 $50 1.30 90 1000 Vantage Review
BDSwiss logoBDSwiss check 7.8 $100-$5000 1.6 81 1081 BDSwiss Review
HFM logoHFM check 7.8 $0 1.2 86 3500 HFM Review
FlowBank logoFlowBank check 7.7 $0 N/A 80 408600 FlowBank Review
HYCM (Henyep Capital Markets) logoHYCM (Henyep Capital Markets) check 7.7 $20 0.6 88 1199 HYCM Review
Trading 212 logoTrading 212 check 7.6 €10 N/A 77 1785 Trading 212 Review
ThinkMarkets logoThinkMarkets check 7.6 $0 N/A 88 4000 ThinkMarkets Review
Eightcap logoEightcap check 7.6 $100 1.0 85 736 Eightcap Review
Trade Nation logoTrade Nation check 7.5 $0 0.6 83 601 Trade Nation Review
Moneta Markets logoMoneta Markets check 7.5 $50 1.27 72 1016 Moneta Markets Review
VT Markets logoVT Markets check 7.4 $100 1.2 70 1000 VT Markets Review
TMGM logoTMGM check 7.8 $100 0.96 83 12000 TMGM Review
ACY Securities logoACY Securities check 7.4 $50 1.2 75 1600 ACY Securities Review
easyMarkets logoeasyMarkets check 7.3 $50 0.9 80 199 easyMarkets Review
RoboForex (RoboMarkets) logoRoboForex (RoboMarkets) check 7.3 $100 1.4 71 12000 Roboforex (RoboMarkets) Review
IronFX logoIronFX check 7.2 $50 1.2 84 340 IronFX Review
Exness logoExness check 7.2 $1 0.9 68 112 Exness Review
Spreadex logoSpreadex check 7.2 $0 N/A 71 2000 Spreadex Review
IFC Markets logoIFC Markets check 7.2 $1 1.44 67 630 ATFX Review
Trade360 logoTrade360 check 7.1 $250 N/A 76 1062 Trade360 Review
Axi logoAxi check 7.1 $0 N/A 81 175 Axitrader Review
GKFX logoGKFX check 7.1 $0 N/A 65 354 GKFX Review
Vestle logoVestle check 7.1 -1 N/A 78 750 Vestle Review
OctaFX logoOctaFX check 7 $25 0.9 70 229 OctaFX Review
FXOpen logoFXOpen check 7 $100 N/A 80 87 FXOpen Review
TeleTrade logoTeleTrade check 7 $100 N/A 71 500 Teletrade Review
FXPrimus logoFXPrimus check 6.9 $100 N/A 71 140 FXPrimus Review Visit Site
Forex4you logoForex4you check 6.9 $0 N/A 61 150 Forex4you Review
LegacyFX logoLegacyFX check 6.9 $500 N/A 67 425 LegacyFX Review
GBE brokers logoGBE brokers check 6.8 $500 N/A 71 500 GBE Brokers Review
Alpari logoAlpari check 6.8 $20 N/A 68 105 Alpari Review
TopFX logoTopFX check 6.7 Depends on payment method N/A 67 655 TopFX Review
Libertex (Forex Club) logoLibertex (Forex Club) check 6.7 $10 N/A 73 300 Libertex Review
ATFX logoATFX check 6.6 $500 N/A 67 150 ATFX Review
UFX logoUFX check 6.6 $100 3 67 619 UFX Review
Xtrade logoXtrade check 6.5 $250 N/A 80 142 Xtrade Review

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At BrokerNotes.co, our data-driven reviews of online brokers are based on our own extensive testing of each broker's products and services as well as the qualified observations of our expert editorial team. In conjunction with our sister site, ForexBrokers.com, we’ve published well over 100,000 words of research and collected thousands of data points across hundreds of variables. Our in-depth trading guides are created with the same rigorous, data-driven approach.

Our proprietary Trust Score rating system tracks data from over 100 regulatory jurisdictions to help forex traders understand the regulatory status of their forex broker and choose a broker that they can trust.

Our editorial team is led by Steven Hatzakis, an industry veteran with decades of experience and a deep understanding of the forex market. Our team conducts thorough testing on a wide range of brokers, platforms, products, technologies, third-party trading tools, and mobile apps. We also test for the availability of high-quality educational content, actionable market research resources, and the accessibility and capabilities of mobile platforms. All of our ratings and rankings are based on the collection and validation of thousands of data points and our in-depth product testing.

Part of our testing process involves in-depth research into commissions and fees. We dive into each broker’s trading costs, such as VIP rebates, inactivity fees, custody fees, bid/ask spreads (we always strive to determine the average spreads for each broker to better serve our readers), and a variety of other fee-based data points.

When testing mobile apps or mobile products, we test on both Apple and Android devices. For Apple, we test with the iPhone XS running iOS 16, and for Android we use the Samsung Galaxy S9+ and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra devices running Android OS 13.

All of the content on BrokerNotes.co is researched, fact-checked, and edited by members of our editorial team. Our ratings and rankings are driven by our independent data collection. We may use generative AI tools to assist in some of the rote aspects of our content production processes, but the substance of our content, as well as our opinions and evaluations are based on our extensive research and product testing. Read our Generative AI policy to learn more.

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Forex Risk Disclaimer

There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these products will be profitable, or that they will not result in losses. Learn more about foreign exchange risk.

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