Swissquote vs ActivTrades 2024

Trust Score is a data-driven rating system that provides an at-a-glance rating of a broker’s overall trust by tracking 60+ brokers and over 100 regulatory jurisdictions across the globe. To make things clearer for everyday traders, we’ve created a five-tier system for regulators and Trust Score rating labels. Learn more about Trust Score, and check out our country guides to see the most trusted brokers in your country of residence.

Swissquote has a Trust Score of 99, giving it a "Highly Trusted" Trust Score Label.

ActivTrades has a Trust Score of 81, giving it a "Trusted" Trust Score Label.

Traders at Swissquote gain access to a balanced offering of easy-to-use proprietary trading platforms and popular third-party platforms like MetaTrader (both MT4 and MT5) and TradingView. Swissquote also delivers access to a staggering 3 million financial products, including stocks, options, futures, derivatives, ETFs, and structured products (though only a few hundred CFDs). With multiple Tier-1 regulatory licenses and a Trust Score rating of 99 (as well as the rare distinction of operating three banks), we consider Swissquote to be a highly trusted broker. It's worth noting that Swissquote's pricing is more expensive than what you'd find with low-cost forex brokers, and its forex account offers far fewer markets than Swissquote's eTrading account for share dealing.

ActivTrades has been around for over 20 years and holds multiple Tier-1 regulatory licenses. Traders gain access to the broker's proprietary trading platform, ActivTrader, along with a decent offering of third-party platforms. Though ActivTrades boasts above-average spreads and several innovative platform features, its selection of tradeable symbols is below-average and there are no active trading accounts or volume-based discounts.

Tier-1 is reserved for the strictest, most stringent regulatory jurisdictions in the world. Tier-1 regulators impose additional capital requirements and require a tougher initial screening process. Swissquote holds regulatory licenses in the following Tier-1 jurisdictions: Hong Kong (SFC Authorised), Singapore (MAS Authorised) and United Kingdom (U.K.) (FCA Authorised). ActivTrades, on the other hand, is licensed in these Tier-1 regulatory jurisdictions: United Kingdom (U.K.) (FCA Authorised). Neither have Australia (ASIC Authorised), Canada (CIRO Authorised), CBI Authorised (Ireland), Japan (SFC Authorised), New Zealand (FMA Authorised), Switzerland (FINMA Authorised) and USA (CFTC Authorized)

Tier-2 and tier-3 licenses are still important in evaluating the overall trustworthiness of forex brokers. As far as tier-2 licenses go, Swissquote is Cyprus (CySEC Authorised) and UAE (DFSA/Central Bank Authorised), while ActivTrades is none.. Neither have China (CBRC Authorised), India (SEBI Authorised), Israel (ISA Authorised), Russia (CBR Authorised), South Africa (FSCA Authorised) and Thailand (SEC Authorised). When comparing tier-3 licenses Swissquote is none, while ActivTrades is Bahamas (SCB Authorised) and Mauritius (FSC Authorised).. Neither have Belize (FSC Authorised), Bermuda (BMA Authorised), British Virgin Islands (FSC Authorised), Cayman Islands (CIMA Authorised) and Vanuatu (VFSC Authorised).

Whether your broker develops its own proprietary platforms or provides access to popular third-party platforms, you should make sure you can use your preferred type of trading platform. In our testing, we found that both Swissquote and ActivTrades offer a Proprietary Platform and Desktop Platform (Windows). Neither have cTrader, DupliTrade and ZuluTrade

Both Swissquote and ActivTrades offer the whole MetaTrader suite, which consists of both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. If you’re new to MetaTrader 4 here’s our educational guide on how to use MT4.

Swissquote requires a minimum deposit of $1000, while ActivTrades requires a minimum deposit of 0. It's also important to ensure your broker accepts the funding options and deposit methods that work best for you. In our research, we've found that Swissquote supports Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw), Visa/Mastercard (Credit/Debit), PayPal (Deposit/Withdraw) and Skrill (Deposit/Withdraw) for funding and deposit methods, whereas ActivTrades supports Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw), Visa/Mastercard (Credit/Debit) and Skrill (Deposit/Withdraw)

When choosing a forex broker, it’s important to consider each broker’s available investment products and tradeable asset classes. We’ve researched each broker’s individual offering of investments to help you pick the right broker for what you want to trade. During our testing, we found that Swissquote delivers a more diverse selection of investment options than ActivTrades, offering tradeable asset classes and investment types such as Forex Trading (Spot or CFDs), Social Trading / Copy Trading, Metals, Energies, Agriculturals, ETF and U.S. Stocks (CFD).

We also keep track of each broker’s total number of tradeable symbols; Swissquote offers 472, and ActivTrades offers a total of 1267 tradeable symbols.

Crypto trading has become popular among forex traders across a range of international jurisdictions. As a result, many forex brokers now offer crypto products to their clients; most crypto assets are offered either as an underlying physical asset (such as when you own actual bitcoin assets, for example) or as a derivative product like a CFD. If you are looking to trade physical cryptocurrencies, you’ll find that Swissquote offers clients access to trading physical cryptocurrencies while ActivTrades does not.

Market research plays a huge role in any forex trader’s ability to conduct analysis within the global forex market. We test each broker’s research offering to help you decide which broker is right for your technical or fundamental analysis needs. Swissquote delivers the following research tools: Autochartist, Daily Market Commentary, Stock Charts, Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) and Social Trading / Copy Trading. ActivTrades, on the other hand, provides the tools listed here: Daily Market Commentary, Stock Charts, Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) and Social Trading / Copy Trading. Neither have Trading Central (Recognia)

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