TD Ameritrade vs OANDA 2023

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.

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

OANDA has a Trust Score of 93, giving it a "Highly Trusted" Trust Score Label.

TD Ameritrade, part of financial conglomerate Charles Schwab, is a leader in platform technology and trusted by millions of investors globally with trillions in assets under its brands. Available exclusively to U.S. residents, TD Ameritrade's forex offering consists of just over 70 currency pairs, along with powerful research, trading tools, and comprehensive educational resources for investing.

Founded in 1996, OANDA is a long-standing, highly trusted broker licensed in an impressive seven Tier-1 regulatory jurisdictions. Forex and CFD traders will find plenty to like at OANDA, including strong market research and support for a range of third-party plug-ins and platforms (like MetaTrader 4 and the wildly popular TradingView). The OANDA Trade platform is available for web, desktop, and mobile. Though the desktop platform is good – not great – the mobile app is easy to use and boasts a great balance of features. The only downside with using OANDA is its comparatively small range of markets and industry-average spreads.

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. TD Ameritrade holds regulatory licenses in the following Tier-1 jurisdictions: Canada (CIRO Authorised), Hong Kong (SFC Authorised), Singapore (MAS Authorised), United Kingdom (U.K.) (FCA Authorised) and USA (CFTC Authorized). OANDA, on the other hand, is licensed in these Tier-1 regulatory jurisdictions: Australia (ASIC Authorised), Canada (CIRO Authorised), Japan (SFC Authorised), Singapore (MAS Authorised), United Kingdom (U.K.) (FCA Authorised) and USA (CFTC Authorized). Neither have CBI Authorised (Ireland), New Zealand (FMA Authorised) and Switzerland (FINMA Authorised)

Tier-2 and tier-3 licenses are still important in evaluating the overall trustworthiness of forex brokers. As far as tier-2 licenses go, unfortunately, neither TD Ameritrade nor OANDA are China (CBRC Authorised), Cyprus (CySEC Authorised), India (SEBI Authorised), Israel (ISA Authorised), Russia (CBR Authorised), South Africa (FSCA Authorised), Thailand (SEC Authorised) and UAE (DFSA/Central Bank Authorised).. Neither have UAE (DFSA/Central Bank Authorised). When comparing tier-3 licenses TD Ameritrade is none, while OANDA is British Virgin Islands (FSC Authorised).. Neither have Bahamas (SCB Authorised), Belize (FSC Authorised), Bermuda (BMA Authorised), Cayman Islands (CIMA Authorised), Mauritius (FSC 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 TD Ameritrade and OANDA offer a Proprietary Platform and Desktop Platform (Windows). Neither have cTrader, DupliTrade and ZuluTrade

For MetaTrader TD Ameritrade provides neither of these, while OANDA provides MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). If MetaTrader is a must for you, read our guides on the best MT4 brokers or best MT5 brokers.

TD Ameritrade requires a minimum deposit of $0, while OANDA 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 TD Ameritrade supports Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw) for funding and deposit methods, whereas OANDA supports Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw), Visa/Mastercard (Credit/Debit), PayPal (Deposit/Withdraw) 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 TD Ameritrade delivers a more diverse selection of investment options than OANDA, offering tradeable asset classes and investment types such as Forex Trading (Spot or CFDs). Neither have ETF and U.S. Stocks (CFD).

We also keep track of each broker’s total number of tradeable symbols; TD Ameritrade offers 0, and OANDA offers a total of 124 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 neither TD Ameritrade nor OANDA allow you to trade physical cryptocurrencies.

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. TD Ameritrade delivers the following research tools: Daily Market Commentary, Stock Charts and Forex News (Top-Tier Sources). OANDA, on the other hand, provides the tools listed here: Autochartist, Daily Market Commentary, Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) and Social Trading / Copy Trading. Neither have Trading Central (Recognia)

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