eToro Forex broker is regulated by U.K., Denmark, Germany, United States and Australia regulating agencies. Asia-Pacific and Australia clients can so easily trade from IC Markets Ltd which is licensed under Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
But in United States eToro is operated as eToroUSA under Tradonomi LLC, which acts as an introducing broker to Institutional Liquidity (ILQ). By the way, let me explain about ILQ. It is a Foreign Currency Exchange Broker which offers B2B liquidity and services. ILQ does not accept retail foreign exchange clients directly. ILQ’s mission is to deliver the best retail forex connectivity, execution, and liquidity solutions to institutional clients. eToro gives a good customer support via telephone, email or via live chat.
eToro trading platform has a couple of great features which include WebTrader, OpenBook, Copy Trading, Android-based platform and Mobile Trader. To learn more about eToro features find out below:
Social Trading: The most popular feature of eToro is Social Trading. With social trading feature you can stay up to dated with your fellow traders, gurus and read their news feed about what are they actually doing like we read our friends and family members status in Facebook. People like eToro’s social trading feature to stay connected with one another and discuss, trade, invest, learn and share knowledge across the network.
People Discovery (Beta): eToro is working hard to provide its 3 million users best ever user experience. And now, it has introduced it’s People Discovery (Beta) feature that helps newbie investors to find experienced traders so easily. It’s like a simple search mechanism which allow users to search according to their specific needs.
Copy Trading: What I consider about eToro’s copy trading feature is “It’s really brilliant” which allows individual, newbie traders to copy the trades of experienced traders so easily right in their personal online trading account and manage the copy trading activities just as they would manage investments in any other market. Let’s suppose if you are looking to copy an experienced trader on eToro social trading platform all you need to do is to find the trader first. And when you decides to copy him/her you need to decide the amount that you want to invest on the trader to whom you wish to copy. Also, you will be asked to whether you wish to copy the current opened trades and if so just click Copy. Once you copied the trader with a specified amount, at this point the trades will automatically be copied in your trading account with average per trade basis.
Once you done this, the trades will be opened automatically in your trading account.
I’ve cover up a simple short video to describe and show you in live about how eToro’s copy trading feature works is given below:
See how eToro’s copy trading feature works:
Pros
eToro provides a unique social investment platform for traders using which you can copy other’s trades (as described above), follow top performers and leave comments just like we use Facebook. eToro have revolutionized the way of trading online without even downloading and installing the program in computer. However, you can find live currency, commodities, indices and stocks quotes on social trading platform and eToro also provides Islamic accounts to its users.
Cons
eToro offers traders the lowest spread support two pips, but when we compare the spread with out trading platforms is as low as one-tenth of a pip. This service also does not provide the MetaTrader platform.
You can start Forex trading on eToro with as little as minimum deposit of $50. You can trade with leverage and high-risk feature of eToro to make double of your invested amount so easily.
Leverage Trading
Leverage trading is one of the best feature of eToro with which a person can make double of its invested amount on full leveraged trade. Leverage is a kind of temporary loan that your broker gives you, so you can open large trades even you don’t have sufficient funds. But be careful about using leverage feature because either it can make rich or poor. Let’s take a look on how it works exactly.
For example: Let’s say, if you want to open $10,000 position you can use a margin of $25 with a leverage of 1×400: $25×400=$10,000.
Margin Trading
However, Margin is the actual amount that you invest in a position but we take the leverage (a temporary loan from broker as eToro) to buy big position.
For example: If you take the leverage 1X400, the margin will be 1/400=0.25%. So if the position size is $10,000 the used margin will be $10,000X0.25%=$25.
See the following video to know how eToro leverage and margin trading works:
eToro Islamic Online
Trading Account
eToro also offers its users Islamic online trading account, so people can trade both currencies and commodities on spot market for 24 hours. With an Islamic trading account, eToro try its best and make sure that there is no Riba (Interest) in any form duration of the contract (CFDs Trading). In Islam, the currency trading is something like you buy a currency on the first hand and giving the payment at the specified amount with your local currency in such a way of hand to hand exchange.
Whereas, usually in currency market, if you don’t close the trade position within 24 hours before 5:00 pm according to New York time, then here all open trades will be automatically rolled over, which normally poses a problem for those following Islamic law. In order to solve this problem there had been several decisions and fatwas issued.
According to them, the conditions for trading currency are:
- The currencies should be transferred from the account of the seller to that of the buyer or vice versa
- The purchasing of currencies should be immediate without delay
- Trade cost should be paid without any delay (I mean Spread)
- No interest on trades. In the case that there is any usurious interest, the contract will be invalid, void and Haram.
Either trade currencies as much as your money allows and permits you or just take a loan from your broker but only when the broker doesn’t receive any usurious interest on the loan.
Benefits of eToro
Islamic account
- There is not interest on contracts lasting longer than 24 hours (zero rollover interest consistently)
- eToro will not charge any commissions (or account management fees) on Islamic trading accounts but all the revenues comes from spreads (which is the difference between the Ask and the Bid prices in the currency pair)
- Islamic trading accounts are totally interest-free leverage
Open an eToro Islamic account
Follow the steps below:
- First of all, open up a real account on eToro
- Deposit $50 minimum (Advice: Don’t use any unauthorized payment method because according to Forex regulations eToro process withdrawals on the first payment processor from where you deposited, so beware)
- To change your account type to Islamic (send the necessary documents, listed below)
Documents required to verify eToro Account
These are the documents that are required to withdraw funds first time:
- You will need to send your clear copy of your Passpost including your written signature
- Also send a clear copy of your any recent Utility Bill but make sure that the bill should not older than 3 months (The bill with your name and address of residence e.g. electricity bill, gasoline bill, water bill, telephone etc…) or your Bank Statement will also be accepted (should not older than 3 months again)
- If you deposited money from your Credit Card then you will need to send the clear color copies of your Credit Card both sides (the middle 8 digits from the front and the CVV number from the back can be masked)
How to Deposit Funds
in eToro?
To deposit funds into your eToro account, you will need to create your account first by following the steps below:
- Register to open an account — click here
- Login to the trading platform (etoro.com/webtrader)
- Click Account Balance button that you can see at the bottom left hand side
- Click on Deposit
Now, select your preferred deposit method, available payment methods are:
- Credit Card
- PayPal
- Neteller / 1-Pay
- Skrill (MoneyBookers)
- WebMoney
- GiroPay (available in Germany only)
- Wire Transfer
Deposit Amount
Limitations
Table goes here.
How to Withdraw Funds
from eToro?
You can easily withdraw funds from your eToro account by using a couple of payment methods but as I said that (Don’t use any unauthorized payment method because according to Forex regulations eToro process withdrawals on the first payment processor from where you deposited, so beware).
For more details, follow the steps below:
- Login to your eToro.com/webtrader
- Click More → Withdraw Funds
- On this page, you will asked to enter the amount to withdraw (in USD) click NEXT
- Once done, it will take you through the payment method in which you want to withdraw funds
- Click Submit
In your HISTORY section you will see withdrawals and deposits. Screenshot is given below:
See the video below to see how to withdraw funds from eToro:
Withdrawal Fees
Schedule of eToro
eToro charge an affordable withdrawal fees depending on the withdrawal amount, kindly see the withdrawal fees schedule here:
Withdrawal Amount Fee (in USD)
- $20.00 – $200.00 = fees $5.00
- $200.01 – $500.00 = fees 10.00
- $500.01 + = fees $25.00
Usually, your request for withdrawal take five business days to process. However, if you make multiple withdrawal then eToro reserve the complete rights to combine both withdrawals and make them into one payment within 72 hours.
Important! Before you Withdraw
eToro reserve the complete rights to withdraw your funds in your initially deposited payment processor. When you go to withdraw funds from your eToro account in the Cashier section you will be asked for withdrawal method (you can use the only method that you used to fund your trading account). eToro also offer traders to use an alternative method to process withdrawals but only under extreme circumstances. But currently supported payment methods by eToro are:
- Credit Card
- PayPal
- Skrill (MoneyBookers)
- Bank transfer
- Webmoney
- Neteller (eWallets)
- Western Union/MoneyGram (Not Accepted Anymore…)
Final Thoughts
Finally, I’ve successfully ended up and reviewed each and every part of eToro social investment and trading platform which includes some videos regarding the live web trading platform experience and eToro has a couple of great features which includes WebTrader, OpenBook, Copy Trading, Android-based platform and Mobile Trader also described in details in this review. If you are looking to start trading with eToro feel free to sign up here.