Saxo Bank Review

Saxo Bank is a Danish bank specializing in online trading and investment. The headquarter of Saxo Bank is in Copenhagen, but the bank also has offices in many financial centers worldwide, including London, Paris, Zurich, Dubai, Singapore, India and Tokyo. The company is authorised and regulated by one of the strictest financial authorities over the world, including UK’s FCA, Australia’s ASIC, and Japan’s FSA. According to the bank’s website, it has clients in 180 countries and has a daily average turnover of approximately USD12 billion.

Saxo Bank provides access to over 40,000 instruments for online trading including 182 currency pairs and more than 19,000 shares. Trading liquidity is provided through interconnection with global stock exchanges and at least 15 major banks. In addition to leveraged products, investors can also trade so-called investment products that include stocks, bonds, ETFs and mutual funds. Bank offers another option for profitability – Trading Strategies. If you chose them, bank experts will make trade decisions dealing directly into your account – kind of trust management. However, the level of risk is extremely high and instead of profit, a loss of 20% is something normal, the bank warns. Please note the minimum deposit requirement of USD20,000.

Saxo Bank has developed its own platform, either for the average trader – SaxoTraderGO, or for the professional one – SaxoTraderPRO. There is an overview screen for each one so you can review them before you need to log in. SaxoTraderPRO covers all the features of SaxoTraderGO and adds the ability to analyse customer’s performance and to download some historical reports.

Three types of accounts can be chosen. The most popular is the Saxo account. It gives access to all available instruments via both of the bank’s platforms – SaxoTraderGO and SaxoTraderPRO. The Saxo account divides into three subaccounts. The Classic one requires a minimum deposit of USD10,000 and provides ‘tight entry prices’ of the instruments. To open the Platinum account, you must invest at least USD200,000, which lowers the spread expenses by 30%. Getting the best bid/ask prices is only possible in a VIP account and requires a minimum investment of USD1 million. In addition, the bank offers an account for both corporations and professional clients.

Let us look at the legal documents included in the website. Best execution policy shows that even unlikely, slippage may occur. In some cases, order may be rejected. Professional clients are not offered negative balance protection, unlike retail ones who cannot lose more than their investment – only if they trade forex spot or CFD positions. So, if you are a retail client and you trade stocks, you may owe some money to this broker.

The most important financial news, as well as analyses of some markets, can also be seen on the website.

As a conclusion, Saxo Bank is a strictly regulated broker that offers an award-winning platform for every kind of trader and plenty of instruments with competitive spreads. However, you must invest at least USD10,000, if you want to trade with Saxo Bank, which obviously is a market maker. One major drawback is the lack of the industry standard MetaTrader platform. Keep in mind there are some fee and taxes noticed on the webpage.