Broker Profile: AvaTrade

A Brief History

AvaTrade was founded way back in 2006 and originally traded under the AvaFX name. The brokerage however re-branded itself in 2013, as AvaTrade in part to reflect the wide range of instruments available to trade with the brokerage. The brokerage is regulated in a number of different jurisdictions with the firm having imprints based in Ireland, Australia and an offshore arm of the company based in the British Virgin Islands (Source). The brokerage is well known among traders and has one of the larger Forex affiliate programs which is responsible for driving a substantial amount of business to the firm. In 2013, the firm received some negative press for releasing a series of adverts which were criticised as being deeply sexiest. Despite moves in the industry towards STP/ECN models the brokerage still operates as a Market Maker.

Services

The name change from AvaFX to AvaTrade highlights the increased ranges of trading instruments offered to the firms clientele, while the core of the business is still focused on FX trading. In addition to a wide selection of FX pairings the brokerage also offers Precious Metal, Indice, Bitcoin, Stock, Bond and Commodity CFD’s.  This is quite a substantial range of CFD’s for a brokerage to offer with many other brokerages sticking more to their core FX offering.  The brokerage offers both fixed and floating spread accounts, though the firm has been criticised for the width of their spreads by many who have traded with them. At the core of the brokerages platform offering is their AvaTrader which is available as both a web trader and as downloadable client, however the brokerage also offer clients the ever popular MetaTrader 4 platform should they prefer. Social trading is also supported and available via both ZuluTrade and Tradency’s Mirror Trader. As already briefly touched upon AvaTrade began offering Options Trading to its clients in 2013, through a partnership with Sentry. The options offer aren’t Binary, but rather vanilla options as one would find traded on an exchange (Source). 

Regulatory Information

AvaTrade operates a number of imprints meaning that it is regulated in a number of different jurisdictions. In Europe, the brokerage is regulated in Ireland by the Central Bank of Ireland, this allows the firm to accept clients from throughout the European Union via MiFID’s outbound passporting. The Australian arm of the firm is regulated by ASIC allowing the firm to accept clients from Australia, additionally AvaTrade has an imprint based and regulated in Japan allowing the firm to take on clients from the lucrative country. The brokerage also operates an offshore entity which is regulated by the British Virgin Island’s light touch regulator the Financial Services Commission. Many firms have started such offshore entities allowing them to take on clients from regions which would require them to open a local office and gain regulation.