Pepperstone Review – CFD & ECN Forex Trading

This online foreign exchange broker review covers a leading Australian ECN broker, Pepperstone Australia (Pepperstone Group Limited). I’m excited to include a Pepperstone review, comparing their standard vs razor accounts and trading platforms, as it’s one of the largest names in the Australian FX market with daily turnover/trading volume of $5.2 billion.

Pepperstone also offer unmatched top tier liquidity from the interbank market, with institutional grade spreads.

I therefore wanted to include an Australian forex broker review of Pepperstone’s accounts and help illustrate which Forex traders they may be most suited to.

Pepperstone Review Summary:

Pepperstone (Australia) Review

4.5 / 5 Reviewer

Pros

• Low spread foreign exchange broker! Their Razor account is one of the lowest average ECN Forex spreads out of all FX brokers compared
• Australia's largest online Forex broker by volume
• Excellent execution speed and no dealing desk intervention
• Pro Client and Active Trader programs
• Wide variety of currency pairs & world market indices to trade.
  Pepperstone now offers 31 cryptocurrency CFDs (including Bitcoin & Ethereum)
• Offers two of the world’s most popular online forex platforms, MetaTrader 4 (MT4) & cTrader
• Pepperstone withdrawal process is easy and fast! Testing by the reviewer in September 2023 confirmed our funds were withdrawn, and credited to our bank account, in the time-frames quoted on the Pepperstone web site
• Free Smart Trader Tools package for all accounts funded with $500 or more. Smart Trader Tools provides excellent upgrades to the MetaTrader 4 platform
• Welcome all trading styles, including scalping, expert advisors (EAs), automated trading and hedging in the one account
• 13 different account deposit/funding methods available and Pepperstone do not charge any internal fees for deposits or withdrawals
• No inactivity fees
• Trade all world markets from one account
• Professional Multi Account Manager (MAM) available for money managers
• One click trading available on MT4 via tool developed by Pepperstone
• Excellent, award winning customer service. Includes 24hr phone, live chat and email support

Cons

• Does not offer CFDs on equities. This will not be an issue for traders if they don't require stock/share CFDs and Pepperstones Range Of Instruments is excellent on the Forex with 97 different currency pairs to trade
• Trading platforms may not be as easy to use as some basic web platforms, however are extremely stable, functional and feature rich.

Summary

Pepperstone is an Australian online broker specialising in ECN Forex trading. Pepperstone Group Limited are one of the largest names in the Australian currency trading market, with daily turnover/trading volume of $5.2 billion (approximately $110 billion per month trade volume). This puts them in the top 10 FX brokers in the world by volume. Pepperstone spreads on their Forex instruments are some of the tightest we have reviewed.

Pepperstone will suit experienced FX traders requiring an extremely fast, reliable low cost ECN trading environment and wide variety of Forex instruments to trade.

Pepperstone Forex broker is also suited to foreign exchange traders who include scalping, Expert Advisor for MetaTrader, automated trading or hedging strategies, as these are all welcomed and available from Pepperstone accounts and trading platform.



Peperstone has expanded to also include direct access CFDs (in addition to their specialist ECN Forex) and are continually expanding this offering. Our broker review found traders have access to a range of global index, metals and commodity CFDs (plus 31 cryptocurrency CFDs). However, if equity CFD trading is of importance to you, then please be aware Pepperstone do not currently offer these.

Pepperstone broker is not suited to traders looking for fixed spreads. However, Pepperstone spreads are some of the lowest average ECN Forex market spreads of all brokers we've compared. If however you want the lowest fixed spread rates, please view our Trade Direct 365 review instead.

Our Pepperstone review has shown they are one of the best forex brokers regulated in Australia. They provide some of the lowest average ECN Forex spreads of all FX brokers reviewed, combined with MetaTrader, TradingView & cTrader currency trading platforms, exceptional execution speed and multi award-winning customer service!
We highly recommend the Pepperstone razor accounts for anyone wanting to trade Forex with one of the top, multi-award winning, low spread forex brokers in Australia.

Get started now or try the Pepperstone demo trading account.

Pricing4.7

Range Of Instruments4

Speed of Execution4.8

Trading Platform Features5

Ease Of Use3.7

Customer Support5

Review Detail: Pepperstone Australia Forex broker

• Pepperstone is a leading Forex ECN broker focusing heavily on a fast execution experience and low cost trading. They have clearly achieved this as our review and ECN Forex broker comparison tables show. This is combined with ultra-low latency, high quality execution via EDGE technology, reliable trading platform infrastructure and award-winning customer support makes for a great trading experience.
• One of the top non dealing desk forex brokers in Australia.

• Pepperstone Spreads

  Pepperstone spreads are extremely tight, especially the razor spreads which is one of the lowest raw ECN spread Forex accounts out of the FX brokers we’ve reviewed. Razor account ECN spreads start from 0.0 pips with excellent average spreads (a better indicator of your expected FX trading costs) of just 0.10 pips for EURUSD, and 0.20 pips average spread on the AUDUSD currency pair.

  Pepperstone’s standard online forex trading account offer forex traders tight, straight through processing (STP) spreads and liquidity from 22 banks and forex market ECN’s, which can also help to reduce slippage. This is great for Pepperstone Forex traders who are ready to move from demo to live trading account.

  
  
  

  Our Pepperstone review confirmed they have lowered FX trading costs with an ECN broker model of obtaining superior top tier liquidity. Foreign Exchange quotes are sourced from as many as 22 Major Banks and Electronic Crossing Networks (ECNs). Cutting edge technology combined with superior liquidity, compared to many ECN brokers, translates into extremely tight ECN spread FX pricing on all Pepperstone forex trading accounts!
  View our detailed Pepperstone fees and spreads list to see the spread or fees of every single instrument they offer.

  If you would like to compare Pepperstones razor & standard spreads against other FX brokers, please see our Forex spreads comparison tables.

  Try a DEMO Account   Learn More About Pepperstone
• Pepperstone Group Limited (ACN: 147 055 703), formerly named Pepperstone Financial Pty Ltd, holds an Australian financial services licence (AFSL) No. 414530 and is regulated by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC). They are an Australian online broker with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia and audited by top tier firm Ernst & Young.
• Pepperstone deposits all client funds in Segregated Client Trust Accounts with the National Australia Bank (NAB). Pepperstone cannot use client funds for any business purpose, they are kept on trust for clients and segregated from the business. However, client money can be used to maintain margin that is needed to cover positions opened by clients

• Pepperstone TradingView, MT4, MT5 & cTrader Trading Platforms

  Access to four of the world’s leading platforms for trading FX, TradingView, MetaTrader 4 (MT4), MetaTrader 5 (MT5) and cTrader. There are 15+ available variations of these products including WebTrader, mobile devices including Forex online platform app for iPhone, iPad & Android, plus MetaTrader 5 and cTrader cAlgo.

  
  
  

  Users focused on EAs (expert advisor) may prefer Pepperstone MT4 due to its wider availability, more online resources and larger online community. Other traders however may be drawn to cTrader due to the greater ability to make modifications to the interface, and more advanced order options.

• Account Types Review

  A common question I receive is, “what is the difference between the Pepperstone razor vs standard account“?

  Edge Standard Account – The Pepperstone Edge standard FX account (MT4) offers traders deep liquidity and Pepperstone’s tight inter-bank spreads with no commission charges. The spread on this account start from 1.0 pips with straight through processing (STP) and minimum trade size of 0.01 lots.
  The Pepperstone minimum deposit requirement for this account is AU $200.

  Edge Razor Account – There is no denying that Pepperstone is one of Australia’s top low spread ECN forex brokers! The Pepperstone razor account is one of the main reasons for this, offering ECN (Electronic Crossing Networks) spreads sourced from up to 22 banks and ECNs. This translates to extremely low forex spreads with deep liquidity, and for Australian denominated accounts, a commission of just AU $3.50 per full lot (100,000).

  The spread on this account type is raw inter-bank direct pricing (raw ECN spread) starting at 0.0 (Ave: 0.10) pips for EUR/USD, and starting at 0.0 (Ave: 0.20) pips for AUD/USD. The minimum trade size is 0.01 lots with a maximum trade size of 100 lots.
  A variety of trading styles including EAs, scalping and hedging are all allowed. Pepperstone’s minimum deposit requirement on this account is AU $200.

  View our detailed Pepperstone accounts list to see the detailed breakdown of every single forex trading account Pepperstone offer.

  
  
  
• MAM (Multi Account Manager) and PAMM account (Percent Allocation Management Module) available.

• Instruments and Trading Products

  While Pepperstone was originally founded as a specialist Australian Forex broker, in recent years they have expanded to include other products. At the time of updating this review (September 2023) Pepperstone’s range of instruments, for both their Edge Razor account and Edge Standard account include:

  • 97 Currency pairs, including all major pairs and very large selection of exotic currencies such as EUR/PLN (Euro to Polish Zloty) and Nordic-Asian Crosses such as SEK/JPY (Swedish Krona to Japanese Yen);
  • 23 Major Global Stock Index CFDs (including AUS200, EUSTX50, GER30, HK50, JPN225, NAS100, UK100, US30 and the US500);
  • 16 Soft Commodities (including Coffee, Sugar, Cocoa, Cotton and Orange Juice);
  • 9 Metals Commodities (including Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium and Copper);
  • 4 Energy (West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil, Brent Crude Oil, Natural Gas and Gasoline);
  •   31 Cryptocurrencies – Pepperstone cryptocurrency offerings have expanded!

    In addition to Bitcoin trading against the US Dollar (as BTC/USD), Pepperstone added many extra cryptocurrency CFDs during the last year. However as always, I advise to fully understand the risks and volatility of the crypto / blockchain markets before trading cryptocurrency CFDs.

    The full list of cryptos available at Pepperstone can be seen on their web site however includes:
    – Bitcoin (BTC to USD);
    – Ethereum (ETH to USD);
    – Cardano (ADA to USD);
    – Ripple (XRP to USD);
    – Solana (SOL to USD); and
    – Litecoin (LTC to USD).
  
  

  All the above instruments are available in both MT4 and the cTrader fx trading platforms, plus on WebTrader and mobile trading apps. These trading apps provide technical analysis traders with a wide variety of charts, technical indicators and trade order options while on mobile devices.

• Review of Pepperstone Withdrawal Times (includes testing outcomes)

  From our testing, the funds withdrawal process is confirmed to be fast and easy.

  To withdraw funds, log into your account, choose ‘Funds’ and then ‘Withdraw Funds’. Confirm the request from the email link within an hour, or if your account is secured with 2 Factor Authentication (2FA), you can simply provide the code generated by your Authenticator app to verify the withdrawal.

  As part of this Pepperstone review update, we test this process to confirm withdrawal times from our account. This test was performed by submitting the withdrawal request on the 25th September 2023 at 2.55pm AEST.
  In under 24 hours we received a confirmation email stating the withdrawal had been processed, and the funds were available in our bank account on Tues 26th September 2023.

  This confirms the stated withdrawal time frames on Pepperstone’s website are correct, from our testing, and are detailed in the image below.
  To sum up, we received our funds in the bank account just 1 day after the initial funds withdrawal request was made.

  
  Try a DEMO Account   Learn More About Pepperstone

• Smart Forex Trading Tools

  Pepperstone have produced a new tool that enables One Click Trading for the MetaTrader4 platform.

• Free Meta Trader 4 Smart Trader Tools, for all accounts opened with $500 minimum or more, confirm Pepperstone’s reputation as one of the top Metatrader brokers. MT4 is still considered the best forex trading platform based on worldwide popularity. Smart Trader Tools enhance the MetaTrader platform even further! The package consists of 10 apps to help you gain an edge, as well as insights into the FX markets. These include advanced trade execution & management; decision assistance via correlation and sentiment trader apps; sophisticated alarms; up-to-date market data and much more.

• Pepperstone Account Funding

  Huge variety of trading account funding options are available including:

  • Credit card / debit card (Instant Funding 24/7)
  • POLi (Instant Bank Transfers 24/7)
  • Verified by Visa
  • MasterCard SecureCode
  • PayPal
  • Wire Transfer via Bank (Domestic & International)
  • China Union Pay (24/7)
  • BPay
  • Skrill Moneybookers (24/7)
  • Neteller (24/7)
  • Qiwi (Instant Qiwi Deposits 24/7)
  • Fasapay (Instant Deposits 24/7)
  • B2B – Broker to Broker (transfer funds from your existing broker, 2-3 days)

  Pepperstone do not charge any internal fees for deposits or withdrawals. However, please note payments to and/or from international banking institutions may attract transfer fees from either party, which are independent of Pepperstone broker.

• Forex broker awards

  In addition, Pepperstone Group Limited, simply referred to as Pepperstone, has been recognised over 40 times for excellence in FX brokerage, customer support and innovative technology. In recent years these awards include:

  • Winner: Best MT4 Broker – Good Money Guide 2023
  • Best Overall Broker 2023 – Day Trading Broker Of The Year Awards 2023
  • Broker of the Year 2022 – TradingView Broker of the Year 2022
  • Winner: #1 for Overall Client Satisfaction – Investment Trends 2021 Australia Leverage Trading Report
  • Winner: #1 for Customer Service – Investment Trends 2021 Australia Leverage Trading Report
  • Best Forex Broker Middle East – 2021 International Business Magazine Awards
  • Winner: Best Broker in Australia – Investing Goal 2021 Best Broker Awards
  • Winner: #1 Speed of fund withdrawals – Investment Trends report 2019
  • Winner: #1 Trading platform features, Ease of platform navigation and Platform reliability – Investment Trends report 2019
  • Best Tailored Professional Trading Conditions – 2019 Professional Trader Awards
  • Best Global Forex ECN Broker Award – 2019 Global Forex Awards

Pepperstone’s cTrader v MT4 Trading Platform Comparison

As discussed in the above review detail section, Pepperstone offers two of the best trading platforms currently available to traders, MetaTrader and cTrader. The comparison table above complements our pepperstone forex broker review by listing all features you will, and will not receive, depending on which FX trading account you choose.

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