Vantage online broker: Official Review, Pros and Cons 2024

Vantage is a popular Australian broker founded in 2009 and specialises in Forex and CFD trading. It is headquartered in Sydney and Cyprus with branches in the Cayman Islands and the Pacific Republic of Vanuatu.
More than a decade after its foundation, today Vantage is one of the most widely used online brokers worldwide and boasts some of the lowest spreads in the industry.

As you may have seen in other QualeBroker reviews, the maximum leverage that a broker under European law can offer is 1:30. Vantage, as it does not operate under the control of ESMA (the European supervisory body for financial markets), is able to offer very high leverage, up to a maximum of 1:500, which attracts many traders as it provides more flexibility in investments.

In this review, we will take an in-depth look at the services offered by the Australian broker, the financial instruments available for trading, the pros and cons of the trading platforms available to customers, customer service and more.

Is it worth using Vantage to trade online? Here are our insights.

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(Or open a real account)

Let us begin by analysing the transparency and reliability of the broker, surely the most important element in choosing the trading platform to use for one's investments.

Vantage Global Prime Pty Ltd is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and is therefore a broker regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Australia's supervisory body for markets in financial instruments. 

The Australian body has a reputation as an extremely strict and transparent authority, in contrast to other regulatory bodies located outside Europe.
ASIC, in fact, guarantees the segregation of accounts, i.e. the separation of clients' funds from those of the broker, so that in the event of a trading platform going bankrupt, no creditor of the broker will have any recourse to the funds deposited by clients.
Furthermore, ASIC requires Australian brokers to deposit a minimum capital of AUD$ 1 million in order to obtain a licence. This allows the broker to secure adequate capital to meet its future commitments.

Ultimately, although Vantage is not a broker regulated by European legislation, its clients can still benefit from a satisfactory level of transparency as well as a safe environment for their trading activities.

In addition, Vantage has an office in the Cayman Islands, for which it is also regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), as well as an office in the Republic of Vanuatu, for which it operates under the further supervision of the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC).

Vantage offers its customers the possibility of opening a live account (with real money) and a practice account (with virtual money). Both have a very similar registration procedure.
The practice account is a particularly useful tool for traders without significant investment experience, who can practise online trading without risking their own capital, but rather by using virtual money for simulated transactions.

It is possible to trade the account in nine different currencies: Dollar, Euro, British Pound Sterling, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Yen and Singapore Dollar.

Three account types are available for customers to start trading online:

• RAW ECN account
• STP Standard Account
• ECN Pro Account

The RAW ECN account is introduced by Vantage as a 'state-of-the-art' trading account that guarantees the best trading solutions available in the Forex market as well as institutional-level liquidity. 

The broker will charge a small commission fee of $1 per standard lot.

An initial deposit of USD 500 is required for the RAW ECN account.

The STP Standard account also allows direct access to institutional-level spreads and liquidity, but this time there is no commission charged by the broker.

In addition, trades conducted through the STP Standard account are executed via the Equinix fibre-optic network, which guarantees maximum execution speed on every trade.

The minimum deposit to start trading with this account is $200.

Finally, the Professional Account account guarantees the lowest spreads and commissions available.

With this type of account, spreads start at 0.0 and the commission charged by the broker is only USD 1 per standard lot.

The PRO ECN account also guarantees execution speed on every trade thanks to a bandwidth of 100 GB/s.

An initial deposit of USD 500 is required for the Professional Account.

The procedure for opening a Vantage account is very simple, both for the Live and Demo account. Simply log on to the broker's website and follow the steps below:

• Enter personal data or register via Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn
• Choose the type of platform to be used for trading (MetaTrader4 or MetaTrader5)
• Choice of account type 
• Selection of account base currency (Dollar, Euro, British Pound Sterling, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Yen and Singapore Dollar)
• Selection of the leverage you wish to use: 1:100, 1:200, 1:300, 1:400, 1:500
• Choice of the maximum account balance (options from $1,000 to $100,000)
• Information on previous financial knowledge and experience
• Confirmation of identity

The platform presents a wide choice of deposit options, with a total of 14 deposit methods available to the customer, including: 

• VISA credit/debit card 
• Neteller 
• Skrill
• AstroPay

There are no fees for deposits, which are therefore always free of charge. The crediting of money to the account takes place within a timeframe that depends on the type of deposit method selected but usually takes about 1-2 working days.

With regard to withdrawals, on the other hand, most of the withdrawal methods available to the customer provide for both a minimum and a maximum withdrawal limit, which can range from a $15 minimum withdrawal to a $500,000 maximum withdrawal limit usually, respectively. 

Even in the case of withdrawals, Vantage does not charge any fees. However, withdrawals may involve the payment of a fee charged by the bank intermediary of reference.

Vantage requires a minimum deposit of only $200. This is a rather low figure compared to that required by most brokers.
With this minimum deposit, we can activate a real money account and test the platforms and services offered by Vantage.

Try the virtual account →