Octa Broker Review

Regulation: Octa has a good reputation, but it is only regulated by a single tier-1 regulator: CySEC in Europe. However, Indian residents will be trading under the subsidiary,  Octa Markets Ltd, which is registered in the Comoros Union, a comparatively weak regulator.

Still, Octa does have a good reputation, and its European operations are overseen by one of the better regulators in Cyprus. 

Safety Features: Octa segregates all funds from the company’s operating capital, and offers negative balance protection to all its clients.  Comoros registration also means that Octa can offer higher leverage and bonuses to Indian traders.

The account opening process at Octa is hassle-free and fully digital, and accounts are ready for trading immediately. Account verification is only required for withdrawals.

All Indian residents are eligible to open an account at Octa if they meet the minimum deposit requirements stipulated by their chosen deposit method.  

Creating an account is straightforward. The process is fully digital, and accounts are available for trading immediately:

New traders must click on the “Open Account” button at the top of the page, where they will be directed to register an account.    

1. Octa’s intake form requires clients to register an account with an email address and a password.
2. Next, new traders are directed to fill in their personal details (including name, country of residence, email address, and birth date). 
3. Traders then must select their preferred account type (MT4 or MT5), live or demo account, level of leverage, and account base currency.
4. Once this step is complete, traders can make their first deposit via several payment channels and can start trading. 
5. Traders must only submit any verification documents to Octa when they want to withdraw funds. These include:
   1. Proof of Identification – Octa accepts all government-issued identification documents such as passports, national ID cards, driving licenses, or other government-issued IDs. 
   2. Proof of Address – Proof of residence/address document must be issued in the name of the Octa’s account holder within the last 6 months and must contain a trader’s full name, current residential address, issue date, and issuing authority. 
6. We advise that you read Octa’s risk disclosure, customer agreement, and terms of business before you start trading. 

Octa’s account-opening process is fully digital and hassle-free, and accounts are available for trading immediately.   

Octa offers fewer trading instruments than most other brokers but all the major asset classes. Leverage is high (up to 500:1 on Forex pairs), with 1000:1 leverage available during promotional periods.

All three of Octa’s accounts require a minimum deposit of only 20 USD, and each account is associated with a different trading platform (MT4, MT5, or OctaTrader). Trading fees are the same on all three accounts.

Account Trading Costs:

We opened and tested several of Octa’s accounts:

Trading costs at other brokers tend to be 9 USD per lot of EUR/USD, making Octa one of the lowest-cost brokers in the industry. We were also pleased to find that all accounts are swap-free. 

MT4 Account: The MT4 Account requires a minimum deposit of 20 USD, and no commission is charged on trades. Spreads start at 0.6 pips (EUR/USD) and average at 0.7 pips, tighter than other similar brokers. Leverage is up to 1000:1 for Forex trading, and the margin call/stop out is 25%/15%. Energies, Forex, indices, and cryptocurrencies are available to trade, but not equities.

MT5 Account: The minimum deposit is also 20 USD on the MT5 Account. Spreads start at 0.6 pips and average at 0.7 pips on the EUR/USD, and no commissions are charged. The MT5 trading platform has some extra features, including depth of market, an integrated economic calendar, and full-size tick charts.  Traders can access Octa’s full range of financial instruments on this account.

OctaTrader: The OctaTrader Account, available on Octa’s in-house trading platform, also requires a 20 USD minimum deposit. Its trading conditions almost precisely mirror those of the MT4 Account, but traders can trade on an extra six indices.  

Like most brokers, Octa does not allow funding to or from third parties. All withdrawal requests from a trading account must go to a funding source in the trader’s name.

Accepted Deposit Currencies: Indians will be disappointed that Octa only allows trading accounts to be denominated in EUR and USD. Always check the exchange rate when converting from INR to other currencies, as hidden conversion fees can make trading expensive and affect profitability.

Funding Methods: Octa does not charge any withdrawal fees, and withdrawals are generally completed within a few hours.

See below for a complete list of payment options and withdrawal times:

Octa runs several promotional schemes for Indian clients – some of which you don’t even have to spend any money to benefit from:

50% Deposit Bonus

Octa offers a deposit bonus scheme (up to 50% of your deposit) though withdrawing the bonus is conditional on trading activity, using the following formula:

Demo Contests

Octa runs demo account contests on the MT4 platform.  The demo contest runs for four weeks, and the participant with the largest demo account balance at the end of the period will win 500 USD, with smaller prizes for the rest of the top five. 

Trade & Win: Get Gadgets for Trading

The Trade & Win promotion gives traders free prizes and gadgets based on their trading volume. For instance, if you have traded 150 lots with Octa you would be eligible for an Android smartwatch. Other prizes include phones and even laptops.

Octa’s bonuses and contests are always changing so please refer to the website for new promotions.

OctaTrader App

OctaTrader is a well-designed trading app with a slick and easy-to-use layout available on both Android and iOS.

Easy to use: After downloading the app, we found it easy to open new real and demo accounts, manage our leverage, deposit and withdraw funds, and trade on the charts. 

Trader Tools: The newly added Space tool is a customisable trading feed you can adjust to your trading style and interests. Space offers real-time market insight, pattern analysis and technical and fundamental analysis. Other useful tools include a feed of market news and trading ideas from reliable news sources, and a profit calculator. It also features a market monitor so we could keep tabs on our favourite trading instruments. None of these tools are ground-breaking, but they all worked as expected, and the profit calculator took into account the different swap rates on MT4 or MT5.

Customer Support: Support was available 24/5 from inside the app. We found the customer support team helpful and responsive.

The app also lets you manage any bonuses or contest accounts you have open with Octa. Overall, we liked how user-friendly the app is; its simple design will appeal to beginner traders.  

MT4 and MT5 Mobile Trading

The MT4 and MT5 trading platforms are available on Android and iOS mobile devices and tablets. There is some loss in functionality when compared to the desktop versions of these trading platforms, including reduced timeframes and fewer charting options.

Platform Overview:

Octa recently discontinued its support for cTrader, one of our favourite trading platforms. But with MT4, MT5, and OctaTrader, Octa still has good platform options. Octa also has one of the best copy-trading platforms in the industry.

OctaTrader

After two years in development, Octa has launched its own trading platform, OctaTrader, available in a web browser. With an intuitive layout and all the features you would expect from a modern trading platform, OctaTrader is particularly good for beginners. OctaTrader supports one-click trading, advanced order types, most of the popular indicators featured in the MetaTrader platforms, a multi-lingual user interface and nine timeframes. Customer support is available 24/7 in English, Hindi and Urdu from within the platform. OctaTrader also seamlessly integrates with the Octa Trading app for Android and iOS devices.

MT4 and MT5

The main benefit of using third-party platforms such as MT4 and MT5 is that traders can keep their own customised versions of the platforms should they choose to migrate to another broker. Both MT4 and MT5 are available for Windows, Android, iOS, and web browser.

Overall, Octa’s platform support is about average when compared to other brokers. Additionally, MT4 and MT5 are generally more difficult to set up and are less user-friendly than the web-based platforms available at some other brokers.

Octa Copy-trading

Octa also offers a copy trading platform free for all accounts, allowing beginners to copy the trades of more experienced, successful traders for a small fee per traded lot. Beginners simply find the Strategy Providers they want to follow and click “Copy.” Their positions will be copied automatically.  The copy trading service is also user-friendly and well-designed. This function is also available through the mobile app.

The only downside to the copy-trading app is that it is only currently available on Android devices.

Alongside industry standards such as an Economic Calendar, Profit, and Trading Calculators, Octa also offers an Account Monitoring tool and Autochartist.

• Account Monitoring Tool: The Account Monitoring tool allows traders to monitor any other Octa trader’s account and sort by Balance, Gain, Trades, and Account Type. This tool also allows you to dig into the history of an account so you can learn how the account holder has managed their success. Accounts are only represented by numbers, so all holders remain anonymous.
• Autochartist:  Octa also supports Autochartist, the industry-standard trading signals provider. Autochartist provides traders with automated alerts for opening and closing trades, a volatility analysis tool that allows you to better optimise take-profit and stop-loss levels, and integrated market reports. Autochartist is available on both MT4 and MT5 and requires a minimum balance of 500 USD in your Octa account.  

Trading Tools Comparison:

Like its education section, the market analysis materials available at Octa are better than most other brokers. 

Market Insights: Octa has an excellent Market Insights section which is updated frequently. Regular posts include a Daily Forecast, a Daily Review, and Weekly Review. These posts frequently offer predictions of future market movements – but be cautious and do your own research before acting on any predictions.

Octa YouTube Channel: The Market Insights section also has a daily video series called Market in a Minute, uploaded to the Octa YouTube channel. This series covers all the big news from the Forex markets for the preceding trading day. In addition to these regular updates, irregular short pieces with detailed technical insight are published in reaction to trading events.

Forex News: Octa also hosts a Forex News section, with short briefings on all the major news stories affecting the Forex markets, this is updated over the weekend and the articles are well-written and concise. These briefings are offered without any suggestion of how the events will affect the markets.

Octa Telegram Channel: Octa has a special analytics channel called Octa analytics that is aimed at helping traders stay on top of important market events and market trends. Users can check the most likely trading scenarios and discuss them within the community. Octa also posts messages dedicated to market insights and service updates.

Overall, Octa’s educational materials are some of the best in the industry, but it could include more suitable content for advanced traders.  

Additionally, the Finance Department is open from 06:00 – 22:00 (EET), and the customer verification department is open from 08:00 – 17:00 (EET) for account setup and troubleshooting queries.

We found the support team very responsive but uninformed.