Octa

Regulation: Octa has a good reputation, but it is only regulated by a single tier-1 regulator: CySEC in Europe. However, Malaysian 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 Malaysian traders.

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

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

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

New traders will have to 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, birth date). 
3. Traders then need to 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 are only required to 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. 

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

Overall, 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 25 USD, and each account is associated with a different trading platform (MT4, MT5, or OctaTrader). Trading fees are the same on all three accounts.

We opened and tested several of Octa’s accounts:

OctaTrader Account: The OctaTrader Account, available on Octa’s in-house trading platform, requires a 25 USD minimum deposit. Its trading conditions almost exactly mirror those of the MT4 Account, but traders can trade on an extra 6 indices.

MT4 Account: The MT4 Account requires a minimum deposit of 25 USD; 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 25 USD. Spreads start at 0.6 pips and average 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 App

OctaTrader is a well-designed trading app with a slick and easy-to-use layout. It is 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.

Platform Overview:

Octa has good platform options, including support for MT4, MT5, and OctaTrader. It also has one of the best copy-trading platforms in the industry. 

OctaTrader

Octa offers its own trading platform, OctaTrader, which is integrated in the Octa trading app for a seamless trading experience. This means you don’t have to download separate apps or switch between apps while trading. Deposit, withdraw, manage accounts, trade, read market analysis—everything in one app.

The platform also adopted a charting technology by TradingView. The app features Space, an exclusive feed by Octa with technical and fundamental market analysis, trend directions, market news, economic calendar, and more from Octa analysts. Space is freely available to all Octa traders.

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.

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

Accepted Deposit Currencies: Malaysians will be disappointed that Octa only allows trading accounts to be denominated in EUR and USD. Always check the exchange rate when converting from MYR 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.

Octa runs several promotional schemes for 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:

Fixed-Rate Deposit Promotion

Especially for Malaysian traders, Octa offers clients the chance to make an initial deposit at the fixed rate of 300 MYR = 100 USD. This deposit can also be withdrawn at the same fixed rate.

Demo Contests

Octa runs demo account contests on the MT4 platform. The demo contest runs for 4 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. 

Octa 16 Cars Competition

To enter this contest, traders must open an MT4 account and denominate it as their contest account. Traders then must make the highest possible profit and traded volume with the best profit/loss ratio. The closer traders are to the top in these three categories, the higher their chances of winning.

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.

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. 

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, uploaded to the Octa YouTube channel, called Market in a Minute, which covers all the big news from the Forex markets for the preceding trading day. In addition to all these regular updates, there are irregular short pieces published in reaction to trading events with detailed technical insight.

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.

The educational material at Octa and its alternative website is good but focused on new traders; for more experienced traders, there is little in the way of educational support. Customer support is competitive but where Octa really shines is in the research and market analysis available.

YouTube: Octa offers numerous free resources to help you learn trading. Octa is very active on YouTube, with a range of live trading sessions and webinars taking place regularly. In addition, a workshop for novice traders is held every Saturday in different languages, including Malay and English. You can also watch the recordings of the past webinars, as they are saved on YouTube and always available.

Videos and Articles: The Octa website has an extensive education section with videos and articles for beginner and intermediate traders. The education section is anchored by a collection of articles collectively called Forex Basics. Article topics range from explainers on ECN trading and Risk Management to Technical Analysis and Trading Strategies and more advanced concepts such as Pair Correlations and Fibonacci Retracements. These articles are detailed and well-written and offer valuable advice for new and intermediate traders.

Tutorials: There is a short Tutorial section covering the MetaTrader platforms, CopyTrading, Autochartist, and CFDs, and a Video Tutorial section focused on getting started with MetaTrader. Finally, there is a FAQ section and a useful glossary of Forex trading terms. The education section also links the Manuals for the different platforms Octa supports. 

Octa also offers a free Telegram channel with strategies, trading ideas and other exclusive materials from experts.

Finally, Octa offers Space where trading experts and analysts share daily market analytics and trading strategies to help you achieve your investment goals.

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