XTB Broker Review

Regulation: Founded in 2002 in Poland, XTB Group is an umbrella group for many subsidiaries regulated by different national authorities across the globe. Residents of Malaysia will be onboarded through its Belize-based entity regulated by the Financial Services Commission of Belize. The FSC’s regulatory oversight is less strict than regulators in the UK and Europe, but XTB does hold licences from several top-tier authorities, including the FCA of the UK. 

Safety Features: XTB segregates all client money from its operating capital but does not offer negative balance protection. Additionally, XTB offers high leverage to its clients – up to 1:500 on some of its account types. It also has no minimum deposit requirements, which means for traders who deposit small amounts, it will be difficult to hold a substantial trading position without getting stopped out and losing the money in their trading account, and possibly going into a negative balance.

On a positive note, since XTB is a publicly listed company, it adheres to strict capital requirements and external audits, adding another layer of security.  Additionally,  all funds are insured through Lloyd’s of London, one of the world’s leading specialist insurance providers, providing coverage of up to 1 million euros, GBP, or AUD (depending on the region). The insurance is available to all XTB clients, including those regulated under the FSC.

We confirmed the licence on FSC’s register. See the licence below:

The account opening process at XTB is user-friendly, and accounts are ready for trading within one day.

While there are no minimum deposit requirements to open an individual account, corporate accounts require a 15,000 EUR minimum deposit.  See below for account-opening details:

1. New traders will have to click on the “Create an Account” button at the top of the page, where they will be directed to register an account.    
2. XTB’s intake form requires clients to fill in their personal details (including name, country of residence, email address, and birth date). 
3. Next, traders need to select their preferred account base currency.
4. Once this step is complete, clients must fill out a questionnaire that helps XTB assess the trader’s investment knowledge, experience, and expertise to determine the suitability and relevance of the offered services. While most brokers don’t include this step in the account-opening process, it is a responsible move in an industry that is often accused of an irresponsible approach to consumer protection.  
5. XTB requires at least two documents to accept you as an individual client:
   1. Proof of Identification – XTB accepts all government-issued identification documents such as Passports, national ID cards, driving licenses, or other government-issued ID. 
   2. Proof of Address – Proof of residence/address document must be issued in the name of the XTB’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. After the application is approved, traders can log in and fund their accounts.
7. We advise that you read XTB’s risk disclosure, customer agreement, and terms of business before you start trading. 

The range and depth of tradable instruments available at XTB are more extensive than that of other brokers and should satisfy most traders.

XTB’s accounts have no minimum deposit requirements making them accessible to all traders. The Standard Account is commission-free, while the Swap-free Account has a commission of 10 USD per lot traded on top of the spread. Trading fees start at 0.5 pips (EUR/USD) on its Standard Account, but average at about 1.4 pips, which is slightly higher than average. Most other brokers have an average spread of 1 pip (EUR/USD) on their commission-free accounts. The Swap-Free Account has spreads that start at 0.7 pips (EUR/USD), but average spreads on this account are not published.

See below for account details:

Standard Account

XTB’s Standard Account is a commission-free account with variable spreads starting at 0.70 pips on the EUR/USD.  Traders should be aware that spreads average closer to 1.4 pips. 

Islamic Swap-Free Account

Islamic accounts are commission-based swap-free accounts, with variable spreads starting at 0.7 pips on the EUR/USD and a commission of 10 USD round turn per lot traded.   The trading costs on this account are much higher than other brokers.  

Following a decision to move away from MT4, XTB now only provides its own xStation 5 trading platform, but it has many of the same features offered on MT4.

A well-regulated broker, XTB does not process payments to third parties. All withdrawal requests from a trading account must go to a bank account or a source in the trader’s name.

Trading Account Currencies: XTB only allows trading accounts to be denominated in USD, which limits traders with accounts denominated in other currencies. Currency Conversion Fees are charged for all trades on instruments denominated in a currency different from the currency of a trader’s account. 

Deposits and Withdrawals: There are several ways to deposit funds into your trading account, and some of these methods may incur additional charges.  All deposits except for bank transfers are instant; you will see this reflected in your account balance immediately.  Bank transfers can take 2-5 days to arrive, depending on the country you send money from. Unfortunately, this depends on your bank and any intermediary bank.

The standard processing time for withdrawal requests is one business day, and withdrawals of less than 50 USD will be charged an additional commission of 30 USD.

See below for more details on payment methods:

Following a move away from MT4 (customer service was unable to give us details on why this is the case), XTB has focused its efforts on developing its proprietary xStation5 platform. Winning Best Mobile App for Investing 2019 & 2020 (Rankia Awards), XTB has successfully built an intuitive, powerful, and fast trading platform.  

A mobile version of the xStation5 application is available, which seamlessly connects to the application’s desktop version and is available on Android and iOS mobile devices and tablets. The mobile app is well-designed, has excellent search functionality, and allows traders to work from anywhere, close and modify existing orders, and calculate profit/loss in real time.

xStation 5 offers many of the same advanced trading features found in MetaTrader 4, but the xStation5 platform adds the XTB touch. It introduces XTB sentiment data directly into the platform, so traders can view the percentage of clients trading long or short and on which instruments. It also offers powerful charting tools, one-click trading, stop-loss functionality, multiple order types, price alerts, and real-time performance statistics so you can evaluate your trading moves and identify areas for improvement:

Traders can also access market news, educational materials, and the economic calendar from within the app, which is very convenient:

Platform Comparison:

With only XTB’s in-house platform, xStation5, available, XTB’s trading platform support is limited compared to most other online brokers. And traders should be aware that automated trading is not an option. 

Many other brokers offer support for third-party platforms such as Metatrader 4 and Metatrader 5, which is an advantage for forex traders who want to take their own customised versions of the platform with them should they choose to migrate to another broker.  Additionally, third-party platforms tend to have many additional plugins and offer the use of expert advisors, which are unavailable on xStation5. 

This will probably be more of an issue for experienced traders who trade algorithmically, but beginner traders will likely find that the platform caters well to their needs.

Like the mobile app, traders have access to powerful charting tools and indicators, can receive price alerts, and it has excellent stop-loss functionality:

Another useful feature of the platform is the economic calendar, which highlights the key economic events which can be filtered by country and impact:

Overall, while XTB’s platform support is limited, xStation5 has won many awards, offers some great features, and is beginner-friendly.  

Most other large brokers offer various technical analysis tools, such as Autochartist and Trading Central, in addition to copy trading tools and VPS services.  XTB only provides a few tools through its xStation5 platform:

• Market Sentiment: The Market Sentiment feature shows the percentage of long and short positions among XTB’s clients for each financial asset.
• Heat Map: The Heat Map shows the number of people who have gained or lost money.
• Stocks Scanner: The Stocks Scanner is a tool that uses 15 factors to filter stocks you may want to trade, including market capitalization, P/E, beta, and debt-to-equity ratio.

Trading Tools Comparison:

XTB’s market analysis materials are comprehensive and provide actionable trading ideas. 

XTB provides frequent market commentary and trading ideas in its Market News section. Most market news is available to all visitors and provides actionable trading information. However, some of the premium education and market analysis materials are only available to live account holders.

Traders receive multiple updates throughout the trading day, consisting of brief fundamental summaries, technical trading alerts, and the Trade of the Day. Some content is text-only, and the rest includes charts and trading ideas.

XTB also offers an economic calendar, a comprehensive log of all scheduled macroeconomic releases, including a potential impact rating, and detailed historical data to help traders predict the results on corresponding markets.

A wide range of fundamental and technical analysis tools are also available within the xStation5 platform, giving traders a comprehensive charting package to identify potential trading opportunities.

XTB offers an extensive section of well-structured training material for beginner and intermediate traders in its Trading Academy. It also offers frequent webinars, a library of articles, one-to-one mentoring, and an unlimited demo account. 

Courses: XTB provides a list of mini-courses that can be navigated by trading experience level or topic.  It covers basic trading concepts, including How the Market Works, Basics of Forex Trading, and an overview of the risk associated with CFD trading, to topics that are appropriate for more experienced traders, such as Market sentiment and positioning and Intermarket correlation.  It also offers tutorials on the xStation5 proprietary software platform.  The beginner and intermediate sections are open to the public, but expert training courses are only available to members with live accounts. 

Library: XTB’s library is comprehensive and comprises short articles covering Platform and Account tutorials in addition to trading-related subjects such as Fundamental Analysis, Technical Analysis, and Trader Questions.  

One-to-one Mentoring: XTB also offers one-to-one mentoring by leading experts that can be arranged through your account manager. These sessions coach traders on market analysis, including risk management and trading psychology, and are tailored to the client’s needs. The broker also operates an open-door policy, meaning that anybody can visit their local branches. 

Webinars: XTB offers frequent webinars that are run every Wednesday at 5:45 pm for live market analysis, demonstrated on XTB’s trading platform xStation 5, followed by a live discussion, where traders get to chat with XTB’s market analyst and account managers.

Demo Account: XTB also offers a demo account with virtual funds that can be topped up on request.  Demo accounts do not expire unless there is no activity on the account for more than three months, when they will be suspended. However, they can be reactivated at any stage.  Demo accounts are a great way to practice trading in a risk-free environment, allowing traders to familiarise themselves with XTB’s platform.

Education Comparison:

XTB also operates an open-door policy so customers can visit any of their offices.  Notably, XTB has 20 local branches.

Customer support is offered in English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, German, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Romanian, and Hungarian. 

Overall, we found the live chat support responsive, polite, and able to answer most of our questions.