Welcome to our IC Markets Review, where we are delving into details about the fees charged, the minimum deposit, live accounts, leverage, and spreads, among other information. If you are a trader considering this broker, at the end of the review, you should be able to know why they are the right choice for you or not.
IC Markets was founded in 2007 and is a broker based in Australia. This company is one of the safest as it is regulated by ASIC (the Australia Securities and Exchange Commission). In our IC Markets Review, we found out that the broker uses MetaTrader and cTrader as the leading platforms you will be able to access and use.
IC Markets spreads are very competitive on the commission-based accounts for forex and CFD trading. Currently, they offer traders access to both IC Markets MT4 and MT5. You will be able to access 63 forex pairs and 41 CFDs on crypto, metals, indices and futures contracts.
All of this is available on all the IC Markets account types. IC Markets copy trade is also available and is supplied via Myfxbook and on their ZuluTrade Platform. There is a lot to like about what they offer.
By the end of this IC Markets review, we will have looked at all the things we know you care about. We will cover everything from IC Markets registration to IC Market’s true ECN.
Most people would agree that IC Markets is one of the best and largest genuine ECN brokers in the world. For both new and experienced traders, getting one of the IC Markets live accounts is a good move.
Let us start with fees. One of the most important things that most of us lookout for when we are trying to get a broker, is how much it is going to cost to trade with them. For that reason, in our IC Markets Review, we have looked into the fees and compared them with other brokers.
With that, we can get the perspective on how the IC Markets fees work and what you stand to gain.
Our conclusion, which we will explain the following paragraphs, is that IC Markets has low trading and non-trading fees. They do not charge inactivity or withdrawal fees. However, the financing rates for the CFDs are not low.
To get this started, let us talk about the things that we cover in our fees segment:
In the following sections, you will find an in-depth look into IC Markets review, concerning fees. This will allow you to know if the broker is for you or not. So, to make this interesting, we will compare the IC Markets broker with two other brokers, to get the full picture.
We pick the other brokers based on how similar they are, to IC Markets. That way, we will be able to fairly gauge it against the others and come up with a complete picture of what you can expect.
We consider IC Markets trading fees to be lower than the competition. There are different cost structures from all the account types. Our IC Markets Review required that we test the trueIC Markets ECN account, which charges a commission but also offers you very tight spreads.
It is not an easy thing to try and compare the trading fees for brokers. That is why in this IC Markets Review, we decided to calculate the fees on a one-week timeline for the three brokers and see what they look like on a table.
The other two brokers we compare with IC Markets are Pepperstone and Fusion Markets. To make this easier, we chose the major trading instruments in each class of assets and then compared them to each other to know what the fees look like.
The instruments we chose are:
A normal trader using the account types will most likely be buying an IC Markets leveraged product, hold it for one week on average and then sell. So, in our analysis, we have chosen the volume to be $2,000 for the position on a stock index and CFD transactions and the position for forex, at a volume of $20,000.
In our breakdown, we are using an IC Market’s leverage of 30:1 for the currency pairs in forex and 20:1 for the stock index CFDs.
We will use this benchmark to show you the spreads, the commissions and the financing costs that you can expect to pay for the three brokers. With that, we can see how IC Markets spreads and costs compare.
Next up, here’s how the CFD Fees break down when you compare IC Markets to Pepperstone and Fusion Markets.
The stock index CFD fees are integrated into the IC Markets spreads. That is a good thing. However, their financing rates are a bit higher than most.
When it comes to non-trading fees, IC Markets seems to be in line with the competitors. There are only a few brokers who charge an inactivity fee and these three we are using for our comparison are the same in all regards.
Next up, we go into how you can acquire an IC Markets open/live account.
The entire process of opening an account with IC Markets is very user-friendly and fully digital. It is quick too, and you will get your account approved within a day. Anyone from all over the world can get an IC Markets account.
There are a few exceptions to this, though. If you are from Canada, U.S., New Zealand, or Japan, you will not be accepted as a customer on IC Markets.
The IC Market’s minimum deposit is low, at $200. If you go to other CFD brokers, you will find that the average minimum hovers at around $2,000, making the IC Markets Minimum deposit, quite favorable.
Deposit and Withdrawal
When you sign up for an account at IC Markets, you can choose up to 10 base currencies. The available base currencies you will find are:
In comparing IC Markets with Fusion Markets and Pepperstone, we find that IC Markets has ten base currencies, as does Pepperstone. However, Fusion Markets has 6.
The reason why knowing the base currencies matters is that when you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account or make your trades of assets in the same currency as the base currency, you will not have to worry about paying the conversion fee.
One of the best ways to save money on currency conversion fees is to open a multi-currency bank account at digital banks. Examples of this include Revolut and Transferwise. They both offer multiple currencies with cheap currency exchange rates and cheap international transfers.
Opening the account on either of these banks will take just a few minutes. You can even do it from your phone.
Deposit Fees
IC Markets will not charge you anything to make deposits. Furthermore, there are several options when you want to make deposits. The only downside is that some of these options might no support the account base currencies.
For example, if you use the BPay option, you can only transfer Australian Dollars.
Both IC Markets and Pepperstone have bank transfer, credit/debit card options, and electronic wallets. Fusion markets have all these except e-wallet options.
With that kind of variety, you will only need a few business days to make a bank transfer. Payments made using credit and debit cards are faster as they happen instantly when everything is working right.
One rule you must observe is that you can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.
The following are all options you can use to make deposits into IC Markets: Visa/Mastercard.
Withdrawal Fees and Options
When you withdraw using debit/credit cards and make bank transfers to Australian bank accounts or electronic wallets, you will not have to pay anything. If you are making IC Markets withdrawals to international banks, you will have to pay a high fee of AUD 20.
Except for Fusion Markets who charge for electronic wallets transfers, IC Markets and Pepperstone do not charge for the methods we have mentioned above.
A test of how long it takes to withdrawal money from IC Markets to a bank account indicates that you have to wait two business days to get your money.
NOTE: You can only withdraw money into a bank account with the same name as your IC Markets account.
The process of withdrawing money from IC Markets is as follows:
The process is quite easy to follow and not at all complicated.
All the account types you will find at IC Markets vary in terms of fee structure and the available platforms that you can trade with. So, let’s look at the available information to get all the important details that you need to make the right decision.
Let’s break them all down and see what we get:
The details are as follows; the commission per lot (round turn) stands at $7.83, with low spreads. You will use the cTrader platform on the accounts available. The accounts include individual, joint, and corporate, and there is an option for an Islamic account.
The commission per lot (round turn) is $7.00, with low spreads and the full MetaTrader platform, where you get bothIC Markets MT4 and MT5. The accounts available are individual, corporate, and joint, with the option to make any of them Islamic.
There is no commission charged on the IC Markets Standard account. The spreads are higher when compared to IC Markets True ECN with MetaTrader and cTrader. The available platforms here areIC Markets MT4 and MT5, with account options including individual, joint and corporate. As with the others, you have the option of getting an Islamic account.
To clarify the terms used here, the round turn means that you open and close the positions you take.
Islamic accounts are the ones we call swap-free accounts. With Islamic accounts, you only have to pay a flat commission if you hold your leveraged position overnight instead of the percentage-based rates.
It is also a good thing that you are given many sub-accounts with a variety of base currencies.
The process, as we mentioned, is easy and fully digital. The application will take 15 minutes tops, to finish and you can get approved in one business day. Here are the steps you will follow to get your IC Markets open a live account:
Once you do all this, you will have your account approved within one business day. The process doesn’t have extra steps that might make it difficult. Up next, we are going to look into the IC Markets trading platforms like MetaTrader and cTrader, to find out more about what you can expect.
With IC Markets, you will get three high-quality trading platforms. By offering you three different platforms, you get to have as many tools and analysis methods as you want and execute your trades, your way.
We will take a look at all the platforms that you will find on IC Markets, and hopefully, that will help you know what to expect.
MT4
This is the most popular trading platform, not just on IC Markets but everywhere. The Meta Trader 4 platform gives you the functionality of 1-click trading. It includes provisions for you to customize the software to get the best kind of configuration that works for your strategy.
With MetaTrader 4, you can get enough technical indicators, a wide range of Expert Advisers, sophisticated charting tools and comprehensive back-testing capabilities. In addition to all this, you can trade on the go.
MT5
This platform is the recent version of the MetaTrader series. It is the same as MT4, but it has been expanded and upgraded to include more features.
cTrader
As a platform, cTrader was designed to be used specifically and work best in the Markets ECN trading scene. With the automated trading software and its availability on mobile and the web, you can have the convenience you need.
If you would like to use auto-trading, there are three options you can choose from. They include Myfxbook, ZuluTrade and Signal Trader’s mirroring provisions.
To understand all this better, let us look at all the ways you can access the platforms and how they function when you are using IC Markets.
On IC Markets, the web trading platform is supplied by MetaTrader. It is very customizable, available in multiple languages and gives clear fees reports. It does not require a two-step login and does not give price alerts.
At the time of writing this, IC Markets does not have an in-house platform that they have developed. The most used platform by the clients is Markets MT4, which is third-party software.
The best part about the web trading platform on IC Markets is that it is very customizable. You can change size and position very quickly and easily from the table. It is hard not to feel like the platform is a bit outdated.
Some of the features might be hard to find, but when you have so much functionality in one software, it is only natural. Over time, you will get used to where everything is, and you will know where to look.
The search functions are alright. You can find all the assets listed by category. You cannot manually search an asset by name.
It is easy to place orders, and you have these types of orders available; market, limit and stop-loss. The others are Good ’till Cancelled (GTC) and Good ’till Time (GTT). You cannot set your alerts and notifications when using the IC Markets web-trading platform because that feature is only available when you are using the desktop app.
As for the portfolio and fee reports, the platform works properly. You will be able to easily access and see the profit-loss balance and the commissions you paid. The reports can be found under the history tab. There is no accessible way to download them, though.
MetaTrader is the only software that IC Markets has on mobile. In our IC Markets Review, we found that it is available for both iOS and Android users. After you download the Markets MT4 mobile trading application, you will need to access the IC Markets live server.
You can choose from the many languages available on the mobile platform. Changing the language may be a bit tricky for Android users because you will only be able to do it if you change the default language of your device.
The orders you can place with the mobile app, are the same as those you can place using the web trader. You have the option to set alerts and notifications. However, you will have to do that on the desktop app, which will push them to your phone.
The design of the desktop app is almost the same as that of the web trader in so many ways. The major difference is that with the desktop app, you have the option of setting the price alerts and notifications.
In our IC Markets Review research, we found that the notifications feature makes it best for a trader to have access the desktop app. You can have them sent to your phone via email or mobile push notifications.
To set these notifications, you will have to add an email address and then the MetaQuotes, ID which you can find in the MT4 software settings. Then, you can add the notifications by going to the ‘Tools’ section and then clicking on ‘Options.’
Aside from those features, there is nothing on the Desktop app you cannot find on the mobile or web trader platforms.
If you are looking to diversify, IC Markets may not be the best place to do it, unless you do not plan on investing in too many markets all at once. With IC Markets, you will only be able to trade forex, some CFDs and a few crypto products. There aren’t many other assets available to trade with.
Primarily, IC Markets is a forex broker and does not include more markets than that.
Pro Tip: CFDs can get very complicated, and you run the risk of rapidly losing a lot of money. 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with IC Markets. Tread carefully.
Their crypto and CFD selection is alright, but they have a small forex product line-up than the two competitors we have been comparing them with. Let’s break it down so you can see what that looks like:
Pro Tip: The Stock CFDs are only accessible or available if you are using MetaTrader 5 (MT5).
In our IC Markets review, we also found something else that we liked. You can change the default Markets leverage size of the products when trading. Changing the IC Markets leverage manually is a useful thing when you want to take the risk you are taking, go down.
For example, instead of trading on leverage of 10:1, you can bring it down to 3:1 in the case of Stock CFDs, which will work in your favor.
IC Markets does not have a research team to provide you with daily updates or anything of that kind. The only place you can get research tools that you will have to know how to use to get things done is on the MT4 platform. The tools are available in multiple languages for your convenience.
The design is a bit outdated, and some of the features may not be easy to use. For example, you might have difficulty if you want to remove an indicator from the chart. Our IC Markets review shows that you will need to learn everything you can about the tools before you start using them.
IC Markets provides you with a news feed on the desktop trading platform only. The quality of news is great and will make it easy for you to track price movements in correspondence with the news.
Pro Tip: If you are a fan of API Trading, IC Markets will give you cAlgo, which is coded in the C# language.
If you would like to contact IC Markets for any kind of support, you will have the following options to choose from:
One thing you should know is that email and phone support is great. However, their live-chat option is not good. It is low-quality and slow. You might not get the answers you need when using it.
The phone support is great. When we called in, just to gauge it and were connected in about a minute. The answers provided are relevant. The staff seems to be well-trained and knowledgeable about what the clients need.
The email support is also very reliable as it offers answers quickly. We sent a few emails, and they were all answered within a day. The responses were relevant in this case too. We like that IC Markets asks for feedback, so if there are any gaps in knowledge or any glitches, they are fixed.
The live-chat is the weakest of all these methods. It is slow. We waited for more than 10 minutes to get answers. The answers were only partially relevant. It seems like a bot.
It is also great that they are available 24/7 to offer support to anyone who might need it at any time of the week.
Education Provisions
We repeatedly stress the need to have great education provided to those who need it, and that is why we always check to make sure that you can learn if you need to. IC Markets has you covered, with the following provisions for education purposes:
Any of the content related to educative content, you will find on the website in the ‘Education’ section and on the IC Markets blog. The material is well-structured and covers very meaningful topics like risk management and analysis methods.
NOTE: The general education videos provided by IC Markets is very high quality and can only be found on the broker’s Vimeo channel and not on the website itself or the trading platform.
Our Verdict
IC Markets is a great broker with a solid reputation, in our IC Markets Review, we found that you can trade CFDs and forex with this broker, quote easily. Opening the account is fast and easy, and the deposits and withdrawals are free.
The education side of it all is comprehensive and will guide you on the things that you do not know much about. For that reason, our verdict is that the broker is worth checking out.
You should know that our IC Markets Review shows they only offer forex, crypto, and CFDs trading. They do not provide the investor or negative balance protection. Other than that, everything about them seems to be in order.
