AvaTrade Review 2023

Avatrade is our #6 rank forex broker for Nigerians. They are a fixed spread market maker broker, and their fees is competitive. But should you choose them or not? Read our honest Avatrade review to know more!

Avatrade is an Ireland-based fixed spread Forex broker that also accepts traders from Nigeria. They were founded in 2006 & are one of the leading brokers in the world. They have over 200,000 registered traders globally.

Avatrade is well regulated i.e. with the Central Bank of Ireland, FSCA (South Africa) & ASIC (Australia), so trading with them is safe. They are a fixed spread broker, so the fees they charge are fixed for every trade, and we have found them to be very competitive in terms of their fees.

We looked into Avatrade Nigeria’s regulations, their trading (and non-trading) fees, platforms, deposit/withdrawals, support & many other factors for this review.

Want to know if Avatrade is really good (or bad) for you? Let’s look into our detailed check of all the factors for this broker.

Avatrade – a quick look

Regulation & Safety of Funds

Avatrade is a regulated broker that has licenses with multiple top-tier regulators in Europe, Australia & South Africa.
They are regulated with following regulatory authorities:

1. Bank of Ireland: In the EU (European Union), AvaTrade is regulated with the Central bank of Ireland, with License No. C53877.

2. FSCA (South Africa): Avatrade is also regulated with the FSCA as Ava Capital Markets Pty Ltd. with FSP number 45984.

3. ASIC (Australia): They are also regulated in Australian by the ASIC under ACN No. 143340907 as Ava Capital Markets Australia Pty Ltd.

Further, Avatrade is also regulated in Japan as well as many other countries. But on a bad note, they are not yet regulated with FCA (UK), which is a top-tier regulator.

Overall, we consider it safe for Nigerians to trade forex with Avatrade as they are well regulated & a reputed broker.

Avatrade Fees

Avatrade is a fixed spread market maker broker, with a zero commissions account. Hence the trading fees with them are fixed per trade (only the spread) depending on your currency pair or trading instrument.

Here’s a breakdown of the fees at Avatrade

1. Fixed Spread: Avatrade has a very competitive spread, and it is quite low based on our comparison with other regulated brokers in Nigeria. For example, They offer 0.9 pips fixed spread for EUR/USD (as of January 2022), regardless of the market conditions this spread will remain the same.

   Based on our research, this spread is quite low, and it is lower than FXTM’s spread but higher than the spread offered by Hotforex Zero Account, XM Ultra-Low Account & Exness.



2. No fees for Deposit/withdrawal fees: AvaTrade does not charge any fees during deposits & withdrawals. This is quite good as some other brokers charge you during withdrawals.
3. No Commissions: Since Avatrade is a spread-only broker, the only fees they charge per trade is the spread. There are no other commissions with their Retail trading account.

In short, Avatrade has very low spread & no other commissions at all. We like their low fees per trade, and only few other brokers i.e. Hotforex & Exness charge similar or bit lower fees then Avatrade.

Avatrade Account Types

Avatrade offers demo accounts & 1 live account type. Below are the features & the account types offered by them.

Avatrade Demo Account

Avatrade offers demo accounts, but the limitation is that they are active only for 21 days. You will have to contact their customer support if you need to extend the demo for more days.

Avatrade Live Account

Avatrade is very straightforward & simple in terms of their live trading account types. They offer a 1 single Live account with all of their features. There are no choices or account options.

The following features come with Live Accounts at Avatrade:

1. $100 Minimum deposit: The minimum deposit required for opening a Live account at Avatrade is 100 units of your base currency i.e if your base currency is EUR then the minimum deposit is €100.
2. USD or EUR or GBP Base Currency: Avatrade does not offer any Naira accounts at the moment, and you can choose your base currency as US Dollar, Euro & the Pound. This will be the main currency of your account for any deposits, withdrawals of settlements.
3. Order Execution policy: Although Avatrade is a market maker, but they offers market execution (other market maker brokers like FXTM Nigeria offer instant execution). With this, your order will be placed at the current market price & there may be slippage in some cases.

   But all in all, their execution is quick & we found no complaints related to their order execution.

4. Negative Balance protection: All accounts at Avatrade come with negative balance protection by default. So in case of any loss where your balance falls below zero, they will correct it to zero,
5. Swap Free Islamic Accounts: AvaTrade also offers Islamic accounts for traders of Muslim faith in Nigeria. These accounts are in line with Islamic Sharia law. These accounts have no swap/overnight fees.

Overall, we have found Avatrade’s accounts to be very simple & easy to understand. But no other account options like no ECN accounts, or lower spread accounts, may not be very good for some traders.

How to open account with AvaTrade

There are very simple steps that you need to follow to open an account with AvaTrade. Below is the list of steps that you can follow one by one to open an account with AvaTrade.

Step 1) First of all, you need to open the home page of the AvaTrade website and click on the Register Now button at the top right side of the screen.

Step 2) After clicking on the Register now button, A SignUP pop-up will open where you need to enter your details. Or you can sign up using your Gmail or Facebook account.

Step 3) Now you will be redirected to a page where you need to enter your personal details to complete the registration process. You also need to select the Trading Platform and Base currency on the same page.

Step 4) Once done with the basic registration details, you need to verify your account. For that, you can upload your ID proof and Address proof.

Note: After submitting the documents, AvaTrade can take maximum 24 hours to check and verify your uploaded documents. Once your account has been verified, you will get a mail from them on your registered email.

Step 5) At last you need to fund your account to start Trading. For that, you need to click on Fund your Account under the Deposit section as shown in the below screenshot.

Congradulations! Your account has been set up and you can now start trading with them. In case of any issue or query, you can contact them via Live Chat Support.

Avatrade Platforms

AvaTrade offers 3 platforms i.e. MetaTrader 4, MT5 for Mac, mobile, web, and PC, and another platform is their AvaTradego mobile app for Android & iPhone.

All Mobile app is fast & user-friendly. Overall in terms of platforms availability & choice, Avatrade is quite good.

Avatrade’s Deposits & Withdrawals

Avatrade offers many deposit and withdrawal methods. The good part is that they charge zero fees on deposits & withdrawals. But on the negative side, some traders have complained about slow withdrawals & they also don’t have local bank transfer options in Nigeria.

Let’s check this out!

Avatrade Deposit Methods:

They offer 3 deposit methods i.e. cards, wire transfer, and Wallets. There is no local bank transfer option for Nigerians.

Here are the deposit methods available for Nigerian traders on Avatrade

1. Credit/debit cards ($100 minimum & instant funding): There is no fees if you are adding funds via your card. The funds will be credited instantly, but the minimum deposit amount is $100.



2. Wire Transfer ($100 & up to 7 days): Avatrade does not have any local bank transfer options for Nigerian traders. So if you are looking to pay via bank, then you can choose the wire transfer option. Although we don’t recommend this method as it is slow & your bank would also charge you wire charges/fees. You should instead go for cards or the Ewallet method.
3. EWallets (instant funding): You can also add funds via Skrill, WebMoney & Neteller. It can take them upto 24 hours to credit the funds deposited via this methods. There is not no minimum deposit required for this.

Withdrawal Methods:

The withdrawals at Avatrade are bit slower compared to other regulated brokers i.e XM, Hotforex, FXTM etc. Some users have complained that it took few weeks for them to receive the withdrawn funds.

Also note, you can get your first withdrawal via your funding source only. And your account must be verified before you can request a withdrawal, and any issue with any of your KYC documents can delay (or even cause cancellation) of your withdrawals.

According to our tests, Avatrade’s deposit and withdrawal methods for Nigerians are limited. And the time they take to process funding/withdraw requests is also slow.

Avatrade Bonus

Avatrade does not offer any major bonus or loyalty programs for Nigerian traders. They only have a single welcome bonus promo, but that too has many limitations.

Below are the Avatrade bonus available currently:

1. 20% Deposit Bonus ($1000 minimum deposit required): Avatrade is currently offering welcome deposit bonus to new customers. You can get 20% bonus, but you need to deposit a minimum of $1000 to get this bonus.
   For example: If you deposit $1000, you will get a $200 trading credit. This bonus cannot be withdrawn.

The bonus offers at Avatrade are very limited. Other brokers like Hotforex offer 100% deposit bonus with only $250 deposit, whereas XM offers 50% deposit bonus to Nigerian traders, but Avatrade lacks in this department. Moreover, there is no loyalty program for existing traders, so we feel that they can improve on this.

Avatrade Customer Support

Avatrade’s support is not the best. They offer local support options for Nigerian traders, but their support is not available for 24 hours in a week, it is only available during company’s business hours.

All their support methods i.e. chat, phone, and email are available from Monday till Friday 6:00 AM to 10 PM Nigerian time.

The following at the support methods available at Avatrade for Nigerians:

1. Fair Chat support: The chat support at Avatrade is only available during working hours. We experienced a few minutes of hold time, so they are not the quickest in answering questions.



2. Nigerian Phone number: Avatrade has a local phone number +234-7026512651 for support in Nigeria. You can call on this number during their business hours, but the number is not toll-free so the call charges will apply.

   You can request for a callback via email, with the time at which you would like to receive the call.

3. Email Support: You can send an email to Avatrade at cs[at]avatrade.com. They normally reply within 24 hours, so if the request is urgent then you should use the above methods.

Customer support at Avatrade lacks since it is not available 24/7. On the plus side, they have a local phone number for calling, but their chat and email support are slower & less knowledgeable than other brokers.

Do we recommend Avatrade?

Yes, we recommend Avatrade if you are looking for a well regulated fixed spread broker that has local phone support in Nigeria.

Their fixed spread is competitive, and there is no commission. Plus they are regulated (in Ireland, South Africa & Australia) which means that your funds are safe with them.

But on the downside, their support is not that great. Also, some users have complained about slow withdrawals & delays.

Moreover, their 20% welcome bonus is not very friendly for Nigerians as it requires a very high deposit of at least $1000.

Overall, Avatrade is a safe broker for Nigerians, but there are some other better brokers that you can go for in terms of lower fees, better support, good bonus & faster withdrawals!

AvaTrade FAQs

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