OANDA provides many Foreign Exchange services besides FXTrade, their FOREX trading platform. They provide conversion tools and currency charts for businesses to integrate into their sites and indexes and information for travelers.

OANDA’s currency converter, OANDA Rate, was actually the first to be introduced to the Internet, in as early as 1995. Today over 35,000 organizations use the company’s many tools to update and manage their online services.

In addition to the services above, OANDA offers FXLabs, in which the new tools the company OANDA has developed can be tested by users, thus allowing them to enjoy an enhanced trading experience with them. Amongst the tools are supportive ones, such as live feed information, charts, comparisons and history of currencies. Also available, is are newest trading tools, an FXManager platform for brokers, and the FXContest platform that allows the one to compare himself to the performances of other users.

When arriving at OANDA’s site, you immediately understand that the company has many services to offer, however this portal structure of the site makes it a tad overwhelming for an individual user to understand where he should actually begin.

Traders have a separate mini-site (https://fxtrade.oanda.com/)which includes all the resources needed for opening accounts and trading FOREX.

OANDA’s proprietary applications are web-based Java platforms, offered in English only. FXGame is a demo version of the software, which is a complete replica of FXTRade, the real money version. Both are updated with the same live figures, and offer the same trading tools and resources. The only difference is the real money.

FXGame is not limited in time or funds, and you can keep practicing your trading strategies until you feel confident enough to go on to trading on FXTrade.

Registering for FXGame is quick and easy and requires only a few personal details. Registration for FXTrade is long, requires building a full personal profile, and identification forms must be sent in to the company prior to making a first deposit. This is different from other platforms which allow depositing money and starting to trade immediately.

To withdraw funds for the first time you are also required to set up a user profile that includes your bank account details, even if this wasn’t the method you used to deposit. Once the profile is set up, withdrawal process is rather simple. Funds will be returned to the same payment method with which you made the deposit.

When opening an account, you may choose which currency, out of 7 available options, you want it to be in. In many cases, this saves the trader the need to convert his own funds when making a deposit into his account.

Another procedure to complete when opening a new account is to decide the leverage you want for it. OANDA offers much lower leverage than other platforms, not wanting to enable the high risks. They recommend a leverage of 1:20 and offer a maximum of 1:50 (whereas most platforms offer 1:200).

Once logged in, using the application if fairly simple and intuitive. It is easy to open new positions and then edit them. There is full information on the history of positions, transactions and activities in the account. The desktop can be set according to your personal preferences, to provide you with the tools most valuable to you. So you can decide which pairs you want to see and in what order, and you can set the form of the charts to be the most convenient for you to use.

There is an abundance of resources offered by OANDA: news, analysis, calendars, calculators and much more, offered either on web pages or in separate Java platforms, all which can be accessed via the trading platforms.

OANDA claims to “be obsessed” with offering the lowest spreads in the market. They are the first who offered pipettes, meaning that they offer spreads as low as 1.2 for EUR/USD. In addition, the spreads are the same for traders of any size. So even if you decide to trade only $1 – which you can on this platform, you will receive the same spread as someone who is trading $10 Million (the maximum size of a single trade). These low costs are made possible by the high liquidity the company has access to thanks to their many members, as well as the banks they are partnered with which include: JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, UBS, Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Canada.

OANDA prides itself with the accessibility it provides to users discussion forums from anywhere within the site or the trading platforms. The community of users provides powerful information from which users can learn about FOREX and using OANDA’s platform and services.

With all its products, resources and users discussion forums OANDA offers a complete FOREX trading experience. While it will definitely take time to master all these tools, the trader using them will eventually be able to manage his trading strategy to make the most out of using this platform.