Saxo Bank Review

They offer an extensive selection of investment options, including Forex, CFDs, and bonds, and they’re well-known for being a trustworthy, reputable and transparent organization.

While the minimum deposit fees are pretty high, Saxo Bank is an excellent choice for intermediate and advanced traders, and in this Saxo Bank review, I’m going to be giving you an in-depth look at what you can expect when you open a trading account at this online broker.

Let’s kick things off with a look at who Saxo Bank are, and where they operate from.

Saxo Bank review was last updated in May 2020. Author – Jonathan Mann.

About Saxo Bank

Saxo Bank is a well-established bank, located in Denmark, that was founded back in 1992.

While it’s a bank, the company’s main goal is to provide traders with a solid trading platform to make trades and investments, and since its foundation, it’s gone on to become one of the most well-respected and trustworthy online brokers around.

As a global service provider, Saxo Bank is available to clients all over the world.

At first, their services were available to Danish residents only, but this soon changed, and they now accept customers from all corners of the globe.

With hundreds of thousands of active clients and traders, Saxo Bank is a major name in the online trading world, and for good reason.

Opening an Account

Saxo Bank offers three different types of trading accounts to UK residents.

If you’re located outside of the UK, the account options available to you may differ.

The UK-based accounts are the Classic, Platinum and VIP.

I should point out that the minimum deposits in order to open an account at Saxo Bank are significantly higher than most online brokers.

All account types offer a wide variety of investment options, including forex currency pairs, bonds, stock CFDs, stock indices and more.

You’ll also benefit from a wide variety of research and educational tools, details of which I’ll cover later on in this Saxo Bank review.

How Long Does the Account Creation Process Take?

Saxo Bank has made their account creation process as simple and straightforward as possible.

Thankfully, it’s a fully digital affair, meaning you don’t need to worry about sending in any documents by post, which is something many of the other trading platforms will require.

To get started, you simply need to hit the “Open Account” button, and you’ll then be asked to enter some personal details.

You’ll need to provide information about your personal trading circumstances too, which is a requirement by regulators to ensure you understand the risks associated with trading.

What’s the Minimum Deposit?

As I mentioned earlier, the minimum deposits at Saxo Bank are very high, and I think it’s clear they’ve chosen to focus on the more experienced traders as opposed to beginners.

If you choose to open the Classic Account, you’ll need to make a minimum deposit of at least £500.

If you choose to open the Platinum Account, you’ll need to deposit at least £200,000, and if you want to open the VIP Account, you’ll need to deposit a minimum of £1,000,000.

Identity and Verification

Your Saxo Bank account will likely be approved, but you will also need to verify your identity and residency before you’re able to actually deposit money and begin trading.

To prove your identity, you’ll need to provide a photocopy or photo of your government-issued ID card, passport or driving license.

To prove your residency, you’ll need to provide either a bank statement or tax return.

Can Saxo Bank Be Trusted?

I can say with certainty that those who open a trading account at Saxo Bank will have a safe and fair experience.

Saxo Bank operates under some of the strictest regulations on the planet, as they’re regulated in some of the toughest financial markets like the UK, Denmark, Singapore, the Netherlands, Italy, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

In Denmark, for example, Saxo Bank is regulated by the Danish FSA. Thanks to Denmark’s membership of the European Union, this also means that Saxo Bank complies with MiFID regulations.

In the UK, Saxo Bank is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), who are known as being one of the world’s strictest and most reputable financial regulators.

All client funds at Saxo Bank are placed into tier-1 bank accounts, and these accounts are ring fenced.

This means that the bank is unable to use these funds for day-to-day business operations, although, as they’re a bank, there are some exceptions.

Research and Assistance

Saxo Bank offers an extensive selection of research and assistance tools, many of which are designed alongside third-party companies.

However, I should point out that they tend to focus more on research tools as opposed to educational material, and this is because Saxo Bank caters more towards experienced, advanced traders as opposed to beginners.

Firstly, you’ve got actual content created by Saxo Bank.

This content is available from the online broker’s website (and mobile app) and it’s designed to give you their in-house opinion of the current market states.

For example, they publish a daily analysis of how the markets are looking on a specific day, giving you an indication of where profitable trades could be found.

Within the SaxoTraderGO trading platform, you’ll find a number of third-party research tools available too. For example, you’ll be able to take advantage of Auto Chartist – a piece of software that creates automated trade signals – and you’ll also find real-time news feeds provided by NewsEdge and RanSquawk.

There’s also an integrated economic calendar, which can be useful for looking ahead and predicting the direction of certain markets.

Through the SaxoTraderPRO trading platform, you’ll have access to even more tools.

For example, here, you’ll benefit from screener tools, level 2 order books, and there are even equity research reports from industry-leader FactSet.

Saxo Bank also releases quarterly reports, outlining their current market outlooks and yearly forecasts. These are available to download in a PDF format.

They also occasionally release podcasts, featuring trading experts from around the world.

These can be useful to listen to, and they often provide in-depth and impartial market analysis.

Demo Accounts

Before you open a live trading account with Saxo Bank, you’ll be given the opportunity to open a demo account.

This provides you with a 20-day account, with $100,000 of virtual money.

Using the demo account, you’ll be able to trade via the online broker’s SaxoTraderGO and SaxoTraderPRO trading platforms, both of which are pretty good, as I’ll cover below.

While it’s useful to be able to try out the site’s platforms, I really don’t think 20 days will be long enough for some new traders.

Opening a demo account at Saxo Bank is also incredibly straightforward, and it takes three simple steps.

All you need to do is head to the “Open Demo Account” page, fill in a few personal details, confirm your email and your demo account will be all set up. You can then begin placing trades and trying it out for yourself.

Desktop Experience

Traders at Saxo Bank will be able to use the online broker’s proprietary trading platform known as the SaxoTrader platform.

This trading platform comes in two different versions: SaxoTraderGO and SaxoTraderPRO.

The trading platform is accessible directly from your internet browser’s window, meaning you don’t need to download or install any software in order to use it.

I think it’s one of the best trading platforms I’ve had the pleasure of testing out, and I’d say that it’s even better than MetaTrader4, which is the industry leader.

The trading platform is very intuitive, offers high levels of customization, and is incredibly fast.

What’s more, the latency levels are very low, ensuring you can place trades in milliseconds, without having to worry about any lag or delay.

When I first set up a Saxo Bank account, I was initially asked to choose a few options to customize the trading platform to my personal preferences.

This is something I really liked, and it allowed me to configure things how I wanted. For example, I was asked which trading products I wanted to see, with the options including forex, CFDs, equities, futures, options, bonds and mutual funds.

The ones I left unticked simply don’t appear – making the overall appearance of the trading platform a lot less cluttered than many competitor platforms.

If you’re using the SaxoTraderGO trading platform, you’ll benefit from instant access to more than 55 different indicators.

There are also some 20 different drawing tools, and, as I mentioned earlier, this includes Trade Signals from Auto Chartist.

If you’re using the SaxoTraderPRO trading platform, you’ll notice a similar look and feel, with some enhanced features.

For example, the PRO trading platform supports up to six different screens/monitors, and allows you to stream level 2 order books, streaming time and sales.

You can also program algorithmic orders.

For those desperate to use MetaTrader4, Saxo Bank has also recently added the ability to access this trading platform, although it comes at a cost.

Traders wanting to use MetaTrader4 from their Saxo Bank account will need to make a minimum deposit of $20,000, and there’s also a minimum trade requirement of at least $2,000 per month.

This is clearly a deterrent in my opinion, designed to push Saxo Bank’s own trading platform onto their clients.

Mobile Experience

Both of Saxo Bank’s trading platforms are available in mobile versions, although they’re essentially just stripped-down versions of the main web app.

You’ll be able to access the majority of the same functions as you can from their desktop app, although I found the speeds to be slightly slower.

Less tools and resources are available too, which is why I’d recommend traders always use Saxo Bank’s web-based trading platform when possible.

If you’ve chosen to use the MetaTrader4 trading platform you can download their app free of charge too.

This offers a significantly better mobile trading experience, although again, the minimum deposit and trading requirements are likely going to be a turn off for newer traders.

Investment Options

I found Saxo Bank’s choice of investment options to be very impressive, as they offer almost everything. Nearly all types of trader will find a suitable selection of tradable assets, and in total, there are more than 40,000 instruments to trade at Saxo Bank.

I think it’s fair to say that forex trading is what Saxo Bank were initially best-known for, although in recent years they’ve started to focus more on offering CFDs.

They offer a massive 182 different currency pairs, which is far more than the vast majority of other online brokers offer.

They offer all major and minor pairs, and there’s a decent selection of exotic pairs too, meaning you’ll have a great range of options.

When it comes to CFDs, you’ll be hard pushed to find an online broker offering more of a variety than Saxo Bank.

They offer more than 35,000 different options, which is a staggering amount.

You’ll be able to trade commodity CFDs like gold, silver, platinum, palladium and US copper.

There is also a great selection of energy CFDs, which includes US crude, UK crude, heating oil, gasoline US, gas oil and CO2 emission.

There’s also some SOFTS CFDs, which include corn, wheat, soybeans, NY sugar, NY coffee, NY cocoa, and live cattle. Overall, they have one of the biggest offerings I’ve ever seen at an online broker.

You’ll also be able to trade market indices from all over the world.

For example, Saxo Bank offers investment options on the Australia 200, the China 50, Germany 30, India 50, Norway 25, Portugal 20, and South Africa 40.

You can also invest in single stock CFDs and ETFs, from world-leading institutions like the NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange, the Budapest Stock Exchange, the London Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki.

Finally, there are also bond CFDs available, including the 10-year Bund, 5-year Bobl, 2-year Schatz, and 10-year BTP.

Commissions and Fees

Saxo Bank’s fees for forex currency pairs, mutual funds and stock index CFDs are incredibly low. However, if you’re trading real stocks, ETFs or stock CFDs their fees are higher.

Fees for bonds, options and future fees are also high when compared against other leading competitors.

Saxo Bank does charge an inactivity fee, and this kicks in after a client doesn’t use their account for one quarter of the year. The fee varies depending on which country you’re in.

In the UK, the fee is £25. For clients outside of the UK, the fee is $100.

Deposits & Withdrawals

Unfortunately, Saxo Bank don’t offer as many payment options as I’d have perhaps expected, as I was only able to find three main payment methods available.

However, they do, apparently, offer EWallet options to clients from certain countries, although it’s not immediately clear which regions support these types of payments.

The most popular way of depositing money at Saxo Bank is to make a direct bank transfer. The online broker accepts bank transfers from Danish and international banks.

However, if your bank charges you a fee, it’s your responsibility to cover it.

I should also point out that you can only deposit funds from a bank account in your name, meaning third-party bank account payments are not accepted and may be returned.

Along with bank transfers, Saxo Bank also accepts payments via debit and credit cards.

They accept all major debit and credit cards, including VISA, MasterCard and Maestro. There are no fees to make deposits using debit and credit cards, although again, you may be liable to fees charged by your bank.

The final way in which you can deposit funds into your Saxo Bank account is by making a stock transfer.

In order to facilitate this, you’ll need to transfer stocks and bonds into Saxo Capital Markets’ custody, and there are no fees for making deposits in this way.

When it comes to withdrawals, I was happy to see that Saxo Bank don’t charge any withdrawal fees. Their processing times vary, but they state that they aim to process all withdrawal requests within 48 hours.

I should also point out that you are normally required to withdraw funds back to the same payment method you deposited with, although if you deposited by making a stock transfer, you’ll be able to withdraw by bank transfer.

Customer Support

Like most online brokers, Saxo Bank offers customer support in three ways, namely phone, email and live chat. Their customer support team is available to communicate with clients in a total of 20 different languages, although the entire customer support team is based in Denmark.

Their customer support team is available 5 days a week, between the hours of 9am and 5:30pm GMT.

The easiest way of getting in touch with the customer support team is to use the live chat facility.

This can be accessed through the “Support” portal, and once opened you’ll just need to enter your email address and a brief description of your question or problem.

You will then be connected with a member of the customer support team in a few minutes, where you can text chat in real-time.

Phone support is offered in 20 different languages too, and the online broker has a dedicated phone line for each language.

For example, they offer phone support in English, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Arabic, French and Italian.

I found the phone support service to be efficient, and the team were quick to answer when I called.

You can also get in touch with Saxo Bank via email, although I should point out that their response times aren’t necessarily that quick.

You could find yourself waiting up to 48 hours to receive a response, particularly if you send an email over the weekends when the customer support team aren’t actually working.

Conclusion

Saxo Bank is clearly a trustworthy, reputable and safe online broker.

They’re regulated all over the world and have bases in some major financial hubs.

They have a superb trading platform, and with more than 40,000 different investment options to choose from, you’ll be hard-pressed to find tradable assets they don’t offer.

I feel the minimum deposit of £500 is more than many traders will want to deposit though, especially if they’re new to trading.

However, for those who are already experienced traders, Saxo Bank is an excellent choice, and I’d actually go as far as saying they’re one of the best online brokers I’ve reviewed recently.

9.0Expert Score

Excellent

SaxoBank review result is: Excellent This is a top forex broker for most purposes. Particularly for professionals, we highly recommend Saxo Bank.

Spreads

10

Trading Tools

8.5

Customer Support

8

Instruments

10

Reliable

10

PROS

• Very low spreads
• Diversity of trading tools
• Diversity of forex and CFD instruments
• Reliable forex broker
• Banking background
• Good for Pros

CONS

• MT5 is missing
• Deposit requirements
• Deposit methods