Important Facts
- Regulatory Authority: Financial Services Authority (UK), on the 17th October 2012 Plus500 was fined a total £200,000 by the FSA further details can be found here.
- Instruments: Selection of Stocks, Forex Pairs, Indices, Commodities, ETFs
- Leverage: Up 50 to 1
- Unique Features: Unlimited use demo account, a large selection of instruments and £20 free
- Minimum Deposit: £100
The Platform
Plus500 offers both a web trader and downloadable desktop application for your trading needs. While these offerings are both pretty basic, there is still a selection of tools to analyse the technical data available on the platform. The platform is very easy to use and would be suitable for newbies and experienced traders alike. The platform is also available as both an android and Iphone application allowing you to trade on the go. While the lack of sophistication may not be to everyone’s tastes the platform is perfectly functional. It is a shame there isn’t support for Metatrader as this also denies you the opportunity to use Expert Advisors. It should also be noted that the desktop program is slightly buggy, though overall I quite like the platform.
Special Features
Plus500 is devoid of special features if I’m totally honest. Though it is clear that Plus500 is more interested in providing a crisp easy to use interface for it’s clients rather than providing gimmicky features. I suppose it can be argued that the fact that Plus500 offers an unlimited demo account with 20,000 of play money is good for those who want to try their luck at trading CFD’s without taking a risk. While its not really a feature Plus500 also offers a £20 free no deposit bonus which is always nice, though the kind of trading you will be able to do with that kind of the amount will consist of only a couple of contracts.
Other Features
Plus500 offers a large number of instruments that one can place trades on including commodities, forex, stocks, Indices and rather interestingly ETFs. This gives a nice range of instruments for those who wish to trade in variety of markets and allows lots of potential of hedging ones positions.
Spreads
The Spreads on offer at Plus500 are pretty reasonable allowing a decent profit to be made on correct calls. Though the competitiveness of the spreads does vary from instrument to instrument with some instruments being less competitive than others. Shopping around you could probably find more favorable spreads on another platform, but the difference wouldn’t be that huge.
Customer Service
The one major criticism that seems to be launched against Plus500 is poor customer service. Before you can make your first withdrawal a certain number of anti money laundering measures need to be taken essentially they just need to verify that you are who you say you are. There seems to be quite a backlog of these requests so it can often take a while for your withdrawal to be completed successfully.
Regulatory Authority
Plus500 is regulated by the FSA in the UK allowing it to accept customers from all members of the European Union. FSA regulation is generally considered to be the gold standard of European Regulation. The Plus500 FSA entry can be found here.
