VT Markets Review 2021

VT Markets has low forex fees. On the other hand, trading costs of stock index CFDs are high compared with VT's closest peers.

How we ranked fees

We ranked VT Markets's fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers.

First, let's go over some basic terms related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees and non-trading fees.

• Trading fees occur when you trade. These can be commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
• Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, like withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.

In the sections below, you will find the most relevant fees of VT Markets for each asset class. For example, in the case of forex and stock index trading the most important fees are spreads, commissions and financing rates.

We also compared VT Markets's fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, IC Markets and Pepperstone. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of VT Markets alternatives.

To have a clear overview of VT Markets, let's start with the trading fees.

VT Markets trading fees

VT Markets trading fees are low.

We know it's hard to compare trading fees for forex brokers. So how did we approach the problem of making their fees clear and comparable? We compare brokers by calculating all the fees of a typical trade for selected products.

We chose popular instruments in each asset class usually provided by forex brokers:

• Forex: EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, EURCHF and EURGBP
• Stock index CFDs: SPX and EUSTX50

A typical trade means buying a leveraged product, holding it for one week and then selling. For the volume, we chose a $20,000 position for forex and a $2,000 position for stock index and stock CFD transactions. The leverage we used was:

• 30:1 for forex
• 20:1 for stock index CFDs

These catch-all benchmark fees includes spreads, commissions and financing costs for all brokers. Let's see the verdict for VT Markets fees.

Forex fees

VT Markets forex fees are generally low and compare well to the company's closest competitors.

CFD fees

VT Markets has somewhat high CFD trading fees, including those on trading the popular SPX and EUSTX50 CFD indices.

Non-trading fees

VT Markets has low non-trading fees. There are no deposit, inactivity or account fees. Withdrawing funds is free of charge in most cases, though you will face a fee if the withdrawal amount is less than 100 units of your account base currency or if you withdraw to an e-wallet.

The account opening process at VT Markets is user-friendly and fully digital. It was also very quick, as our account was approved within a day.

Can you open an account?

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VT Markets accepts customers from all over the world. There are some exceptions such as Belarus or Singapore, with the most notable one being the United States.

What is the minimum deposit at VT Markets?

The required VT Markets minimum deposit is $200. This is considered low, since there are brokers that require a minimum of $2,000 or more. Furthermore, in certain SEA region cuntries it is even lower: $50.

Account types

VT Markets provides two different account types, each with different pricing.

*Round turn means that you open and close the position.

How to open your account

The VT Markets account opening process is easy and fully digital. Completing the online application form takes roughly 10-15 minutes, while our account was approved within one business day.

VT Markets account opening involves the following steps:

1. Enter your name and contact information (email address, phone number).
2. Fill in personal information such as your date and place of birth and your ID number.
3. Add some details about your employment and financial status, e.g. your estimated annual income and your trading experience.
4. Choose the account type and the base currency.
5. Verify your identity and residency by uploading a copy of your passport or national ID; as well as a bank statement, utility bill or residence certificate.
6. You will get your trading account credentials when your account is approved.
7. Lastly, fund your account.

VT Markets has great deposit and withdrawal services, with many free options for moving your money in and out. However, withdrawal is quite slow, often taking more than 3 days.

Account base currencies

At VT Markets, you can choose from 5 base currencies.The following base currencies are available: USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD

This selection lags behind competing brokers and minor currencies are not accepted. 

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your trading account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your trading account base currency, you don't have to pay a conversion fee.

A convenient way to save on currency conversion fees is by opening a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank. These usually offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates, as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. Opening an account only takes a few minutes on your phone.

Compare digital banks

Deposit fees and options

VT Markets deposits are free of charge. Besides bank transfer, you can deposit funds to your account using credit/debit cards, mobile pay or the following electronic wallets:

• Neteller
• Skrill
• Fasapay
• UnionPay

In a nice additional feature, you can also deposit via Bitcoin and Tether (the following agreement types are supported: ERC20/TRC20/OMNI)

A bank transfer can take several business days, while payment with a credit/debit card is instant.

You can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.

The deposit process is not always seamless, though; when we tested the RAW ECN account deposit options, we weren't able to make a deposit because it kept stalling at the online verification stage.

VT Markets withdrawal fees and options

Similarly to deposits, you can use bank transfer, credit/debit cards and electronic wallets to withdraw funds from your account. However, it's important to note that you can only withdraw funds using a method that you have previously used to deposit your account.

When withdrawing to credit/debit cards or via bank transfer, VT Markets charges no withdrawal fee, unless the withdrawal amount is less than 100 units of your account base currency, in which case you should calculate with a 20 unit handling fee. Furthermore, there is a $40 minimum withdrawal amount. For your first wire transfer withdrawal submitted each month, VT Markets will cover the bank handling fee for you.

By contrast, withdrawing to e-wallets is not free of charge. Fasapay withdrawals will incur a 0.5% handling fee, Skrill withdrawals come with a 1% handling fee, while Neteller withdrawals involve a 2% handling fee.

How long does it take to withdraw money from VT Markets? VT Markets claims that it can take 3-7 working days to receive your money to a credit/debit card or via bank transfer, and 1-3 working days using electronic wallets.

You can only withdraw money to accounts that are in your name.

How do you withdraw money from VT Markets?

• Once logged in to your account, select 'Funds' in the menu
• Select 'Withdrawal'
• Choose the appropriate method from the 'How did you fund your trading account?' dropdown
• Fill out the form and click 'Submit'

Compare to other brokers

VT Markets uses the MetaTrader web trading platform. It is highly customizable and has a clear fee report, but its design is outdated and it lacks a two-step login and price alerts.

VT Markets doesn't have its own self-developed trading platform. It offers two third-party platforms, MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. We reviewed MetaTrader 4 as it is more widely used.

MetaTrader 4 is available in an exceptionally large number (37) of languages:

Look and feel

The MetaTrader web trading platform has great customizability. It is easy to change the size and the position of the tabs.

However, the platform feels outdated and some features are hard to find. For example, it took us a while to figure out how to add an asset to the watchlist.

Login and security

VT Markets only provides one-step login. Two-step authentication would be more secure.

Search functions

The platform's search functions are OK. You can find assets by browsing category lists, but we missed the usual search function where you can type in the asset's name manually.

Placing orders

You can use some of the most basic order types, but you won't find very sophisticated orders like 'one-cancels-the-other.' The following order types are available:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop-loss

If you are not familiar with order types, read this overview.

There are also order time limits you can use:

• Good 'til canceled (GTC)
• Good 'til time (GTT)

Alerts and notifications

You can't set alerts and notifications on the MetaTrader 4 web trading platform. This feature is available only on the desktop trading platform.

Portfolio and fee reports

VT Markets has clear portfolio and fee reports available on MetaTrader 4 web trading platform. You can easily see your profit-loss balance and the commissions you paid. These reports can be found under the 'History' tab, but we didn't find a way to download them.

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VT Markets has a good mobile platrform. It's user-friendly, and offers two-step login and order confirmation for added security. However, it lacks price alerts.

Contrary to the web and desktop platforms, VT Markets offers its own self-developed mobile trading platform besides the MetaTrader 4 and 5 platforms. We tested the company's own mobile trading platform.

The platform is available for both iOS and Android.

The mobile trading platform is available in 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai.

Look and feel

VT Markets has a great mobile trading platform; we liked its design and user-friendliness. You can easily find every feature.

Login and security

VT Markets provides a safe login for its mobile platform, via two-step authentication.

Unfortunately, you can't log in using biometric authentication. Providing this feature would make the login process more convenient.

Search functions

The search functions are good, but there is still some room for improvement. You can search by typing the name of the product, whereby you get a list of relevant search results. However, you can't search by browsing category folders.

Placing orders

You can use the following basic order types:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop

There are also order time limits you can use:

• Good 'til canceled (GTC)
• Good 'til time (GTT)

Alerts and notifications

Unfortunately, you can't set alerts and notifications on the VT Markets mobile trading platform.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

In design and functionality, the MetaTrader 4 desktop platform offered by VT Markets is almost the same as the web platform. One major difference is that you can set price alerts.

VT Markets offers MetaTrader 4 as a desktop trading platform.

It has the same design, languages, order types (with the addition of Trailing Stop), search functions, and portfolio and fee reports as the web trading platform.

The major difference is that you can set alerts and notifications on the desktop trading platform, in the form of mobile push or email notifications.

Alerts and notifications

You can set alerts and notifications on the desktop trading platform. To set email or mobile notifications, you must add your email address and mobile MetaQuotes ID (you can find it in the MT4 app's settings). You can add them if you go to 'Tools' and then 'Options'.

Portfolio and fee reports

VT Markets has clear portfolio and fee reports available on MetaTrader 4. You can easily see your profit-loss balance and the commissions you paid. These reports can be found under the 'Account History' tab. If you want to download them, right click on one position, then choose 'Save as Detailed Report'.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

At VT Markets, you can trade only forex and CFDs. In other words, popular asset classes like real stocks or ETFs are not available.

VT Markets is primarily a forex broker, but it also provides some CFDs and cryptos for trading. To learn more about CFDs, please read our CFD trading tips.

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

VT Markets's forex, stock index CFD and stock CFD selections are similar to those of its competitors, but VT Markets has a better crypto selection. Furthermore, their commodity CFD selections contains gold and oil indices as well. On the other hand, ETF, bond and futures CFDs are missing from the company's product range.

You can change leverage levels at VT Markets, which is great. Changing the leverage is a very useful feature when you want to lower the risk of your trade. Be careful with forex and CFD trading, as preset leverage levels may be too high.

Social Trading

VT Markets offers social trading through ZuluTrade.

ZuluTrade allows you to identify successful traders (as ranked by ZuluRank, a proprietary performance evaluation algorithm), and follow their trades, which are then translated into real trades in your own broker account.

Should you decide to give ZuluTrade a try, note that there's a tool called ZuluGuard that can help you monitor the volatility of the various available autotrading strategies.

VT Markets has user-friendly research tools including trading ideas, daily market analysis and an economic calendar. Sadly, a $1,000 deposit is required to access some features.

You can find research tools by VT Markets on its website and on the MetaTrader trading platform.

Trading ideas

VT Markets provides trading ideas through Trading Central, a third-party research provider, which includes Forex signals as well. These trading ideas are based purely on technical analysis, and cover certain commodities, stock indices, as well as most FX pairs. 

On the negative side, you can only access Trading Central if you have an account balance of at least $1,000.

Fundamental data

You can find some fundamental data in the Economic Calendar. You can filter for countries and data importance, which is a useful tool for forex traders.

Charting

MetaTrader has OK charting tools. You can use 31 technical indicators, and other tools such as trendlines, Fibonacci retracements and channels.

News feed

VT Markets provides a news feed through Trading Central.

VT Markets also has daily market updates in both video and text format. You can learn about current events and get daily economic insights so you can better understand what is moving the markets.

In our experience, the overall quality of the market updates was better in the text version than in the video version.

Compare research pros and cons

VT Markets has great email and live chat support. On the negative side, reaching phone support is a bit cumbersome, and no channels are available 24/7.

You can contact VT Markets via:

• live chat
• phone
• email

VT Markets has great live chat support. It is fast, and we always received useful responses. We also liked that they sent us a copy of the conversation by email.

VT Markets phone support was helpful and the agent we spoke to sounded professional. However, we couldn't contact phone support right away, as we had to send a callback request and agree on a date before we were able to talk to them.

Email support is quick and helpful. We sent three emails and received helpful and relevant answers to all of them within a day.

We missed 24/7 availability, as support is only available 24/5, but overall, customer service is clearly a strong suit of VT Markets.

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VT Markets offers general educational videos, trading platform tutorial videos and a demo account is also available. On the flip side, there are no webinars.

At VT Markets you can learn in the following ways:

• Demo account
• Educational videos
• Quality educational articles
• Trading platform tutorials in video and text form

The educational videos are covering various topics, e.g. Stock Market Trading and Timing in Forex. In addition, there are videos about the MT4 and MT5 platforms, which are helpful for those who just started trading on these platforms. 

Educational articles, available on the VT Markets website, cover three topics: Forex market overview, Forex market analysis and Forex trading psychology.

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Due to VT Markets's regulation (Australia and Cayman Islands), clients are not covered by investor protection, only negative balance protection.

Is VT Markets regulated?

Yes. If you register your account as an Australian resident, the regulator will be the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), considered a top-tier authority.

Residents of the rest of the world will fall under another regulator, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA).

Is VT Markets safe?

To be certain if a brokerage is safe, we highly advise that you check two facts:

• how you are protected if something goes wrong
• what the background of the broker is

How you are protected

While trading with leverage may increase profits, investors are also at the risk of losing more than their initial investment amount. It is important to note that VT Markets provides negative balance protection. If the balance on your account goes negative, you will be protected and any negative account balance will be cleared within one working day after requesting it by email.

However, in the very unlikely case that VT Markets fails, you may suffer a loss because neither the ASIC nor the CIMA currently has an investor protection (compensation) scheme in place.

One of the reasons we wrote very unlikely, though, is the fact that clients’ funds are held in a segregated account with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). CBA is the largest financial institution in Australia.

Background

VT Markets is a trademark of Vantage Group. The Vantage Group of companies is authorized and regulated in various jurisdictions.

VT Markets was established in 2016. The longer track record a broker has, the more proof we have that it has successfully survived previous financial crises.

Among negatives, VT Markets does not disclose its financial information and it is difficult to ascertain its ownership background.

Find your safe broker

VT Markets forex fees are low, and the account opening process is fast and easy. Customer support is great.

On the other hand, the product portfolio covers only forex and CFD. Some niche products like bond CFDs that are offered by similar brokers are also missing at VT Markets. Access to the Trading Central research suite is only possible if you have at least $1,000 in your account.

VT Markets is regulated by Australian and Cayman Islands authorities, which means that clients are not covered by investor protection, only negative balance protection.

We encourage you to try VT Markets if you are familiar with forex trading and with the MetaTrader trading platforms.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Below you can find links to all aspects of VT Markets in this comprehensive collection.

Lower fees, lower costs?

We detailed this in our VT Markets fees article.

What about the minimum deposit?

Our ultimate guide to the VT Markets minimum deposit is updated regularly.

How to start your VT Markets account?

Look no further than our evaluation of the VT Markets account opening.

How's their trading app?

Here's our expert view after checking the VT Markets trading app.

Is the quality of customer service satisfactory?

All you need to know about the VT Markets customer service.

Legit or scam?

Is VT Markets legit features all the key aspects you need to look at to see if a broker is safe and legit.

Free or premium? Or both?

A glance at actual costs and whether VT Markets is really free.

Is this broker good for beginners?

We checked it in Is VT Markets good for beginners.

Should you buy your silver bullets on VT Markets?

Research for silver bugs in the Silver buy on VT Markets guide

What is the minimum account balance at VT Markets?

Check out the current account balance requirements at VT Markets in our What is the minimum account balance at VT Markets article.

How do you withdraw money from VT Markets?

We tested it and collected the options and costs in How to withdraw money on VT Markets.