Plus500 Review Australia for 2023

Plus500 is an online trading platform that has a lot of things going for it. It’s a platform that offers a vast array of tools that are easy to use and navigate. It’s not aimed at novice users, however, experienced users will find it a breeze to operate.

The Israeli platform is listed under the London Stock Exchange as a CFD broker that was launched back in 2008. Moreover, the platform is highly transparent and regulated by some of the most reputable international financial agencies such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). In Australia, the Plus500AU Pty Ltd subsidiary is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

When it comes to day trading, Plus500 bans users that are in for quick runarounds in the form of 2-minute limit orders, but it gives you the opportunity to execute stop-loss orders instead. The easy-to-use interface, the fifty-plus currency pairs, and the fully operational mobile app make this platform even more convenient, although users who expect to find more than brokerage services and CFDs might find the platform a bit too limited.

But don’t worry. You can research other crypto exchanges available out there anytime.

Plus500 at A Glance

• Website: https://www.plus500.com/
• Country: Israel
• Mobile App: Available
• Deposit Methods: Credit/ debit card PayPal, Bank Transfer, Skrill or BPAY
• Foreign Currency: GBP EUR, AUD, and many more
• Cryptocurrencies: 9

List of Features

• A range of CFDs available on shares, cryptocurrencies as well as Forex (FX) ETFs, commodities, options and indexes
• A user-friendly interface is perfect for investors with experience. Traders who are just learning to trade can benefit from demo mode. Demo mode.
• Full demo mode for practicing trading
• The leading provider of CFD’s around the world
• It is supported in more than 50 countries across the globe with strict regulatory oversight

Pros

• Market news and information to inspire you
• Trading platforms that are user-friendly for the desktop, web and mobile
• Accounts for trading that are commission-free
• Accounts for practice trading
• Variety of fund-raising options
• Excellent customer support 24/7
• The largest selection of 2,000+ trading instruments
• Guides to trading that help educate novice traders.
• Innovative products are offered
• There are no deposit or withdrawal charges.

Cons

• There are no MetaTrader platforms
• Inactivity charges if you don’t make enough transactions
• No fixed spread accounts

About the Plus500 Trading Platform

Plus500 was launched back in 2008 as part of the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market. Today, the platform is owned by JP Morgan, Odey Asset Management, and Sparta24 Ltd.

Plus500 is a user-friendly platform that provides a stellar user experience that specializes in CFD trading. CFDs or Contracts for Differences are a popular trading feature that usually covers services such as futures trading, forex, indices, stocks, etc. As Bitcoin rose to prominence around 2013, Plus500 was among the pioneers that offered Bitcoin CFDs.

By dealing in CFDs, traders who aren’t knowledgeable about cryptocurrency and how it functions can still go about their business without missing a beat. Besides, when dealing with CFDs, traders can gain assets and leverage even if the price of Bitcoin goes down.

How Does CFD Trading work?

How does trading CFDs work? In a CFD, you have two parties, a buying and a selling party, who strike a deal about a certain asset that they will exchange on a certain date in the future. The catch? Regardless of what the price of the asset in question will be at the point when the actual trade goes down, they will execute the trade on the terms they initially agreed upon.

However, if you made a CFD deal but have reasons to believe that Bitcoin’s value would go higher up than the price you agreed to buy it at, you should try to sell the contract, strike while the iron is hot, and capitalize on your investment.

Leverage and margin trades are utilized in order to put the agreed-upon CFDs on steroids and create a whole new currency system based on the spreads. This works much like buying actual cryptocurrency, except that there is no cryptocurrency in sight. Users are not buying the asset, rather the value of the asset in question. The value becomes the currency. CFD trading is also known as derivatives trading, as the contracts derive their value from the position of the underlying asset.

Payment Methods and Plus 500 Crypto Fees

Plus500 doesn’t administer deposit fees and offers a plethora of deposit and withdrawal methods through bank transfers, wire transfers, credit and debit card purchases (Visa and MasterCard), as well as e-wallets transfers through instant payment providers like PayPal and Skrill.

The bank transfer method is usually processed in a time span of a couple of days. Users who wish to have their deposits processed on the spot should opt for a credit card, debit card, or electronic wallet payments. Deposits aren’t possible from third-party bank accounts.

Plus 500 charges no fees on the first five withdrawals per month. Every next withdrawal will cost you an additional $10. The minimum amount you can withdraw is $50 with PayPal or $100 with bank transfers and cards.

Plus500 supports both retail and professional accounts. However, the latter is hard to come by as users can only apply for this type of account after being consistently active for more than a year and completing over €500,000 in trades.

At Plus500 users can deal in some of the most utilized fiat currencies such as USD, CAD, TRY, HUF, CZK, GBP, AUD, JPY, SEK, EUR, CHF, NOK, PLN, and SGD. Users have to reach out to customer support if they want a different base currency than the one that’s tied to their location.

If your currency is not supported by the platform, Plus500 employs a 0.7% fee on conversions.

Trading Fees

As the name suggests, the trading fees are executed on forex, stock index, or CFD trades in the form of conversion fees, commissions, financing rates, and spreads.

The platform deals in forex currencies that include EURCHF, EURUSD, AUDUSD, EURGBP, GBPUSD, etc; stock index CFDs, such as EUSTX50 and SPX, and traditional stock CFDs such as Apple and T-Mobile. When forex brokers buy in leverage, they usually hold on to the asset for a certain period of time and then sell it back for a profit. When dealing with CFDs, all you need to watch out for are the spreads. The platform supports staggering maximum leverage of x300.

Even though Plus500 doesn’t charge users on withdrawal and deposit fees, they do charge a non-trading fee, in the form of an inactivity fee that comes at $10 for every 3 months of absence. Users need to log on to their user accounts in a span of three months in order to bypass the inactivity fee.

Features & Supported Cryptocurrencies

Plus500 offers an intuitive and sleek interface and features. The platform’s search bar allows you to find anything you might need in just a couple of seconds.

When it comes to orders, users can place trailing stop, market, guaranteed stop, limit stop, as well as Good ’till Canceled (GTC) orders. The platform notifies traders about any and every change on their account via SMS or email so that they can go over every change and be on top of things at all times.

Moreover, the platform offers full transparency through its portfolio, where users get insight into overnight fees via the nine provided charts in the WebTrader charting tab. Plus500 is limited to CFD trading, so don’t expect to find traditional stocks or ETFs.

Navigation and Educational Content

The trading platform also features demo account trading where users can hone their skills before diving into the real market. The platform offers a library full of educational videos and articles to get new users up and running.

Through these videos and trader’s guide articles, rookie traders will learn about the different digital assets that the platform supports, the trading tools and financial instruments that will help them navigate the platform, the market, risk management, as well as their real-time balances and technical analysis for their strategies. The platform also features a free downloadable eBook and an extensive FAQ section.

Once the leverage trade levels are set, there is no way of adjusting them, so users should be very mindful of what they are getting into when CFD trading. The platform also offers a Traders’ Sentiment feature that illustrates the activity of buyers and sellers for the supported assets, as well as a Live Statistics feature that displays the trajectory of any given asset in a span of minutes or days.

Plus500 is a global platform that operates worldwide, however, there are some big markets that aren’t included in its coverage, such as the US and Canada, as well as territories where online currency trading is banned altogether, like Syria, Cuba, and Iran.

Customer Support

Plus500 provides outstanding customer support. Their support team is available around the clock and can be reached via live chat, as well as WhatsApp and email. The response times are also very impressive. It usually doesn’t take more than an hour for the operator to answer your queries or fix an issue.

Is Plus500 Safe – Is It a Legitimate Company??

The platform is under the watchful eye of some of the best financial regulation firms in the business, such as the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) of New Zealand, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) of South Africa, as well as the Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The platform also supports negative balance protection on CFD trades and two-factor authentication (2FA) that can be activated via SMS or a Google authenticator app.

A Few Words Before You Go…

Plus500 isn’t without its faults and shortages, especially in an era where cryptocurrency platforms offer just about everything but doing your dishes. Traders who are after a solid trading platform without a ton of bells and whistles will find Plus500 quite useful because of its competitive spreads, the Plus500 WebTrader feature, and its extensive regulation protocols. If you aren’t after a crypto trading platform, then Plus500 is one of the best choices when it comes to CFD trading and should be a serious contender for your preferred online broker.

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Frequently Asked Questions