XTB Review

• Intermediate level investors and traders wanting commission-free trading

Accounts

XTB offers retail investors access to:

• General investment account (GIA) is an account designed to provide access to investments. You may be liable for tax on any income or capital gains earned within a general investment account but this can be a useful vehicle for anyone who has maxed out their ISA allowanceGeneral investment account
• Sometimes called an investment ISA, a stocks and shares ISA is an individual savings account that allows you to invest in shares, unit trusts, investment funds, and bonds. You will not need to pay tax on any income or capital gains earned on investments within an ISAStocks and shares ISA

That’s great news if you want to use this platform to utilise the tax benefits of your annual ISA allowance. What’s more, this is a ‘flexible’ stocks and shares ISA, so you can withdraw funds from it and repay them back within the same tax year without the deposits impacting your annual allowance twice. The ISA is free to open and the pricing structure is the same as the general investment/trading account.

A Junior ISA and/or personal pension product in addition, would make the offering even more comprehensive however.

There are two different account types; Standard and Islamic. Although XTB offers a Pro account in some countries, it’s not available to the UK market.

• Ready-made portfolios

XTB does not offer ready-made portfolios, so you will need to feel comfortable choosing and managing your own investments with this provider.

Assets

XTB offers access to more than 10,000 instruments, including:

• 8,200+ stocks and ETFs
• 2,100+ A CFD is a type of derivatives trade. CFDs allow traders and investors to profit from price movement without owning the underlying assets. CFDs on forex, indices, commodities, stocks & ETFs

That’s not the largest choice in the market when you consider that Saxo Markets, for example, offers 35,000+ instruments, but if you’re sticking to the most commonly traded instruments, it probably won’t be a problem for you.

If you are looking for professional fund management aimed at outperforming the market, the lack of mutual funds and ready-made portfolios here will be an issue for you.

But a real plus is that XTB allows Fractional shares are portions of shares (or ETFs) that are smaller than one whole share. They are designed to make ownership of large, expensive shares more accessible. fractional shares to be bought and sold, although there is a minimum spend of £10 per trade whereas some other platforms allow as little as £1 to be placed on a trade.

XTB also offers A CFD is a type of derivatives trade. CFDs allow traders and investors to profit from price movement without owning the underlying assets. CFDs. But remember, CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

• Demo account

XTB offers easy access to a demo account with £100,000 of virtual, practice money.

Leverage

Leverage allows you to trade relatively large amounts with small account balances, by multiplying your actual cash funds by an anything up to 30 times. Leverage multiplies both the possible profits and the possible losses of any trade. That means it’s possible to lose more than your original deposit and for that reason, it’s important to exercise caution when using leverage.

XTB is a very low cost provider. You won’t need to pay any account fees, deposit or withdrawal fees, and most users won’t need to pay commission on trades.

What you might need to pay are:

• Spreads

If you’re trading CFDs, currency pairs, or other complex instruments, you’ll need to pay the spread.

The spread is the difference in value between the buy price (ask price) and the sell price (bid price) of an asset.

XTB account-holders pay a minimum of 0.3 pips, which is wider than you could find elsewhere, but the lack of commission means the total cost of the trade is priced into the spread.

• Commission

There is zero commission to pay when buying or selling real stocks and ETFs with XTB, unless your trading turnover is higher than £100k per month, in which case you’ll pay 0.2% with a per-trade minimum commission of £10.

• Currency conversion (FX) fees

A 0.5% fee is charged for buying/selling an asset that’s traded in a different currency from the one your account is funded in.

That’s a reasonable fee, as you can see from this comparison chart:

• Swaps

There are additional fees for holding CFD positions overnight. These are known as swap costs. They’re relatively small, but can add up for longer-term trades.

You can find a complete list of swap rates within the account information area of XTB’s website.

• Minimum deposit

There is no minimum deposit to get started with an account at XTB. However, most investments have a minimum deposit per trade of £10 / $10. As XTB also allows Fractional shares are portions of shares (or ETFs) that are smaller than one whole share. They are designed to make ownership of large, expensive shares more accessible. fractional investing, the platform is well-suited to smaller-scale investors.

• Interest on uninvested cash

XTB offers a high 4.00% AER interest on uninvested cash. That’s one of the highest rates available in the UK market, as this chart shows:

• Inactivity fee

There are no inactivity fees on the stocks and shares ISA. If you have a general trading account, however, XTB will charge a fee if your account is funded but is inactive for more than 12 months. After 12 months of inactivity and if there has been no cash deposit within the previous 90 days, you’ll be charged £10 per month until your account is active. That’s not very helpful if you’re a buy-and-hold investor, but most providers charge some kind of inactivity fee, so it’s not unusual, although some do allow a slightly longer inactive period.

• The verdict

We’ve undertaken some price analysis on how XTB compares to its competitors and the following charts show just how well it performs on price, for both users with large portfolios, and users investing smaller amounts. Particularly on UK assets, this is a platform that’s hard to beat.

For a completely personalised breakdown of which ISA platforms will best suit your pricing needs – and could be saving you money – use our ISA calculator tool.

Have a question about XTB that we haven’t covered? Ask it here and we will get back to you as soon as possible!