Is Pepperstone Available in the UK?
Yes. Pepperstone accepts traders from the UK.
The platform was established in 2010 in Melbourne, Australia, but it very popular in the UK and other European countries. It distinguishes itself among other brokers thanks to superior technological advancements and faster, more efficient trade executions.
It also affords traders with multiple accounts and trading platforms that we shall come to in a little while.
But first, let us give priority to one of the more bottom-of-the-priority-list services of this UK broker since it is as important as it is understated.
Pepperstone’s Trading Platform
Two of the world’s leading platforms for foreign exchange are available at Pepperstone, MetaTrader and cTrader.
MetaTrader
- Most popular platform for forex trading
- User-friendly interface and resourceful management tools
- Charts are displayed in real time along with live price quotes and detailed news
cTrader
- Offers direct access to inter-bank market depth
- Capable of implementing forex trading systems based on algorithms
- Customizable interface featuring charts both pre-set and detachable
- Facilitates comprehensive backtesting
Choosing between the two can induce a breakdown if you are too keen. What is important to remember here that one does not have to be objectively worse than the other. It just needs to be a better suitor your subjective trading needs. MT4 tends to be the choice for traders keen on using forex automation while cTrader is favored by those who intend to personalize their interface as well as obtain more advanced options for placing orders.
If you are not quite sure which one is better suited to your style, you can always give both options a trial run on a demo account before you make up your mind.
eToro is one of Pepperstone’s biggest competitors. Read the eToro UK review here.
Trade executions
Now with Pepperstone the first thing that catches your attention with Pepperstone is that its trade executions are fast. Pepperstone is actually an ECN broker and what that means for forex traders is forex trading minus dealer intervention via their Razor account. It is called the edge environment and forex traders have direct access to liquidity currency pools that is not excluding big global financial institutions.
There are other factors at play that make the speed of execution even faster…
Fast trading servers
Fast global trading servers to be precise thanks to a partnership between Pepperstone and Equinix of NASDAQ fame. The servers are located in New York and London.
Pepperstone in Australia is connected to its equinox servers in New York via an optical fiber network. That effectively eliminates the several thousand kilometers between the two cities that information would have to travel in order to execute a trade. As result, latency is 10 times less than what it would be otherwise.
Leverage with Pepperstone
Pepperstone leverage is 1:500, one of the highest levels of on any forex market. So in essence, every dollar you invest is equivalent to $500 dollars on leverage. To put that into context, making the minimum deposit of $200 into your Pepperstone account allows you to trade up to $100,000 on the market.
Customer service
The team that constitutes customer service for Pepperstone has many years of experience working in the forex industry. That becomes a distinct advantage since experience translates to helpful advice and instruction that users can rely on for various inquiries. In fact, Pepperstone can even provide an account manager just to ease your way with getting to know the industry and how best to play it.
As long as the forex markets are open, so is Pepperstone’s customer service facility thanks to five offices which span the entire globe from Melbourne to Shanghai to Bangkok to London, UK and finally Texas. So you do not necessarily have to be a trader based in Australia to have a local service in your region.
Contact options
You can contact Pepperstone’s customer service primarily through email and a live online chat. You can get in touch by phone with headquarters in Melbourne, or Shanghai if you want to communicate in Chinese, or the branch in Dallas, Texas.
Spreads and Fees
Pepperstone is considered to offer some of the best value of any Australian forex broker when it comes to weighing the cost of trading with the services being provided.
There are no commission to pay for holders of the standard account and spreads starting from 1.0 pips. For holders of the Razor account, a commission of AU$3.5 will be charged for 100k that is traded. So there are commission allocated to certain types of accounts, the spreads are still fairly low in Australia.
Which type of account is best for you?
There really is not any shortage of options here. There is something for everyone at Pepperstone from cTrader to MT4, 5 and the Razor account. As a beginner, you can use the limitless demo account to properly acquaint yourself with other accounts so you can make a confident and informed decision and not risk your own money trying to figure it out.
Bonus offers
In previous years, Pepperstone would match the initial deposit with some $600 Aussie dollars in free brokerage. However, there were conditions to be met.
- Only new traders who were signing up with Pepperstone were eligible
- The bonus would expire 60 days after the account was activated
It is not yet confirmed that the offer still stands for 2017 so it would help to inquire about it from customer services. ‘Free brokerage’ I technically commission free trading with an edge account from Pepperstone.
Conclusion
Pepperstone UK is one of the most reputed and acclaimed brokers in the business, not just in Australia where it is based, but on the international stage as well. Since its inception, the broker has seen rapid expansion for it client base and thoroughly comprehensive and positive reviews. That is thanks in part to the low spreads on offer but mostly due to superior technological prowess and swifter execution of trades. It is a flexible and innovative player in the broker business, one that you would do very well to sign in as a forex trader.
