ThinkMarkets Broker Review

Is ThinkMarkets Safe?

Founded in 2010, ThinkMarkets offers multi-asset trading across the globe from twin headquarters in Australia and London. ThinkMarkets is the brand name of TF Global Markets, which is regulated by the FCA in the UK, ASIC in Australia and the FSCA in South Africa:

• TF Global Markets (UK) Limited is authorised and regulated by the FCA, FRN 629628.
• TF Global Markets (Aust) Limited is authorised and regulated by ASIC, AFSL number 424700.
• TF Global Markets (South Africa) Pty Ltd is authorised and regulated by the FSCA, FSP No 49835.

Due to the strict regulatory oversight required by these regulators, all client funds are held in segregated bank accounts; additionally, ThinkMarkets holds an insurance policy covering up to 1 million USD for individual traders in case of broker bankruptcy.

Unfortunately, in Kenya ThinkMarkets do not offer negative balance protection by default – which means that traders can lose more than they have in their trading account and may end up owing the broker money.  ThinkMarkets does have negative balance protection, but this is an free-of-charge opt-in program. 

ThinkMarkets have won several awards over the years for their services, highlights being Best Forex Trading Experience 2017 and Best Forex Trading Innovation 2017 at the UK Forex Awards.

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ThinkMarkets Trading Conditions

ThinkMarkets is very proud of its trading infrastructure, with twin Equinix trading servers located in Hong Kong and London allowing for trade execution within milliseconds. This state-of-the art technology allows ThinkMarkets to deliver uptime of 99.99% and provides traders with the fastest execution speeds available, ideal for automated trading.

ThinkMarkets offers two general accounts, a Standard Account with wider spreads and the ThinkZero Account – an ECN account with tight spreads and commission per trade. Both accounts are available as Demo Accounts and Islamic Accounts and ThinkMarkets also offers a specialised Joint Account, which can be shared by two or more individual traders. Three platforms are supported (MT4, MT5 and the proprietary ThinkTrader) and 36 currency pairs and 5 cryptocurrency pairs are available to trade.

Account Types

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Standard Account – The Standard Account is a commission-free trading account with variable spreads and no minimum operating balance, average spreads on major pairs are 1.2 pips but can fall to 0.4 pips at times. Leverage on this account is 500:1 and all three of ThinkMarket’s supported platforms are available.

ThinkZero Account – The ThinkZero Account offers tighter spreads – starting at 0 pips but averaging 0.1 pips on major pairs – but charges an industry-standard commission per trade. The minimum operating balance on this account is 500 USD and the ThinkTrader platform is unsupported – meaning you will have to use MT4 or MT5. Like the Standard Account, leverage is also set at 500:1 but ThinkZero Account holders have access to free AutoChartist and a personal account manager.

Spreads and Commission

It is hard to tell exactly what average spreads are with ThinkMarkets as, unusually for a large broker, the data per currency pair has not been made publicly available. That said, minimum spreads are very low across the board (0.4 pips on the Standard Account and 0 pips on the ThinkZero Account) – though how often traders will see them is hard to say.

Commission on the ThinkZero Account is the industry-standard 3.5 USD per lot per side (7 USD round turn).

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Broker

Trading Conditions

Base Currencies

EURUSD (Standard)

Trading Cost (Standard)

EURUSD (Best)

GBPUSD (Best)

USDJPY (Best)

Commission

ThinkMarkets

4/ 5

ZAR, USD, EUR, CHF, GBP, AUD, NZD, JPY, CAD, SGD

1.10 pips

USD 11

0.00 pips

0.00 pips

0.00 pips

USD 0

InstaForex

2/ 5

USD, EUR, RUB

3.00 pips

USD 30

3.00 pips

3.00 pips

3.00 pips

USD 0

Khwezi Trade

4/ 5

ZAR, USD

1.00 pips

USD 10

0.60 pips

1.00 pips

0.80 pips

USD 0

Deposit and Withdrawal

ThinkMarkets allows deposits and withdrawals in USD, EUR, CHF, GBP and AUD; be aware that base account currencies are USD, EUR, GBP, AUD and CHF.

ThinkMarkets operates a “return to source” policy, meaning that withdrawals must be made via the same method and the same account as the original deposit.

While ThinkMarkets does not charge any fees for any methods of deposits or withdrawals, the company reserves the right to impose fees on any withdrawal request originating from a trading account with minimal trading activity. Please contact ThinkMarkets support for more information on this.

Deposits and withdrawals can be made via the following methods:

• Bank Wire: Deposits are free and estimated transaction time is 1-3 business days. Withdrawals are free, though banks may charge for the service, and transaction time is 3-5 business days.
• Visa/Mastercard: Deposits are instant, but withdrawals can take up to 24 hours.
• Skrill: Deposits are made within 10 minutes, but withdrawals can take up to 24 hours.
• ZOTAPAY: Deposits are made within 10 minutes, but withdrawals can take up to 24 hours.

ThinkMarkets for Beginners

Beginner traders will find ThinkMarkets a relatively welcoming experience with a well-structured education section available for traders with different levels of experience and semi-frequent market analysis. Demo accounts on MT4 and MT5 will only expire after 30 days of inactivity and ThinkTrader demo accounts will never expire.

Educational Material

Education at ThinkMarkets is split into three tutorials: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced – unfortunately, these tutorials are only available after signing up with ThinkMarkets, though you will not need to make a deposit in order to access them.

The Beginner section covers the basic aspects of Forex CFD trading such leverage and margin and introduces traders to the MT4 platform. The Intermediate section covers trading plans, candlesticks, order types and chart patterns – all essential skills for successful traders. Finally, the Advanced section covers technical and fundamental analysis, Fibonacci ratios and support and resistance levels, among others – again, concepts that we consider essential for successful trading.

Alongside these tutorials, ThinkMarkets also has a section of explainers of commonly used indicators for MT4 and MT5 – something we wish more brokers would offer to new traders, and Trading Glossary devoted to the terminology of CFD trading.

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Broker

Beginner Course

Advanced Course

Well Structured Education

Education Quality

Webinars

ThinkMarkets

Yes

Yes

Yes

High

Yes

InstaForex

No

No

No

Medium

No

Khwezi Trade

Yes

No

Yes

Medium

No

Analysis Material

Market research and analysis is slightly disappointing, alongside a basic Economic Calendar ThinkMarkets has a Market News section featuring a stream of market analysis. This analysis is updated every few days and is of a high quality, though we would like to see daily market updates across the major pairs. In this section you can also find a Sentiment Indicator for the major pairs and links to ThinkMarkets twitter account, though at the time of writing this seems to have not been updated in some time.

Customer Support

Customer support is available 24/5 from ThinkMarkets Johannesburg offices. Support is available via phone, email and live chat and phone numbers are also available for the Australia, UK, Italy and Spain offices.

For the purposes of this review, we found the Customer Support at ThinkMarkets to be responsive, polite and resourceful.

ThinkMarkets Trading Platforms

Alongside ThinkMarkets proprietary ThinkTrader platform, it also offers support for MT4 and MT5, the two most popular trading platforms in the Forex industry.

ThinkTrader: ThinkMarket’s proprietary platform grew out of the company’s acquisition of Trade Interceptor, an award winning trading platform in its own right. Available for mobile, tablet and desktop ThinkTrader offers in-app deposits and withdrawals, real-time news from FX Wire Pro and one-click multiple order closing. It also features over 80 indicators and 50 chart types and includes the TrendRisk scanner to assist traders in finding opportunities over different timeframes.

MetaTrader 4 – The MT4 trading platform is the most widely used Forex trading platform and can also be used to trade other instruments like commodities, cryptocurrency, stock index, and stock CFDs. Though it is now showing its age, MT4 is still very popular for its auto trading features that enables algorithmic trading and strategy backtesting with expert advisors (trading robots).

MetaTrader 5 – The MT5 trading platform is being adopted by more Forex brokers all the time, it has a more modern interface, allows for an unlimited number of charts to be used, shows Depth of Market and has a built-in Economic Calendar. It also has a larger number of pending order types than MT4 and features an embedded chat system. In addition, the MQL5 scripting language is more efficient than its precursor and MT5 has more advanced charting tools than MT4

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Broker

Platform Choice

Copy Trading

Platforms

ThinkMarkets

4.5/ 5

Yes

MT4

MT5

ThinkTrader

InstaForex

4/ 5

Yes

MT4

MT5

Khwezi Trade

4/ 5

Yes

MT5

ThinkTrader Mobile Apps

All the trading platforms supported by ThinkMarkets are available as mobile and tablet downloads – allowing traders to keep track of their open positions while on the move.

Evaluation Method

We value transparency and openness in the way we review the partners. To bring transparency to the forefront, we have published our review process that includes a detailed breakdown of the ThinkMarkets offering. Central to that process is the evaluation of the reliability of the broker, the platform offering of the broker and the trading conditions offered to clients, which are summarised in this review. Each one of these is graded, and an overall score is calculated and assigned to the broker.

Risk Statement

Trading Forex is risky, and each broker is required to detail how risky the trading of Forex CFDs is to clients. ThinkMarkets would like you to know that: Derivative products are leveraged products and can result in losses that exceed initial deposits. Please ensure you fully understand the risks and take care to manage your exposure and seek independent advice if necessary. It’s important for you to consider relevant legal documents before you decide whether or not to acquire any of our products.

Overview

ThinkMarkets has a relatively decent product line-up, with support for the most common trading platforms and decent trading conditions over its two accounts. The education section, though requiring signup, will be helpful for beginner traders but the market analysis section is lacking compared to ThinkMarket’s international peers. Overall, ThinkMarkets is a solid if unexciting Forex broker, but we would like to see the introduction of negative balance protection for Kenyan clients and more transparency on its average spreads and possible withdrawal charges.

Editorial Team

 

Chris Cammack
Head of Content

Chris joined the company in 2019 after ten years experience in research, editorial and design for political and financial publications. His background has given him a deep knowledge of international financial markets and the geopolitics that affects them. Chris has a keen eye for editing and a voracious appetite for financial and political current affairs. He ensures that our content across all sites meets the standards of quality and transparency that our readers expect.

 

Alison Heyerdahl
Senior Financial Writer

Alison joined the team as a writer in 2021. She is the Senior Editor for FXScouts.  She has a medical degree with a focus on physiotherapy and a bachelor’s in psychology. However, her interest in forex trading and her love for writing led her to switch careers. She has a passion for Forex trading and over a decade of editorial experience researching Forex and the financial services industry, producing high-quality content. She hosts a weekly podcast, “Let’s Talk Forex,” alongside her colleague, Chris, and has produced over 100 Forex educational videos for the FXScouts YouTube channel. She also writes weekly technical analyses and has tested and reviewed over 100 Forex brokers.

 

Ida Hermansen
Financial Writer

Ida joined our team as a financial writer in 2023. She has a degree in Digital Marketing and a background in content writing and SEO. In addition to her marketing and writing skills, Ida also has an interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain networks. Her interest in crypto trading led to a wider fascination with Forex technical analysis and price movement. She continues to develop her skills and knowledge in Forex trading and keeps a close eye on which Forex brokers offer the best trading environments for new traders.