Pepperstone Group is a broker for CFDs and forex, providing a trading platform for those of all skill levels. The broker aims to appeal to both novices and experienced traders with its range of tools and educational materials.
Pepperstone helps both institutional and retail investors with using instruments like forex as a class of assets as part of an trading strategy. The broker always strives to deliver low-cost pricing, fast execution, top client support, the best trading platforms, and reliable trading infrastructure.
With Pepperstone, clients can directly access multiple liquidity destinations within the forex markets without having to use a deal desk or put up with other hassles.
Pepperstone at a Glance
| Broker | Pepperstone |
| Regulation | ASIC (Australia) & FCA (UK) |
| Minium Initial Deposit | $200 |
| Demo Account | Yes |
| Asset Coverage | CFD markets: Forex, Indices, Precious Metals, Energy, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies |
| Leverage | 30:1 Retail & 500:1 Professional |
| Trading Platforms | Web Trader, MetaTrader 4, Meta Trader 5, cTrader, cAlgo and cMirror |
Pepperstone’s History
A veteran management team founded the company in 2010, putting years of experience in technology and forex to good use. The team decided to create Pepperstone after noticing that traders became increasingly frustrated when using online-based forex firms with trade execution delays, poor customer support, and excessive spreads.
From the start, Pepperstone aimed to overcome this via its superior technology, exceptional customer service, low-cost spreads, and low-latency execution.
The management team members behind the company has vast experience within the industry, helping them understand the requirements of retail forex traders to effectively trade.
The team does not want to just stay up to date with forex developments; the company wants to constantly improve its services. Pepperstone always aims to create and develop then introduce its own solutions that can enhance the ease of online trading.
At the same time, these solutions make trading more professional and fairer and can aid all clients, regardless of whether they are a large institution or a small retail investor.
Vision and Values
Since its founding, the vision of Pepperstone has been spearheading online forex trading’s evolution in more than 65 countries. Pepperstone hopes to make forex more accessible to individual retail investors.
At the start, the company aimed to start revolutionizing the industry with better service, quicker execution, and lower spreads than existing brokers, something Pepperstone continues to do today. The overall vision of Pepperstone is becoming the largest provider in the world of online foreign exchange trading.
The key values of Pepperstone include acting responsibly, being flexible and innovative, offering the best possible service, promoting ethics and integrity throughout the industry, and upholding the highest standards for compliance and regulation.
Pepperstone Trading Instruments
One of the main goals of Pepperstone is to make forex trading more accessible to retail traders. As such, it should come as no surprise that Pepperstone offers many forex instruments for trading.
There are over 70 currency pairs to choose from. When it comes to forex trading on Pepperstone, you will find all the major pairs with spreads starting at just 0 pips. There is a high focus on high-quality execution, low latency, a reliable trading structure, and flexible leverage of up to 500:1.
In addition to the forex trading pairs, you can also trade CFDs with Pepperstone, including Cryptocurrencies, metals, commodities, indices, and more. With the index CFDs from the broker, you will find 14 major global stock indices without hidden markups or requotes and with low latency.
You will find new markets that help you diversify trading strategies and vary your opportunities across the global equity markets. With the major stock indices, you can buy or short sell without commission.
Precious metals from Pepperstone have fast execution, flexible leverage options, no commission, and low-cost pricing models, making them a fantastic way to diversify trading strategies. There are six precious metal pairs available, including gold, platinum, silver, and palladium against the USD or EUR. These assets often move along with inflation and market cycles.
Energy trading also has no commission, minimum trade sizes, and flexible leverage. You will find both major oil markets, Brent Crude Oil and West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil, as well as natural gas and more. All trading instruments have a minimum trade size starting at 10c per pip, and you can get leverage of up to 500:1.
Trading CFDs with Pepperstone
Pepperstone has CFD technology that is ideal for executing large CFD orders while minimizing slippage. This way, the broker can give clients the best trading experience possible. Pepperstone also has a deep pool with liquidity sources without execution manipulation or a dealing desk, allowing for ultra-low latency.
The CFD technology was specifically designed to support the trade flows of institutions, which gives clients a robust, scalable solution they can count on.
The method from Pepperstone includes handling multiple fills, so it can sweep large orders through several levels into its Liquidity Aggregator. Additionally, Pepperstone systematically executes clients’ CFD orders with a market execution basis that does not require requotes and enables both negative and positive slippage.
Trading CFDs with Pepperstone can be done directly with the MetaTrader 4 or cTrader client terminals so there is no need to have multiple trading accounts.
Pepperstone Account Types
There are four main types of accounts from Pepperstone, including the Edge Standard Account, Edge Razor Account, Edge Swap-Free Account, and Edge Active Traders Account.
Edge Standard Accounts have institutional grade STP spreads and $0 commissions. With this account, you get to enjoy the liquidity from 22 banks, trading via MetaTrader 4, and negative balance protection, all from an Australian-regulated firm. The interbank spreads start at just 1 pip.
Moving to an Edge Razor Account gives you $3.50 commissions and spreads from 0 pips. The spreads for this type of account are raw interbank direct pricing. The average EUR/USD spread is between 0 and 0.8 pips.
The commission of $3.50 AUD is per 100,000 traded. This type of account has a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots, a maximum trade size of 100 lots, and leverage of up to 500:1.
These accounts require an opening balance of $200 AUD or the equivalent with the ability to choose the following base currencies: AUD, USD, GBP, JPY, EUR, CAD, NZD, CHF, SGD, and HKD. Edge Razor Accounts also allow scalping, EAs, and hedging.
Edge Swap-Free Accounts are interest-free, have $0 commissions, and feature STP spreads. This type of account is specifically designed for traders who are unable to pay or receive swaps.
The spreads are straight through processing with no swaps. There is no commission and the minimum account opening balance is $200 USD or the equivalent. Base currencies can include USD, AUD, EUR, and SGD. The average EUR/USD spread is 1 to 1.2 pips with a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots and a maximum trade size of 100 lots.
Pepperstone’s Professional Client Service
To become a Pepperstone professional client, you must meet the minimum threshold for forex, commodities, or CFDs for two consecutive quarters in the calendar. You only need to meet the threshold for one of the markets, and the notional volume per month for each market is $15 million USD.
Those who qualify as premium clients get to enjoy a long list of additional benefits. These include priority client support, advanced market insights, premium rebates, invitations to premium events, access to the Qantas Point offers, VPS solutions, and advanced trading tools.
Premium clients work with a highly skilled dedicated account management to help with premium solutions and support to meet individual trading styles. You can contact Pepperstone to become a premium client or learn more about qualifying to become one.
Pepperstone Trading Platform
Traders with Pepperstone accounts can choose to trade using either MetaTrader 4 or cTrader. MetaTrader 4 is compatible with Windows, Mac, the Web Trader via your choice of browser, iPhone, Android, and tablets (both Android and iOS). cTrader is compatible as a WebTrader, cAlgo, or mobile.
MetaTrader 4 is user-friendly and filled with features, such as enhanced charting functionality, Expert Advisors and other automated trading strategies, a Market Watch Window, a Navigator Window, your choice of order types, 85 preinstalled indicators, order execution capabilities, multiple chart setups, and analysis tools.
It delivers first-class charting with unlimited charts, real-time data export, and secure trading. There is also support for MetaTrader 5, which has optimized processing speeds, 38 built-in indicators, 21 time frames, a built-in economic calendar, advanced pending orders, and the ability to hedge positions.
With cTrader, you get robust trading infrastructure, lightning-fast speed, and top-tier liquidity. cTrader was designed by and for traders and has a highly customizable user-friendly interface with order management systems and enhanced charting abilities.
It includes detachable charts, level II pricing, extensive backtesting facilities, automated trading via a dedicated platform, and next-generation charting techniques and user interface.
Pepperstone Trading tools
Those who choose to trade on MetaTrader can opt for the Smart Trader Tools from Pepperstone. This package includes 10 smart trading apps that help deliver an edge. The tools help with advanced trade management and execution, sophisticated alarms, decision assistance, up-to-date market data, and more.
The tools include Connect, Alarm Manager, Correlation Matrix, Correlation Trader, Excel RTD, Market Manager, Mini Terminal, Sentiment Trader, Stealth Orders, Session Map, Trade Simulator, Tick Chart Trader, Indicators, and Trade Terminal.
Pepperstone also has a section dedicated to forex news with multiple new articles every day, an economic calendar, and Technical Analysis Software powered by Autochartist.
Educational Tools
Pepperstone has a nice section for education, including FAQ and a glossary. You will also find informative Trading Guides on a range of topics, free webinars for all skill levels, and a section dedicated to learning to trade forex.
Pepperstone Customer Support
You can contact Pepperstone customer support via live chat on any page of the website. You can also find the broker’s phone number at the bottom of any page or click “Contact Us” at the top of any page. That will show you the broker’s physical address, 24-hour online support options (email and live chat), and numbers for 24-hour phone support.
Pepperstone Spreads & Fees
You can view the current spreads at any time via the Pepperstone website on the Spreads page within the section for “Forex Trading.” This is also where you will find more detailed information about commissions, when applicable. To view the swap rates, right-click on “Market Watch” from the MT4 trading platform and choose “symbols.” Select your currency pair and then “Properties.”
Pepperstone Withdrawals
You can only return funds to a bank account that bears the same name as your Pepperstone account, as with deposits, due to the third-party transaction regulations. Know that if you make a credit card withdrawal, you can only use it for the amount you deposited with the credit card; after that, you must choose another method.
If you fund your account with a credit card and then withdraw within 60 days, the withdrawal will have to go back to your same credit card. Withdrawals are processed the same day if Pepperstone receives them before 21:00 GMT (which is 07:00 AEST). Otherwise, you may need to wait until the following day for processing. Bank Wire Transfer withdrawals typically take three to five business days to arrive in your account.
EDGE Technology
You will notice that all the Pepperstone accounts have “Edge” in their name. This is because the broker uses the EDGE Environment, which is considered the highest-performing portfolio for forex trading technology enterprise clients who want to reduce speeds and enjoy execution acceleration.
EDGE makes it possible to trade via MetaTrader 4 with an improvement of up to 12 times in execution speed and up to 10 times in latency reduction. There are also extra optical fiber connections with Interbank Servers within New York, allowing for one-click MT4 ordering for an ultra-fast trade placement.
Pepperstone’s VPS Hosting Options
With access to Virtual Private Servers (VPS), forex traders can run their chosen expert advisors or automated algorithmic strategies 24/7 via a Virtual Machine. This reduces downtime from connectivity and technology failures and Pepperstone has two partnerships that give customers access to VPS hosting.
You can get 20 percent off Pepperstone FXVM VPS, which has ultra-low latency times of just one millisecond. FXVM also has multilingual staff available 24/7 and can help with troubleshooting and installing expert advisors.
Or you can get 20 percent off on a customized Pepperstone VPS plan from New York City Servers for low latency. These high-powered servers run 24/7/365, have a low latency stable connection, and feature fast executions with 24/7 customer support.
Pepperstone Awards
To further solidify its spot as a global leader as an online forex broker, Pepperstone has earned many awards, such as being number 1 for customer service and overall client satisfaction. Going back to 2012, Pepperstone earned the title of Best Intelligent Platform from Forex.com.cn and the Best ECN Broker Asia 2012.
In 2013, Pepperstone earned the Deloitte 2013 Technology Fast 50 Award – #1 Rising. That same year, the broker earned a spot on the Smart 100 list from Anthill Magazine. Pepperstone was also a top 100 fastest growing companies according to the 2013 BRW Fast Starters.
In 2014, Pepperstone was the 2014 Australian EY Entrepreneur of the Year and the winner of the Governor of Victoria Export Awards 2014. This year also saw it earn a place on the 2014 BRW Fast Starters, indicating its place as the fastest growing company within Australia by BRW Magazine.
Final Thought
Pepperstone is a well-respected online broker offering the ability to trade forex and CFDs and are regulated in the UK and Australia which will give potential clients reassurance.
While they have not created their own proprietary trading platform, Pepperstone lets traders use MetaTrader 4 or cTrader with the ability to trade on multiple devices.
There are several account types to choose from, depending on your skill and investment level. They have around 90 asset types which you can trade which mainly focus on CFDs, Forex and some Cryptocurrencies.
