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If you are looking to trade forex online from Malaysia then you need to open an account with a retail forex broker.
The role of brokers in forex trading cannot be overemphasized. A good broker must keep your deposited funds safe, execute your trades in a fair and cost-effective manner and provide a trading platform with the tools you need for analyzing the market.
There are many forex brokers that accept traders from Malaysia. The challenge, however, is that they are foreign brokers. These brokers are not locally regulated in Malaysia. Malaysia does not have any locally regulated forex broker. Most of the retail forex traders in Malaysia trade with foreign brokers that are not licensed by the Securities Commission Malaysia.
Note: Since there are no locally regulated retail forex brokers in Malaysia, it is best to not trade till there are locally regulated brokers.
The Securities Commission Malaysia (SCM) is the financial watchdog in the country. Trading with brokers not licensed with them puts your money at risk. You are responsible for whatever happens to your money and trading with unauthorized brokers at your own risk.
| Broker | Regulation | EUR/USD Spread (pips) | Min. Deposit | Monthly Inactivity Fees | Withdrawal Fees | Visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XM Trading |
FSC Belize, CySEC,ASIC & FCA
|
1.6
|
MYR 23
|
MYR 23 after three months
|
MYR 0
|
Visit Broker |
| HF Markets |
FSA SVG, FCA, DFSA, CMA, CySEC & FSCA
|
1.4
|
MYR 50
|
MYR 23 after six months
|
MYR 0
|
Visit Broker |
| Octa |
FSA SVG, CySEC
|
0.9
|
MYR 100
|
MYR 0
|
MYR 0
|
Visit Broker |
| Tickmill |
FSA (Seychelles), FCA, FSA (Labuan), CySEC, and FSCA
|
0.1
|
MYR 450
|
MYR 0
|
MYR 0
|
Visit Broker |
| FXTM |
FCA, CMA, FSC, CySEC, and FSCA
|
1.9
|
MYR 2,374
|
MYR 26 after six months
|
MYR 13.4 for bank transfer
|
Visit Broker |
| Avatrade |
ASIC, CySEC, CBI, PFSA, FSC, FFA, and FSCA.
|
0.9
|
MYR 450
|
MYR 230 after three months
|
MYR 0
|
Visit Broker |
Here are our Best Forex Brokers for traders in Malaysia that have good trading conditions based on our research & editorial review
Now we are going to cover all these forex broker one by one using their features like trading conditions, regulation, fees support and many more.
XM Trading is regulated with top-tier regulatory bodies.
Regulation: They are licensed with the FSC of Belize, CySec (Cyprus), ASIC (Australia), and the FCA (UK).
Fees: The average spread attached to instruments depends on your account type. For EURUSD, XM’s average spread is 1.6 for their Standard and Micro accounts. For Gold, the average spread is 3.5 pips for both accounts.
Trading conditions:
Islamic account: XM Trading offers an Islamic trading account. You can trade on this account without swap, rollover interest, and spread widening.
Number of instruments: 55 currency pairs, 1,261 stocks, 8 commodities, 4 precious metals, 14 equity indices, 100 shares, 31 cryptocurrencies and 5 energies are all available for you to trade with XM trading. All of which are CFDs.
Order execution: You get real-time market execution with XM Trading. 99.35% of their trades are executed in less than 1 second. There is also no rejection of orders.
Negative balance: Trading CFDs is risky. You can lose all your money trading. Negative balance protection ensures you do not lose more than your initial trading capital in your trading account. XM Trading offers negative balance protection on all account types.
Support: There is no local phone number to call. However, there is a detailed FAQ section where you can find answers to your questions. If this is not enough, you can reach the broker via email. According to our test, you should get a response from them in about an hour. The broker also has live chat that is available 24/7 and you can chat in English or Malay.
You can read more on XM trading conditions in our XM Trading review.
XM Trading Pros
XM Trading Cons
HF Markets fees are competitive but not the lowest. Their Swap fees if you don’t open an Islamic account are also low compared to XM. If you need lower spreads then you should open a Zero account.
Regulation: HF Markets is regulated by 2 top-tier regulators i.e. the FCA (UK) and the CySEC (Cyprus).
Fees: The typical spread for EURUSD is 1.4 pips with the Premium Account & lower with Zero accounts but it includes extra commission per lot. While that of CFD on Gold is 0.28 pips, and this spread applies across all Retail account types for this CFD instrument.
Trading Conditions:
Islamic account: You can open an Islamic trading account with HF Markets. No swaps or rollovers but there is a carry charge applied on certain currency pairs for positions held beyond 7 days.
Number of instruments: HF Markets offers up to 3,500+ trading instruments. 53 currency pairs (forex CFDs), 6 metals CFDs, 4 energies CFDs, 95 stocks CFDs, 23 indices CFDs, 3 bonds CFDs, 5 commodities CFDs, 34 ETFs CFDs, and 40 cryptocurrencies pairs CFDs are all available for you to trade. They have recently started offering more than 1,951 physical stocks for trading as well.
Order execution: HF Markets offers market execution
Negative Balance Protection: HF Markets’ negative balance protection makes sure you don’t lose more than your capital under highly volatile conditions. According to the broker’s website, no client of theirs is responsible for paying back a negative balance, as it would be reset to zero.
Support: HF Markets support is 24/5. You can chat with a customer care agent via live chat on their website. They respond within a minute. You can also reach them via email. They responded within 20 minutes when we sent an email.
You can read more on HF Markets trading conditions in our HF Markets review.
HF Markets Pros
HF Markets Cons
Octa offers commission-free trading and swap-free trading on all instruments. The broker also has 24/7 live chat support and a dedicated website for Malaysian clients in Melayu.
Regulation: Octa is regulated with only 2 top-tier regulator i.e. CySEC (Cyprus) and FSCA (South Africa)
Fees: The typical spread for EURUSD and gold are 0.9 pips and 12.2 pips respectively with MetaTrader 4 & 5 account types. There is no extra commission per lot on trades. So, their spread is quite low.
Trading conditions:
Islamic account: Octa offers Islamic trading account automatically to clients in Malaysia. No rollovers or swap fees for keeping a position open past the market closing time.
Number of instruments: Octa offer CFDs trading on 35 currency pairs, 4 indices, 2 metals, 3 energies, and 30 cryptocurrency pairs are the instruments offered by Octa. The number of forex pairs & other CFDs is much lower as compared to other CFD brokers.
Order Execution: Octa’s trading platform has market execution of orders.
Negative Balance Protection: Octa offers negative balance protection. If your balance becomes negative for any reason, they adjust it to zero. This way, you do not lose beyond your trading capital.
Support: Their website has a live chat feature. You can contact them via the live chat. The customer support email is also available. We got a response from them in 30 minutes when we tested it. Octa’s customer support is available 24/7.
You can read more on OctaFX trading conditions in our Octa review for Malaysian traders.
Octa Pros
Octa Cons
Tickmill is regulated by the FCA (UK), CySEC (Europe), and FSCA (South Africa).
Regulation: On their Asian website, we discovered they are regulated by the Financial Services Authority of Labuan Malaysia with license number MB/18/0028. They are further regulated by the FCA, CySEC, FSCA, and FSA of Seychelles.
Fees: Tickmill offers low spread. The typical spread for trading EURUSD is as low as 0.1. It is also very low for gold CFDs. The spread for trading precious metals is as low as 0.09.
With this low fee, there is an extra commission per lot of MYR 16 for forex. But the fee is still low overall when compared to other forex brokers.
Trading Conditions:
Islamic account: Tickmill offers a swap-free Islamic trading account. All you need to do is request one by contacting customer support. According to their website, they process this request in one business day.
If you trade and hold certain instruments beyond three nights, then a swap applies. The charge ranges from MYR 0.01 to MYR 230 depending on the instrument you are trading. WTI (Oil) has the lowest swap with USDTRY being the highest at MYR 230.
Number of instruments: Tickmill offers a good range of instruments. You get to trade 62 currency pairs CFDs, 8 cryptocurrencies CFDs, 23 stock indices CFDs & energies (oil) CFDs, 4 bonds CFDs, and 2 metals CFDs.
Order execution: Tickmill’s order execution speed is 0.20seconds. This is the average as seen on the broker’s website.
Negative balance protection: All Tickmill clients are offered negative balance protection. However, the broker reserves the right not to, if the protection of your negative balance is due to fraud or market abuse.
Support: In our review, we can say the overall support is good. It is available 24/5. We tested their live chat feature but no response because customer support was closed. So you should reach them during business hours. They also responded to our emails within 25mins.
You can read more on Tickmill trading conditions in our Tickmill review.
Tickmill Pros
Tickmill Cons
FXTM offers 40+ currency pairs. They also have a large number of stocks from the US, Europe, and Hong Kong.
Regulation: FXTM is regulated with the FCA (UK), CySec (Europe), CMA (Kenya), FSC (Mauritius), and the FSCA (South Africa).
Fees: FXTM’s trading fees for EURUSD is an average spread of 1.9 pips on the Micro Account. That of gold is relatively high at 45 pips.
Trading conditions:
Islamic account: FXTM offers a swap-free option on all their accounts. Although this option is not available in all countries. Our review shows that the swap option is available for Malaysian clients. According to our live chat with them, the broker stated that the swap-free option complies fully with the no-riba tenets of Sharia Law.
Number of instruments: You can trade 58 currency pairs CFDs, 5 metals CFDs, 3 commodities CFDs, 6 FX indices CFDs, 749 US stocks CFDs, 49 European stocks CFDs, 638 US stocks, 11 cryptocurrencies CFDs and 13 spot indices.
Order Execution: FXTM offers both instant and market execution. Market execution is available on their Advantage and Advantage Plus accounts only. We were able to access their performance statistics on order execution. FXTM executes trading orders speedily.
Negative balance protection: FXTM corrects negative balance as a usual practice but it is done with discretion. Requests for negative balance correction are usually evaluated.
Support: There is a live chat feature programmed to answer FAQs only, no live agent is available. For a quick response, reach FXTM via WhatsApp and email. It takes about 25mins to get a response via email.
You can read more on FXTM trading conditions in our FXTM review.
FXTM Pros
FXTM Cons
AvaTrade is CFD and Forex broker. They are offering trading platforms like AvaTradeGo, MT5 and MT4.
Regulation: The broker is regulated by ASIC (Australia), CySec (Europe), CBI (Ireland), PFSA (Poland), FSC (British Virgin Islands), FFA (Japan), and FSCA (South Africa).
Fees: Typical spread for EURUSD is 0.9 pips. That of gold is lower at 0.29 pips
Trading conditions:
Islamic account: AvaTrade offers swap-free Islamic account for Muslim clients. Islamic trading account requests are processed within 1-2 business days.
Number of instruments: AvaTrade grants you exposure to a wide range of instruments. They have 55 currency pairs, 18 commodities, 44 FX options, 612 stocks, and 31 indices. All instruments are CFDs.
Order execution: In a document about their order policy, it is stated that AvaTrade strives to offer high speed within the limitations of technology and communication links
Negative balance protection: You cannot lose more than the money in your trading account as AvaTrade offers negative balance protection.
Support: There is a local phone number to call. We tested the number and found it functional. You can also contact AvaTrade by sending an email. We got a response within 30 minutes. The broker also has a live chat option that is available 24/5.
You can read more on AvaTrade trading conditions in our AvaTrade review.
AvaTrade Pros
Avatrade Cons
The SCM (Securities Commission Malaysia) oversees financial regulation in Malaysia. They require brokers to register under their CFD regulations and report their transactions. The issue is that many foreign brokers do not find these regulations good for business & their profits. This is because any broker licensed under the SCM can only offer CFDs on indices, commodities, and equities. They cannot offer CFDs on forex. This is why these foreign brokers operate in Malaysia unauthorized locally.
There are only two locally licensed brokers in Malaysia – Phillip Futures and CGS-CIMB. They both do not offer forex CFDs.
This shows why traders in Malaysia trade with foreign forex brokers though it is risky. The brokers available locally do not provide the same range of instruments offered by foreign brokers.
In addition, foreign forex brokers run strong online advertising campaigns online that attract traders. They do not need to be in Malaysia to make traders aware of them.
Beyond prohibiting forex CFDs, here is more information for you about SCM’s CFD regulations. So, by trading with these unregulated brokers, you are doing so at your own risk.
1) Types of CFDs allowed
According to SC’s guidelines for CFDs, chapter three of the documents states that a broker can only offer shares and indices CFDs. Forex CFDs are not allowed in Malaysia yet.
2) Financial requirements
Here are the financial requirements for a capital market service license (CMSL) holder restricted to offer CFDs only. These parameters are they are on SC’s document on guidelines on CFDs:
For a CMSL holder who is licensed for both activities of dealing in derivatives and clearing, who wishes to offer CFDs? The financial requirements are as follows:
For a CMSL holder who is licensed for dealing in derivatives and wishes to offer CFDs? The financial requirements are as follows:
3) Leverage restrictions: A maximum of 10:1 leverage is permitted for index shares CFD and 5:1 for non-index shares CFD. 20:1 is the maximum leverage index CFD.
4) Reporting requirements: CFD providers are required to submit a monthly report. They are required to submit this report on the 15th of every month or any day specified by the SC. These are the SC’s reporting requirements:
Where the CFD provider is a CMSL holder for dealing in derivatives
Where the CFD provider is a CMSL holder for dealing in derivatives restricted to CFD –
The above requirements are a key part of the SC’s regulations for CFD providers.
According to the SC, the volume of derivatives traded in the year 2018, 2019, and 2020 are RM13.52 million, RM13.11 million, and RM18.03 million respectively.
As stated earlier, there are only two locally regulated brokers in Malaysia. They are:
1) Tier-1 regulation
The brokers on this list are not regulated locally. Foreign bodies like the FCA (UK), CySec (Europe), ASIC (Australia), and the FSCA (South Africa) regulate them. While it is risky to trade with these foreign brokers, you are safer trading with a broker with tier-1 regulation, rather than trading with a broker that is only regulated with offshore regulations such as the Seychelles or the British Virgin Islands.
For example, the FCA page of XM broker has been pictured below. We can see that XM broker is licensed by the FCA under the name Trading Point of Financial Instruments UK.
Any foreign broker you will choose must be regulated by either the FCA or ASIC. They are tier-1 regulatory bodies so they can be trusted.
Also, you must note that because a broker is regulated with Tier-1 regulation does not mean that your account will be registered under FCA or ASIC for example. Your broker may register your account under Offshore regulations, and this is a common practice including with brokers like Octa, HF Markets, FXTM etc.
2) Overall Fees
Fees can be divided into trading and non-trading fees. Trading fees include spreads and commissions while non-trading fees could be deposit/withdrawal charges, inactivity fees, or currency conversion fees.
The combination of these two fees affects your final profit or loss. You must go through your broker’s website to know the spreads and commission charged on trading instruments. For example, a spread page looks like the picture below:
Before choosing a broker, you should always their spreads against other brokers. Here is a breakdown of the spreads charged by the brokers on this list:
Comparison of Typical Spreads of Best Forex Brokers in Malaysia
| Broker | Stock CFDs (in pips) | CFDs on Gold (in pips) | Forex (EUR/USD)( in pips) | Equities (in pips) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XM Trading | 0.5 | 3.5 | 1.6 | 0 for a selection of 100 shares |
| HF Markets | 0.3 | 0.28 | 1.4 | 0 for a selection of 901 shares |
| Octa | NA | 12.5 | 0.9 | NA |
| Tickmill | 0.45 | 0.09 | 0.1 | NA |
| FXTM | 3 (Minimum) | 45 | 1.9 | NA |
| Avatrade | 0.13 | 0.29 | 0.9 | NA |
You can check the typical spread charged by a broker by going to their website. They will usually have a page which shows the typical spread charged by them for each instrument.
For example, here is a screenshot from XM’s website which shows their minimum spread as well as typical spread.
Swaps are not charged on Islamic accounts except for exotic currency pairs after a period of time. Timeframes and charges depend on your broker.
Most brokers do not charge for deposits/withdrawals but middlemen such as banks or alternative payment platforms may charge. Make sure to check with your payment platform to know how much they charge.
Finally, inactivity fees are charged when there is no trading activity on your account over a period of time.
Timeframes and charges differ from broker to broker so it is important to contact your broker’s customer support about their fees for each instrument that you want to trade. Ask them about their spread with each account type, commissions, Swap, Inactivity charges, deposit & withdrawal fees with your method of choice.
3) Deposits and Withdrawals
You need to pay more attention here. HF Markets, Octa, FXTM, and other brokers on this list may be popular. However, they are not regulated by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SCM). Due to this, they are not authorized to operate and are on SCM’s list of blacklisted investors. This is why deposits/withdrawals via your local bank might be risky & you may not be able to transfer via bank deposits.
For bank payments, foreign brokers in Malaysia like Octa generally accept payments via Online payment gateways where you can pay instantly.
These brokers in Malaysia offer alternative payment methods which many traders use other than bank transfer. It could be e-wallets like Skrill, Neteller, and PayPal. You could also use online payment channels like iPay88 and eGHL.
Contact your broker to know more about their payment methods if your preferred methods are unavailable.
4) Range of Trading Instruments
You should make sure that your broker offers the trading instruments that you want to trade. The larger the range of trading instruments, the better it is. A lot of forex brokers have started to offer cryptocurrencies as well, and you should try to trade with a forex broker that does offer it since they are attractive trading instruments.
For example, Octa offers 32 currency pairs, 10 indices, 5 commodities, and 30 cryptocurrencies. The range of cryptocurrencies offered by Octa is very large, so you should consider it if you want to trade cryptocurrencies.
In contrast, HF Markets offers 53 currency pairs, 6 metals, 4 energies, 54 CFD stocks, 23 indices, 3 bonds, 5 commodities, 34 ETFs, 19 cryptocurrencies, and 945 DMA stocks. Hence, in comparison to Octa, HF Markets has a much wider range of trading instruments.
If you’re looking to trade a particular trading instrument such as GBP/USD, then you should also compare the fees associated with different forex brokers. For example, the spread that you’ll be charged for trading GBP/USD through Octa is 1.1 pips, and through HF Markets is 1.9 pips, and through Pepperstone is 0.6 pips.
Hence, if you’re looking to trade only GBP/USD, then you should trade with Pepperstone since they offer the lowest fees (spread).
5) Customer Support
Customer support is an essential part of a brokerage. The better the customer support is, the better your trading experience will be. You should always check if the broker offers customer support in your language (Melayu or English or your preferred language). Before signing up with a broker, you should contact customer support and ask them to clarify any issues or doubts that you may have. This will give you an idea of the kind of customer support that the broker offers.
For example, Octa offers customer support through live chat and email. They do not offer customer support through phone calls. Their customer support is available in Melayu as well as in English.
We contacted Octa’s customer support team at the time of writing this review and received a response within 5 minutes. A response time which is under 5 minutes is usually considered to be good enough.
You may have to wait longer if you contact them through email.
This is how you check whether the customer support offered by a broker is good enough for your needs.
6) Leverage
As a trader, you have the option of using leverage on each of your trades. Leverage allows you to increase the size of your position without betting more money. Usually, CFD brokers operating in Malaysia offer very leverage. You can use the leverage of up to a maximum of 1:3000 depending on the broker.
However, using leverage can greatly increase the risk associated with your trade. Leverage can multiply the loss that you face if your trade moves in an unfavourable direction. Hence, you should only use maximum leverage of 1:10 (for forex instruments) and even lower for other types of asset classes, despite the broker offering much higher leverage. This is to help you reduce the risk of your trade.
You can check the maximum leverage offered by a broker on their website. For example, below is a screenshot from XM’s website where they state that they leverage up to 1:1,000.
A Forex broker, also known as a foreign exchange broker or FX broker, acts as a middleman between you and the massive, global market for trading currencies.
Here’s what they do:
They provide access to the Forex market:
Think of them as your gateway to buying and selling different currencies.
They offer trading platforms where you can execute your trades and monitor currency prices.
They facilitate currency exchange:
You don’t directly interact with other traders. The broker matches your buy orders with sell orders from other clients or directly fulfills them (depending on the broker type).
They ensure smooth and secure transactions, eliminating the need to worry about counterparty risk.
They make money through fees:
They typically charge spreads (the difference between the buy and sell price of a currency pair) or commissions on your trades.
Yes, you generally need a forex broker to trade in the foreign exchange market. They act as an intermediary between you and the vast interbank market where currencies are actually traded. Here’s why:
1) Access to the Market: Retail traders like you and me can’t directly access the interbank market. Forex brokers have the licenses and relationships to do so, and they provide you with a platform to place your buy and sell orders.
2) Order Execution: Your broker takes your order and finds a counterparty to match it with on the interbank market. They handle the execution of the trade, ensuring it’s done efficiently and at the best available price.
There are no legal forex brokers in Malaysia for retail traders. All the brokers are foreign brokers that are unregulated in Malaysia. So traders are trading with these brokers are their own risk.
Any forex broker that is regulated by multiple tier-1 & tier-2 regulations are considered low risk. Then the comparison is based on fees, support, account features, withdrawals etc.
There are some brokers like HF Markets, FXTM etc. that are regulated under multiple regulations, but not in Malaysia. It should be noted that if you trade with any forex broker as a resident in Malaysia, you are doing so at your own risk. So all forex brokers should be considered high risk.
HF Markets, Tickmill, XM, and FBS are forex brokers in Malaysia that offer no deposit bonus. No deposit bonus means the forex broker will give you a cash bonus, that is usually credited to your trading account and you can use it to trade financial instruments.
In Malaysia, the no deposit bonus amount vary from broker to broker, HF Markets, Tickmill and XM no deposit bonus amount is MYR 142 ($30), while, that of FBS is MYR 332 ($70).
Note that, usually, you are not allowed to withdraw such bonus received, you can only trade with it and withdraw any profits realised. You can find more information about the terms and conditions of such bonus on our post No Deposit Bonus Forex Brokers In Malaysia.
Yes, most forex brokers in Malaysia offer commission-free trading on forex trades and other financial instruments. Forex brokers like Octa and AvaTrade do not charge commission fees on trades, this means that you will not pay any fees opening or closing trade positions.
HF Markets and Tickmill also offer commission free trading on some account types, like the HF Markets Premium Account and Tickmill Classic Account. Other account types by the brokers attract commission charges.
HF Markets, Tickmill & Octa have moderate to low trading fees as per our research. All three of them offer commission free trading on most trading instruments, Octa even offering swap-free trading for all accounts at all times. While HF Markets charge account inactivity fee, Tickmill and Octa do not charge those fees.
