Finding the Best Broker in New Zealand

Although Forex brokers accept clients from most countries, their trading conditions and regulatory supervision may be different for New Zealand residents. This is especially true for brokers who hold an FSP license. To find the best Forex broker for New Zealand residents, we need to explain what the differences are and how they affect traders.

FMA Regulation: Regulators supervise Forex brokers and other financial services companies to make sure they’re behaving ethically and within the law. Regulators, like the FMA, have the strong legal structure and enforcement mechanisms, ensuring a clean market and the protection of participants. The advantages of registering with an FMA regulated broker include:

• Segregated trading accounts which protect client funds from broker mismanagement or default
• Negative balance protection ensures that client losses can not exceed the amount in the trading account.
• Client fund protection which includes higher margin close-out percentages designed to limit client losses.
• Effective fraud investigation processes and frequently published investment scam reports.

Broker Trading Conditions and Costs: Better Forex brokers will often have lower trading costs, meaning that spreads are tight and minimum deposits are low. Trading execution should be lightning-fast and with little or no intervention. Forex brokers should also publish their spreads, execution policy, maximum leverage available, and a list of all CFDs available to New Zealand clients. Note that trading conditions and negative balance protection availability change depending on a trader’s country of residence, and some FMA brokers will encourage traders to register their account under their offshore license in order to circumvent leverage restrictions.  

Broker Education and Analysis: Brokers should offer beginner traders a coherent and well-structured trading course alongside a demo account. Brokers should supply detailed market analysis to highlight trading opportunities and provide a complete learning experience.

Broker Trading Platform: Brokers will have their own trading platform or provide support for a third-party platform, such as MT4, MT5, or cTrader. Some brokers will do both. Most Forex traders generally have a platform preference, so brokers with multiple platforms are more likely to have the platform a trader wants to use.

To test these Forex brokers, we opened both demo accounts and real accounts, set up the trading software, read the educational material, deposited and traded $365 of our money, and created all kinds of trouble for the customer service teams. Plus we put the withdrawal procedures to the test to see how long it took to process and receive our money. While experimenting with these brokers, we rate the quality of their financial regulation, trading platform choice and read the fine print to get a grasp of the trading conditions and how transparent the broker is with sharing them.

New Zealand Financial Markets Authority (FMA) Brokers

Though the FMA’s tightening of regulation has forced many international brokers out of the New Zealand market, overall licensing is good for consumers, and the industry as a whole, because:

• All licensed providers are checked and monitored
• Customers have more protection. All licenced brokers must belong to a dispute resolution scheme, which will make sure you have a fair hearing if you have problems or a disagreement with your provider
• All brokers must provide offer and reporting information, which should help you better understand their products and services.

Though it is not illegal for you to use an unregistered broker, it is illegal for an unregistered broker to offer services to New Zealand citizens. This is important to note because, while you can still use an unregistered broker, if the broker is willing to break the law in order to gain your business you must consider how responsible and trustworthy that broker is.

The FMA keeps a list of all brokers licensed to operate in New Zealand – this is kept current and before you sign up with a new broker you should check to make sure that they are licensed.

The FMA also regularly publishes consumer alerts regarding companies and purported representatives who are operating unlicensed in New Zealand. This database is fully searchable and very useful for new traders. It is also worthwhile checking your chosen broker against this database to be doubly sure that there are no outstanding warnings against them.

Can the FMA help me in dispute with my broker?

It is important to note that the FMA will not provide assistance in the case of a dispute between a customer and a broker or other financial service provider.

In New Zealand, all financial service providers must be members of the Financial Service Providers Register (FSPR) and all members of the FSPR must belong to a dispute resolution scheme. There are four approved dispute resolution schemes and all Forex brokers will be members of one of the following:

1. Banking Ombudsman – mainly deals with disputes between banks and their customers but also deals with complaints about a range of non-bank financial service providers.
2. Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman – mainly focused on insurance and savings providers but also provides dispute resolutions for other financial service providers that are members of its scheme.
3. Financial Services Complaints Limited
4. Financial Dispute Resolution – operated by FairWay Resolution

Which brokers are regulated in New Zealand?

Here is our curated list of all of the FMA regulated brokers we have reviewed, ordered by overall score. The broker with the highest score is at the top of the list.

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Broker	Broker Score	FSP #	Regulierungsbehörden	Mindesteinlage	Max. Hebelwirkung (Devisen)	Handelskosten	Handelskommission	Total # CFDs	Anzahl der FX-Paare	Total # Crypto Pairs	Vergleiche
	4.69 /5 Testbericht lesen	18923		USD 0	30:1	USD 6	Im Spread enthaltene Gebühren	19295	80	10
	4.44 /5 Testbericht lesen	518226		USD 0	500:1	USD 10	7 USD / lot - PRO account	188	70	11
	4.28 /5 Testbericht lesen	403326		USD 0	500:1	USD 8	Im Spread enthaltene Gebühren	26115	70	10

Conclusion

Though the new regulatory environment in New Zealand has led to a short-term decrease in the number of international brokers operating in the country, it has also led to a significantly more safe market for retail traders.

The FMA is a very transparent and responsible regulator and, as New Zealand gains a reputation as a reliable and secure country for Forex trading, we strongly believe that the industry will expand again in the future.

Forex Risk Disclaimer

Trading Forex and CFDs is not suitable for all investors as it carries a high degree of risk to your capital: 75-90% of retail investors lose money trading these products. 

Forex and CFD transactions involve high risk due to the following factors: Over-leveraging, unpredictable market volatility, slippage arising from a lack of liquidity, inadequate trading knowledge or experience, and a lack of regulatory protection for clients.

Traders should not deposit any money that is not disposable. Regardless of how much research you have done, or how confident you are in your trade, there is always a substantial risk of loss. (Learn more from the FCA or from ASIC)

Our Methodology

Our State of the Market Report and Broker Directory are the result of extensive research on over 100 Forex brokers. The explicit goal of these resources is to help traders find the best Forex brokers – and steer them away from the worst ones – with the benefit of accurate and up-to-date information.

With over 150 data points on each broker and over 3000 hours of research and review writing, we believe we have succeeded in our goal. 

In a world where trading conditions and customer support can vary based on where you live, our broker reviews focus on the local trader and give you information about these brokers from your perspective.

All research has been conducted by our in-house team of researchers and writers, gathering information from various company representatives, websites and by sifting through the fine print. Learn more about how we rank brokers.