ThinkMarkets Review

Company background

ThinkMarkets was founded in 2010 in Auckland, New Zealand under the name ThinkForex. The company relocated to Melbourne, Australia in 2012 after obtaining an ASIC licence, expanded to London in 2015 with FCA authorisation, and rebranded to ThinkMarkets in 2016. The broker is operated by TF Global Markets and its group entities across multiple regulated jurisdictions. The platform serves traders across multiple regions, offering forex, CFDs on indices, commodities, shares, and cryptocurrencies.

Fees and pricing

ThinkMarkets offers three main account types. The Standard and ThinkTrader accounts are commission-free, with forex spreads starting from around 0.4 pips on major pairs. The ThinkZero account targets active and professional traders with raw spreads from 0.0 pips and a commission of USD 3.50 per side (USD 7 round trip) on forex and metals. ThinkMarkets does not charge deposit or withdrawal fees on its side, though third-party providers or banks may apply their own charges. Swap (overnight) fees apply to positions held past the daily rollover cutoff.

An inactivity fee of GBP 10 per month is charged when an account has had no trading activity for 180 consecutive calendar days. There is no account opening or management fee, and ThinkMarkets does not publish a minimum deposit requirement for account opening, though a funded balance is required to place trades.

Regulation and safety

ThinkMarkets operates through entities regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA, firm reference 629628) in the UK, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC, AFSL 424700), the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC, licence 215/13), the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA, FSP 49835) in South Africa, and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in Seychelles. UK clients are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) up to GBP 85,000. Client funds across entities are held in segregated accounts at top-tier banks, separate from company operational funds. The broker also provides negative balance protection.

Platform experience

ThinkMarkets supports MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, and its proprietary ThinkTrader platform. ThinkTrader is available as a web platform and as mobile apps for iOS and Android, providing access to 4,000+ instruments with advanced charting, over 100 technical indicators, and strategy backtesting tools. TradingView chart integration is available for users who connect their ThinkMarkets account to the TradingView platform. Copy trading is available through ThinkCopy, integrated into the ThinkTrader app, and through ZuluTrade, which requires a separate USD 30 per month subscription. The Signal Centre provides daily trade ideas across MT4, MT5, and ThinkTrader.

Pros and cons

ThinkMarkets' main advantages are its multi-tier regulatory framework across FCA, ASIC, CySEC, and FSCA, raw ECN pricing on the ThinkZero account, no deposit or withdrawal fees, and the proprietary ThinkTrader platform with a wide instrument range and copy trading. The main drawbacks are that all instruments are offered as CFDs only with no real asset ownership, the ThinkZero commission of USD 3.50 per side adds to trading costs on each position, and the inactivity fee of GBP 10 per month applies after 180 days of no trading.