Questrade is a Canadian company that focuses on providing online brokerage services to traders and investors from Canada. The limitations and restrictions the broker imposes on potential non-Canadian users are rather serious. To name just one, the company seems to set higher fees for funds withdrawal for clients from other countries.
However, the broker is still used by a considerable number of foreigners, mostly from the US, and there are several good reasons for that. After all, the broker is reliable and user-friendly to novice traders. But if you want to become a Questrade user as well, you should clearly understand how their conditions and fees work.
That is why our team of Traders Union experts has decided to conduct a thorough research on the broker’s fee structure. In this article, we present a brief overview of their findings and make a conclusion: are those fees that competitive and should you consider Questrade a viable option when looking for an online broker?
About the broker
Questrade has been around for quite a while: their first office was opened back in 1999, and it has been steadily growing ever since. The broker is actually just a large part of a bigger group providing financial services — its other part is called Questrade Wealth Management and helps people invest their money to save for college or retirement. This investment service, however, is intended only for Canadian citizens.
The broker offers its clients a wide range of trading instruments, including 110 currency pairs, CFDs on shares and indices, hundreds of available ETFs, stocks, options, and bonds on TSX, NASDAQ, NYSE, and other major exchanges. An experienced trader is sure to find something suitable exactly for his needs and trading strategy he employs, and a newcomer to trading may always consult with the 12/5 customer support in case he needs some advice.
Questrade is considered a trustworthy broker that pays close attention to the security of funds and implements modern measures to prevent losses, including two-step authentication and log of account activity. The broker is regulated as bank brokerage services by the CIPF (Canadian Investor Protection Fund). The fund guarantees you a 100% refund in case you lose money as the result of a hacker attack or technical issue, but no more than CAD 1 million.
However, the broker itself guarantees to return up to CAD 10 million to cover any direst losses due to unauthorized transactions. This insurance policy is definitely a relief for all the broker’s clients. In 2019, Questrade received a banking license which only makes it more reliable. But the broker is also very serious about identifying its clients, so prepare to provide a very detailed financial report and undergo a long verification procedure.
Questrade also provides its users with a variety of useful instruments, including an automatic market scanner to make technical analysis easier, a subscription to alerts based on some criteria you may set yourself, and many others. And if you are a novice trader, there is an investment education system. While it’s not that extensive, it covers most of the basic aspects of the Forex market and can be used to learn how to use the featured trading platforms.
Fee structure
Questrade claims to be a cheap broker, and that seems to be true. However, only its users from Canada can enjoy the full potential. For them, the Questrade fees look especially competitive helping the broker stand out of the crowd of its Canadian competitors. For example, there are no fees for opening an account or trading on a tax-free saving account — and other Canadian brokers tend to charge about $50 monthly for the latter.
You can also purchase ETFs without additional payments. Questrade’s trading fees are set in the range between $4.95 and $9.95 for stock trades, which is a better offer than many brokers from Canada may propose. It seems the broker doesn’t have any hidden fees or additional and unnecessary payments. The fee structure is completely transparent, and the Forex spreads may be as low as 0.8 pips.
To sum up, experts have found Questrade’s fee system rather competitive and honest. It means the broker may be recommended for novice traders — but again, it just works better for people from Canada.
