IQ Option vs. Olymp Trade: Battle of Binary Options Brokers

binary options brokers

Binary options are no longer as popular as they once were about a decade ago. Many brokers who offered binary options trading moved to other financial products, but a few still remain. IQ Option and Olymp trade are two of those binary options brokers that remained in the industry, and it is worth looking at how their services compare.

Regulation

IQ Option is regulated by CySEC under license number 247/14 after the company rebranded from the previous name Investlab Holdings. This regulator still regulates binary options brokers and is a fairly competent regulator, so clients can feel confident in the broker. On the other hand, Olymp Trade is licensed by the Financial Commission (FinaCom). This is an independent regulatory board that is not limited to any country. FinaCom grants investor protection of up to €20,000 and investigates complaints. Membership to FinaCom is voluntary for binary options brokers, so it might be said that brokers show trust when they choose to become members. On the other hand, FinaCom does not have any authority to prosecute brokers in court when they are not cooperative.

Winner is IQ Option because CySEC is better than FinaCom.

Deposit methods

When you want to deposit money into your trading account, both of these binary options brokers have a lot of options. The common options among both of these brokers are bank cards (Visa and MasterCard), Neteller, Skrill and WebMoney. Those are the only options provided by IQ Option, but Olymp Trade have gone and added Bitcoin and FasaPay. The latter is popular across Asia while the former is ideal for the trader who wants to maintain their anonymity.

Winner is Olymp Trade.

Assets available

In the way of assets, IQ Option have deviated from their initial offering of binary options only. They now have only 8 binary options but there are also digital options. In addition, traders can invest in stocks, Forex, ETFs, commodities and even cryptocurrencies. Olymp Trade seems to be one of the few binary options brokers left standing, with this being their primary asset. Binary options are available for currencies, stocks, commodities, indices and cryptocurrencies. This broker also has CFDs for Forex, metals, indices and cryptocurrencies.

It’s a tie because some traders may prefer Olymp Trade for their binary options and IQ Option for their other assets.

Fees

As a primarily CFDs broker, IQ Option makes most of its money from spreads where the bid and ask prices are varied according to market conditions. These spreads are very low according to industry standards and not a problem to handle. Meanwhile, Olymp Trade makes their money mainly from wrong forecasts on binary options and spreads on CFDs. These too are very low.

Once again, it’s a tie because the fees are almost equal.

Trading platforms

Neither of these binary options brokers have MetaTrader or any other common trading platform. They both have proprietary software for download to PC, Mac, iOS and Android. However, the IQ Option trading platform is more robust with features such as social trading.

Winner is IQ Option.

Final verdict on these binary options brokers

In most ways, IQ Option beats out Olymp Trade and is the better broker overall.

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