Pepperstone vs. IC Markets: Battle for the Top Australian Brokers

Australian brokers have been among the most trusted Forex brokers in the world. Pepperstone and IC Markets are among the top Australian brokers, which is why it’s important to make the best decision. By analysing various aspects of their services, you can make the best decision.

Australian Brokers

Regulation

Both Pepperstone and IC Markets are headquartered in Australia and thus regulated by ASIC. Pepperstone holds AFSL number 414530 to operate in Australia. According to recent regulatory changes in Australia, Forex brokers domiciled in the country should not advertise to or solicit clients outside Australia. However, Pepperstone is also licensed to operate in the EU through a license from FCA under registration number 684312. This was after the broker acquired 123FX and rebranded it into Pepperstone UK.

Meanwhile, IC Markets is a subsidiary of International Capital Markets with the AFSL number 335692 from ASIC. This Australian broker is not licensed to operate anywhere else, but they can still sign up clients from outside Australia. Although Australian brokers have been asked not to solicit other countries’ residents, they have not been expressly told not to accept them as clients.

Winner is Pepperstone for having two reputable licenses.

Deposits and withdrawals

Making deposits is crucial for a trader because otherwise what would be the point. To this end, these Australian brokers have provided multiple deposit options. There are a lot of common deposit and withdrawal options with these brokers that include:

  • credit and debit cards
  • wire transfer
  • Skrill
  • Neteller
  • Poli
  • Bpay
  • FasaPay
  • PayPal
  • Union Pay
  • Broker to Broker transfer

But that’s where the similarities end. While IC Markets provides free deposits for all deposit methods, Pepperstone charges a 3% commission for deposits by credit/debit card and 1.8% for deposits in Australian dollars. Besides, these brokers have some different deposit options such as Qiwi for Pepperstone and Vietnamese Internet Banking, Rapidpay, Klarna, Bitcoin and Thai Internet Banking for IC Markets.

Winner is clearly IC Markets.

Assets

These Australian brokers are popular for having a lot of tradable assets on their platforms. The common assets between these two are Forex pairs and CFDs for commodities, stocks, cryptocurrencies and indices. IC Markets then provides more assets that include bonds and futures.

Winner is IC Markets for the additional assets.

Fees

Forex and CFDs brokers can either charge spreads, commissions or both. Pepperstone charges depend on the account type chosen, of which there are three. A standard account is only charged spreads for every trade, same as the swap-free account. The third account is the Razor account that has lowered spreads as little as 0.0 pips but a commission of AUD$7 per lot traded. IC Markets too charges a spread for users on an STP account and a commission for ECN accounts and cTrader users. Commission is AUD$7 per lot on ECN accounts and $3 per lot on cTrader accounts.

Winner is IC Markets for slightly lower commissions on some accounts.

Trading platform

Both of these brokers have cTrader, MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. All these platforms are available on desktop and mobile, so we have a draw.

Winner of the Australian brokers

Despite a lot of similarities, the overall winner is IC Markets.

If you might have some more personal insights on these brokers, please let us know in the comments section below.

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