IQ Option Review

Introduction

Founded in 2013 and with over fifty million active users IQOption has secured themselves as a leader in the online trading space. They have extended their accessibility to traders in 30 countries and process over 20,000 trades per day.

They have made a name for themselves in the space with their easy to navigate desktop site and award winning mobile app with advanced trading platform. The offer of a free demo account along with a low minimum deposit has made them popular with both the beginner and more experienced trader.

Based in Cyprus and regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC) IQOption is permitted to offer its services to traders in the EEA. They’re also a member of the Investors Compensation Scheme enabling it’s users to trade with confidence.

Account Options

IQOption has chosen not to overcomplicate things with the offer of just three accounts; two ‘real’ accounts where traders deposit money to trade with and a free demo or ‘practice’ account that can be used to perfect your skills before you start trading with real money.

Demo Account

It’s no surprise that IQOption is popular with traders who are new to the space with the offer of their free demo account. There is no deposit or ‘pre-deposit’ required and the account comes with a virtual $1000 to practice with. As it is a demo account there are some restrictions, such as traders only having access to 13 trading assets however if you’re new to trading or just wanting to try out a new trading strategy it’s a great bonus. You can hold a demo account alongside one of their ‘real’ accounts and switch between the two. You can also easily top up your virtual account.

Real Account

The IQOption real or standard account requires only a minimum deposit of $10 to open, a much lower deposit than is required by many of its competitors and with a minimum trade of just $1 it’s an excellent entry level account suited to both the beginner and more experienced trader. Once the account is opened there are no restrictions and traders have access to everything that the platform has to offer including more than 200 assets. You also have access to IQOption’s weekly trading competitions.

VIP Account

To open a VIP account you’ll need to deposit $1900 or more within a 2 day period. The VIP account holder gets all the benefits of the real account plus the additional benefits of 3% returns, monthly reports to allow you to analyse your trades, successes and pin point where you can improve. With the added bonus of a personal account manager IQOption makes you feel like a real VIP with this account.

Trade Types and Payouts

Payouts are another area where IQOptions stand out from their competitors with their higher than average payout rates; this will, however, differ depending on the asset you are trading with the most traded assets seeing profitable payouts of around 84-90%.

There are two types of trade available both requiring a minimum $1 investment, Call/Put, which is one of the most widely used binary options trades, and Turbo trades which are often used by the more experienced trader.

Call/Put Trades

Sometimes also referred to as high/low, the simplicity of this trade makes it popular with all traders no matter what level of experience they have. It works by predicting if the price of an asset will be higher or lower than when it started by the allocated expiry time.

Turbo Trades

IQOptions ‘turbo trades’ are often preferred by the more experienced trader but can be utilised by anyone. Unlike the previous trade, Turbo trades have a range of expiry times ranging anywhere from 30 seconds up to 5 minutes narrowing the timeframe for you to speculate on the extent of an assets price movement.

Bonuses and Incentives

IQOptions no longer offers the types of traditional bonuses seen elsewhere in the market. This is due to regulations set by their regulator, CySEC. This means that EU-based CySEC brokers are no longer allowed to offer bonus matching incentives to new traders.

Having said that, bonus matching is not the only way to incentivise interested traders and IQOptions has come up with a range of other ways to engage with their users. You can compete with other traders in regular competitions with prizes ranging from $100-$100,000.

IQOptions also offer their traders free educational videos with demonstrations from real life traders giving their users the opportunity to learn and gather invaluable experience from professionals.

Advanced Features

The thing that stands out the most when trading with IQOptions is their award-winning online trading platform. They received the award for Best Trading Platform at the Forex Awards in 2014 and the Award of Excellence in the 2017 Communicator Awards in the Financial category for their trading app which continues to exceed industry standards.

They offer a large number of trading and analytical tools to aid their traders at every opportunity. From charting tools which are there to help traders formulate successful strategies to up to 15 different technical indicators which are designed to help you analyse trends and identify profitable trades there are numerous benefits on offer from the advanced trading platform.

One of the most popular being the ability to personalise how you want your data to be shown, whether that be in a candlestick or line chart or condensing the information you want shown to give a clear overview of the markets current performance.

Mobile Trading Experience

From their foundation in 2013 to their mobile app ranking number 1 in 28 countries by 2016, IQOption cemented themselves as a leader in the mobile trading space with their easy to use intuitive mobile app which won Best Technology Application from WMA in 2016. Available on both iOS and Android devices from the Google Play and App Store the mobile app works in a very similar way to their desktop site.

You’re able to check your account status, make trades, use your charting tools, set notifications and alerts to keep up to date with market developments and trade Forex, CFD and numerous cryptocurrencies. The mobile app mirrors IQOptions desk top site so you don’t miss out on any of their special features.

Deposits and Withdrawals

IQOption make it easy to fund your account accepting funds from multiple sources including all major credit and debit cards as well as bank transfer and a range of cryptocurrencies including Neteller, Skrill, Perfect Money and Webmoney.

Withdrawals can be made just as easily with all the same methods used for deposits, they’re figures show that they’re able to process 68% of withdrawal requests immediately. They achieved this by switching to a new withdrawal system in 2016 which allows them to process withdrawals within much quicker time frames. Currently they state that it takes them an average of 8.5 hours to process a withdrawal request.

They’ve also seen huge growth in the Asian market and as a result are now able to accept bank transfers from a wide range of banks throughout the region.

Customer Service

IQOption really set themselves apart with their customer service. They’re determined to deliver the highest possible customer support to their traders and do this by offering 24/7 support in the form of live chat, email and telephone. They received the Century International Quality Gold ERA award for their commitment to Quality and Excellence in the realm of customer satisfaction.

They have a multilingual support team on hand to ensure they can support as many of their traders as possible. Live chat is one of the most popular and convenient methods of contact and traders contacting IQOptions via this method can expect a response in around 43 seconds.

If you don’t want to live chat or have a more complex issue you can email IQOption with your query. In 2020 the majority of traders contacting IQOption via email received a response from them within 20 minutes. With response times like that you shouldn’t need to miss a trade.

Email: support@iqoption.com

Phone: +44 208 068 0760

Address: IQOption Europe Ltd, Yiannis Nicolaides Business Centre, Agiou, Athanasiou Avenue 33, 4102 Agios, Athanasios, Limassol, Cyrus

Verdict

Having reviewed all of the areas above and tested the site you can see why IQOption is so popular among traders, beginners and experienced alike.

Their simple and easy to us desktop site combined with the simple functionality of their mobile app makes trading with IQOption straight forward and efficient.

You can trade with confidence knowing that IQOption is regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission, has a strict code of conduct and is a member in register of multiple other regulating authorities in other territories including the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK, the National Securities Market Commission in Spain, the Financial Agents Register in France and numerous others including Italy and the Netherlands.

This multi-award winning trading platform really does seem to have it all, from their intuitive and easy to use platform, adherence to financial regulations, compensation funds and dedication to delivering excellent customer service they are a trustworthy platform with experience in the industry.