The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
OANDA is a global online trading group offering retail and institutional clients access to forex and CFDs across indices, commodities, precious metals, shares and cryptocurrencies. Clients trade through its own OANDA Trade platform (web, desktop and mobile) or through third-party venues it has integrated with, namely MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 and TradingView; OANDA does not charge platform fees on any of them. Alongside brokerage, it runs a long-running enterprise data business, the OANDA Exchange Rates API, which sells historical and real-time exchange-rate data covering more than 200 currencies, commodities and precious metals, drawing on more than 32 years of history, with delivery integrations built for ERP systems including Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and Sage Intacct. OANDA's differentiation traces back to its origin as a currency-data company rather than a brokerage: it built its rate-aggregation and historical-data infrastructure years before it offered trading, and that data arm remains a distinct commercial line sold on annual API plans rather than bundled free with a trading account. On the brokerage side it markets fractional-pip pricing (introduced in 2004) and an institutional-grade v20 execution platform (launched 2016) alongside its retail offering, positioning it toward both self-directed retail traders and corporate FX hedging clients through its FXConsulting service, rather than solely competing on the copy-trading or prop-funded-account model that some newer entrants use. The company was founded in 1996 (incorporated in Delaware) by Michael Stumm, a computer engineering professor at the University of Toronto, and Richard Olsen of the econometric research firm Olsen Ltd; the name is a contraction of "Olsen and Associates." It began as an internet currency-rate aggregator before launching its fxTrade trading platform in 2001. It took a $100 million venture capital investment in 2007, was acquired by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners in 2018, and by 2025 held regulated entities across nine jurisdictions (the British Virgin Islands, Poland, Malta, the UK, the US, Singapore, Australia, Japan and Canada), overseen by regulators including the US NFA, the UK FCA, Australia's ASIC, Poland's KNF, Canada's CIRO and Singapore's MAS. On December 1, 2025, CVC completed the sale of OANDA to FTMO, the prop-trading firm, which stated it intends to run OANDA as a standalone business within a wider trading group; OANDA's CEO at the time of the deal was Gavin Bambury. Following the FTMO acquisition, OANDA has continued operating under its own brand and management rather than being merged into FTMO's prop-trading products, and has kept expanding platform integrations, including a TradingView broker connection added in 2024 that lets clients place trades and view OANDA pricing directly inside TradingView's charting interface.</description> <parameter name="highlights">["Enterprise Exchange Rates API selling historical and real-time FX data across 200+ currencies and 32+ years of history, integrated with Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and Sage Intacct ERPs", "Retail and institutional CFD trading across forex, indices, commodities, shares and crypto via OANDA Trade, MT4, MT5 and TradingView", "Founded 1996 by University of Toronto professor Michael Stumm and econometrician Richard Olsen; pioneered free online currency exchange-rate publishing", "Regulated in nine jurisdictions including the US (NFA), UK (FCA), Australia (ASIC) and Singapore (MAS)", "Acquired by CVC Capital Partners in 2018, then sold to prop-trading firm FTMO on December 1, 2025 and run as a standalone business"]
