Singaporeans can legally trade with any forex brokers, both MAS-regulated forex brokers and overseas companies.
Singapore has established itself as an international financial hub on par with powerhouses such as New York, London, and Tokyo. Advanced technology infrastructure, well-established regulation in the financial sector, and high financial literacy among the masses have promoted its status as Southeast Asia's financial center. But, can we trade forex in Singapore? Here are some facts related to forex trading in Singapore that you should know.
1. Can you trade forex in Singapore? Is it legal?
Forex trading is highly contentious in Southeast Asia because several countries had to restrict the flow of foreign exchange in and out of their national borders to stabilize their own currency exchange rate. However, Singapore belongs to the rare few who allow forex trading. So, yes. You can trade forex in Singapore. It is 100% legal.
2. Who oversees forex trading in Singapore?
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) oversees Singapore forex industry. MAS allows leverage up to 1:500 and has consented to the full range of forex pairs and cryptocurrencies.
There are MAS-licensed forex brokers in Singapore. Even so, Singaporeans can freely choose to use any broker -both local and overseas brokers-. Singaporean traders are also free to choose their base currency, be it in Singaporean Dollar (SGD) or others.
3. Is forex trading taxable or tax-free in Singapore?
There are no explicit requirements for traders to pay taxes in the forex industry. Singapore-based forex brokers would not deduct your gain for tax purposes. It also needs to be noted that Singapore does not have capital gain tax. However, individuals have to pay taxes on income-earned.
Singapore imposes a progressive resident tax rate starting at 0% for earnings up to SGD20,000 and ending at 22% for earnings above SGD320,000. Some people reckon that part-time traders may be tax-free, but full-time traders have to pay taxes. If you wonder whether you have to pay taxes or not, you may have to check your books and contact your accountant for the most accurate answer.
4. Which forex broker is legal in Singapore?
Here is the list of MAS-regulated forex brokers as of March 2022, sorted alphabetically:
- Balyasny Asset Management (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- Blackrock (Singapore) Limited
- Caxton (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- CGS-CIMB Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- Citigroup Global Markets Singapore Pte. Ltd.
- CMC Markets Singapore Pte Ltd
- Eaton Vance Management International (Asia) Pte. Ltd.
- First State Investments (Singapore)
- GMO Singapore Pte. Limited
- Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte.
- Haitong International Financial Services (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- HGNH International Financial (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- Interactive Brokers
- INTL FCStone Pte. Ltd.
- KGI Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd
- Long Asia Capital Pte. Ltd.
- Maybank Kim Eng Securities Pte. Ltd.
- Merrill Lynch (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- Millennium Capital Management (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte.
- OANDA Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
- OCBC Securities Private Limited
- Orient Futures International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- Phillip Futures Pte Ltd
- Plus500SG Pte. Ltd.
- Point72 Asia (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- Saxo Capital Markets Pte. Ltd.
- SCB-Julius Baer (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- SG Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
- Straits Financial Services Pte. Ltd.
- Swissquote Pte. Ltd.
- Systematica Investments Singapore Pte. Ltd.
- UOB Bullion And Futures Limited
- UOB Kay Hian Private Limited
- Worldquant (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
Please note that the list may be updated at any time. MAS may suddenly sanction brokers due to violations or other legal reasons. MAS may also provide licenses for more forex brokers in the future.
5. Can you use overseas brokers in Singapore? Is it legal?
Yes, you can. Unlike its neighboring country, Indonesia, which limits retail trading to only be provided by domestic brokers, Singaporeans can freely choose to use any broker -both local and overseas brokers-. So, if you feel unsatisfied with all of the MAS-regulated forex brokers, you could simply choose the best forex broker for you among any other forex brokers in the world.
Personally, we would recommend OANDA for retail forex traders. The US-based multinational company was founded in 1996, pioneered the use of small lots to enable transparent forex trading with low cost and low capital. They are currently one of the most strictly regulated forex brokers in the world with multiple licenses from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and Singapore.
Traders looking for brokers with accurate precision, OANDA can be an option. That is because OANDA is a broker that provides quotes with 5-digit accuracy and active price movements that follow market developments. Order execution speed is also faster in this broker.
It provides benefits for novice traders, as they can trade with smaller volumes using the calculation system based on currency value, unlike other brokers adopting the lot system.
Founded in 1996, OANDA was built by Dr. Michael Stumm who is a lecturer in Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada, along with his colleague, Dr. Richard Olsen of The Olsen Ltd., which is one of the leading econometric research institutes. They have a head office in San Francisco, United States.
OANDA branch offices can be found everywhere. Some of these offices are located in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, and Canada. With this number of offices spread, OANDA has increasingly attracted the attention of clients worldwide.
OANDA's company is registered under several well-known jurisdictions in financial trading. They are regulated by CFTC and NFA in the US, FCA in the UK, ASIC in Australia, and many others. Traders do not need to worry anymore about security when trading in OANDA. However, these advantages make trading rules at OANDA more stringent compared to other brokers.
For example, OANDA only allows maximum leverage of 1:20, because the rules in the US and Japan do not allow leverage above that. Besides, the registration procedure is more complex due to various additional requirements that are not submitted by other forex brokers. On top of that, hedging is not allowed in one trading account as the client must open an additional account to hedge.
Nevertheless, OANDA is known for being a leading broker with many advantages offered. OANDA faces increased market risk during periods of price volatility, such as economic and political news announcements. When market spreads increase or decrease, their pricing engine widens or narrows spreads accordingly. That way, traders can get the latest conditions from price movements in the market more quickly.
Prices move very fast in the market. Especially when news releases have a large impact on market volatility. This condition is often exploited by brokers to take advantage of clients with Requotes. However, traders do not need to worry about additional costs when trading with OANDA.
The company never withdraws Requotes so traders can get maximum profit. When traders are unavailable to monitor open positions, they can set take profit orders to lock in profits and Stop Loss orders to help protect against further losses.
As an experienced and well-known online forex broker, OANDA is committed to maintain an efficient trading environment that reduces latency and provid tools to help clients manage the degree of acceptable slippage.
With a fast & reliable trading platform by OANDA, clients' trades are executed in 0.012 seconds. This suits traders who choose brokers based on execution speed.
Because of this exceptional execution service, it is not surprising that OANDA won many awards, including the winner of the world's Best Retail FX Platform at the prestigious e-FX awards. The broker is also voted number 1 for Consistency of filling trades at quoted prices, Execution speed, and Reliability of platforms.
There is no minimum deposit or minimum balance required to open an OANDA account. Deposit and withdrawal can be done easily. OANDA provides a variety of payment method facilities, including Paypal, Wire Transfer, Credit Card, and Debit. Traders can adjust it to the region where they live.
OANDA provides more than 100 trading instruments, including 71 currency pairs, 16 indices, 8 commodities (Brent Crude Oil, Copper, Corn, Natural Gas, Soybeans, Sugar, etc.), 6 Bonds, and 23 Metals.
The fxTrade and MetaTrader platform are available at OANDA. These platforms can be used for Desktop and Mobile. Another plus is they have an OANDA Technical Analysis that exists in collaboration with a technical analysis provider called Autochartist.
With these platforms, clients can monitor price movements easier and automatically recognize patterns created on charts, as well as receive alerts when the awaited patterns appear. Access to this technology can be enjoyed free of charge.
In conclusion, OANDA is an ideal broker for traders in need of fast execution backed by many years of experience. The company is also a good alternative for those looking for a well-regulated broker with flexible trading and deposit conditions.
1 Comment
Dec 14 2022
What makes Singapore a very advanced country in the world and also number 1 in Southeast Asia is its regulations. I mean, if I read this article, I found out that you can even use other brokers, other than Singapore, to trade. So it cannot be said that using another broker might be illegal. I don't know other countries' regulations, even though this article says forex trading is very controversial in Southeast Asia but not in Singapore. If I'm not mistaken, Malaysia doesn't legalize Forex before and a few years later, Malaysia legalized Forex. So before that, trading foreign exchange in Malaysia was illegal. Also, the reality is that taxes only income taxes, not capital gains taxes. So I think tax regulations can also be the mainstay of forex trading. If a country has too many tax regulations, forex traders and potential forex traders will no longer trade, like Indonesia, a lot kind of taxes.