Exness review: accounts, African licences, withdrawals and platforms

Exness runs many companies, and which one signs your agreement decides your protection. Exness (KE) Limited holds licence 162 from Kenya's Capital Markets Authority, and Exness ZA (PTY) Ltd is authorised in South Africa under FSP 51024. For traders in Kenya and South Africa, that means a regulator in their own country.

Read our Exness minimum deposit page for account floors, and is Exness legit for its legal status.

Offshore arms cover other markets, including Exness (SC) Ltd under Seychelles licence SD025, Exness B.V. in Curaçao and Exness (VG) Ltd in the British Virgin Islands. The Cyprus and Mauritius companies do not serve retail clients at all. Exness (UK) Ltd is authorised by the FCA under number 730729.

Traders in Nigeria and Ghana will land with one of the offshore companies, since no local licence applies. A complaint then goes to that offshore regulator, and protection is far thinner than in London.

Independent reviews count 2 Tier-1, 3 Tier-2 and 3 Tier-4 licences across the group. Copy the licence number from the table and search it on the regulator's own site.

Exness offers four main accounts plus Standard Cent. Standard takes no commission and quotes from 0.2 pips, Pro quotes from 0.1 pips and also takes no commission, Zero starts at 0 pips and charges from USD 0.05 per side per lot, and Raw Spread starts at 0 pips and charges up to USD 3.50 per side.

Beginners should start on Standard, which has the simplest cost. Pro suits a manual trader who prefers a tighter spread with no commission line.

Raw Spread and Zero fit scalpers and system traders, because a raw quote with a fixed commission makes the cost predictable. Exness fees in detail shows how each one works out per lot.

All accounts can run on MT4 and MT5. A demo account is free, so you can see the spread on each type before funding. Swap-free terms are available, with conditions set by Exness, so read those before holding trades for long. A Premier programme covers active traders, and Exness has no formal VIP tier.

Ready to sign up? Our Exness account opening steps walk through the 6 stages in order.

Exness says its minimum changes by region and by payment method, so no single figure applies to all clients. Independent reviews list USD 100 on Standard and Standard Cent, and USD 1,000 on Pro, Raw Spread and Zero. The client area shows your own floor once you pick a country and a payment route.

That difference is important for small accounts. A trader with USD 100 can test Standard but will need ten times that for Pro under the published figure.

Compare the USD 5 at XM or the USD 0 on HFM's Cent, Zero and Premium accounts if you want a smaller start. Convert the sum into your own money with the currency converter first.

Minimum deposit

By region

Max leverage

1:Unlimited

EUR/USD from

0.0 pips

Platforms

4

Withdrawals

Over 98% automated

Founded

2008

Withdrawals are the feature most traders ask about. Exness says over 98% are processed automatically, though the time to reach you depends on the payment method and your bank. It promotes M-Pesa on its Kenyan pages, which suits traders in Nairobi who keep their savings on a phone.

Published routes also include debit and credit cards, bank wires, crypto, Skrill and Neteller. There is no inactivity fee and no broker charge on international wires. Your own bank's fee still applies.

A sensible habit is to test the full loop with USD 20 before you add more, since a working withdrawal is the best proof you can get.

Keep the same route for both directions where you can, because brokers usually return funds through the channel you paid in with. Nigerian and Ghanaian traders should read our country pages on local rules before moving money offshore.

Exness offers MT4 and MT5, its own Exness Terminal in a browser, and the Exness Trade app on phones. Terminal uses a TradingView chart engine with 106 indicators, and it can place stop-loss and take-profit markers before a trade opens, then drag them to the target. Most platforms only allow that after entry.

The app takes three taps to place a trade, and its trade ticket has a risk calculator that sizes the order from a dollar or percentage input. That is one of the better small features we have seen, because it stops beginners guessing their lot size. Five tabs keep the layout clean.

Terminal has no OCO orders, trailing stops or depth of market, so active traders will move to MT5. Copy trading is being phased out and no longer takes new users, though MT5 still has its own signals service. See the MT5 broker shortlist for setups with more symbols.

• Swap-free option
• Demo account
• MetaTrader 5 signals

Exness Terminal lists 239 symbols, with 78 forex pairs, 30 crypto CFDs and 6 crypto cross pairs, 10 indices such as the S&P 500 and DAX, plus gold, silver, oil and about 100 stock CFDs. MT5 carries its own list. That suits a forex and gold trader far better than a share investor.

Those 78 pairs beat Pepperstone's 65 and Tickmill's 62, and that is where Exness puts its effort. Leverage on the international pages goes as high as an unlimited setting, subject to conditions, and local entities apply lower caps.

High leverage cuts margin and raises the speed at which a small move can empty your account, so work the numbers with the margin calculator before you use it.

Licences by tier 1, 2, 3, 4

2, 3, 0, 3

Tradeable symbols

239

Forex pairs

78

Listed company

No

Bank

No

Android app

Yes

iOS app

Yes

Chart indicators

106

Trading Central

Yes

Autochartist

No

Webinars

Yes

Crypto CFDs

Yes

US shares

No

Global shares

No

Exness and HFM are the closest rivals, because both hold licences in Kenya and South Africa. HFM asks for less on its small accounts, while Exness has the better web platform. XM has the lowest published entry at USD 5, and it runs live trading rooms, though it has no African licence that we can confirm.

Deriv is the odd one out, with its Derived Indices and mobile money from USD 5, and it holds only offshore licences. Each comparison below sets the numbers side by side so you can judge cost, access and regulation for yourself.

The summary of this Exness review favours forex-focused traders in Africa who want a local licence where one exists, raw pricing and fast automated payouts. It is one of the few global brands with real paperwork in Nairobi and Johannesburg, and its web tools feel polished.

Multi-asset traders will outgrow 239 symbols, and copy traders should use another platform, since new users cannot join. Research and education are limited too. Compare it across the full forex broker comparison before you settle.