Is eToro Available To Canadians?

Is eToro Available To Canadians?

No, eToro is not available to Canadians. Alternatives for Canadian include Interactive Brokers, Questrade and Wealthsimple Trade.

 

Is eToro Coming to Canada?

eToro closed down their Canadian operations a number of years ago and is likely not returning to Canada any in the near future.

The platform was open to Canadian residents after their launch in 2006, however they did not have the right registrations in place to be offering brokerage services in Canada.

In 2018, after a number of interactions with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), they were fined and reached a settlement with the OSC.

eToro discontinued the ability for Canadians to use their service.

In fact, you can’t even access their website from a Canadian IP!

At this time, I highly doubt they will be re-entering the Canadian market.

 

What’s So Good about eToro?

eToro allows it’s clients to trade crytocurrencies and CFDs in addition to regular stocks, ETFs etc.

They coin themselves as a social trading platform, with a social network built in, where traders can follow each other, see each other’s trades and more. This is a similar positioning to the Robinhood trading app.

eToro is available in over 140 countries, including the US, Australia, much of Europe and more.

 

Alternatives to eToro for Canadians

A few good alternatives for Canadians are Wealthsimple Trade, Interactive Brokers and Questrade, covering various investor types.

Wealthsimple Trade was the first online brokerage in Canada to offer zero-commission trading for both stocks and ETFs.

Interactive Brokers offers Canadians a platform with advanced features to purchase stocks, options and ETFs along with a $0.01 per share commission fee (minimum fee of $1). For those trading large volumes, tiered discounts are available.

Questrade, is also a great option with low fees and the ability to purchase stocks and ETFs along with other securities such as options, which are not available on Wealthsimple yet.

Find further details about each on Wealthsimple.com and Questrade.com

 

Background on eToro

eToro came to the market back in 2006 as a viable trading platform option for online and web trading and now offers trading in: commodities, stocks, currencies, ETFs, indices, cryptocurrencies and even CFD trading.

Founded by Israel-based investors, brothers Yoni Assia and Ronen Assia together with David Ring in 2007, eToro has been able to create products for social trading via their OpenBook platform which allows traders to see trades on a global level.

Ideas can be shared for trading strategies in a simple and clear format.

This OpenBook platform creates a live ‘feed’ like any other social media platform so that you can actually see trades being conducted.

Aside from being able to examine the market data as many apps do, this platform creates real-time social proof for investment trends and adds a personable view to those real-time trades.

Moreover, you can see who the “top-trader” is globally or by region which allows you to be able to track their investment strategies.

Now, investors are even able to copy entire portfolios of the investors on their social network and then tweak them to their own needs.

If you are comfortable in seeing other people seeing your trading activity, eToro provides the opportunity for you to also see the trading behaviours of users across the world and the actual results of those trades.