eToro is one of the most popular and well-respected online trading brokers globally. In this eToro review in South Africa, we will look at the reasons why it is so desired. 

For instance, it is well-regulated and safe. Ideal for beginners and it has highly innovative trading options, for example, social investing. This will all be discussed in the article below.

eToro Review in South Africa: Pros & Cons
Did you know that eToro is the best stock broker in South Africa? Our eToro in South Africa review has indicated the following pros and cons:

High spread for some instruments comparable with other brokers

Cryptoassets are a highly volatile unregulated investment product.

Tradable Assets
In the opening section of this eToro review in South Africa, we shall investigate the different assets and instruments that investors have access to. 

Crypto
If you have perhaps heard about crypto from a friend or family member, who has vouched that every crypto asset is ‘going to the moon’; and has captured your attention to buy crypto. eToro crypto is by far the best place to buy crypto in South Africa. Currently, eToro can offer over 70 cryptocurrencies to its users, which is a high number, and with increased demand by its customers, eToro continues to grow and list more cryptocurrencies to purchase.

eToro review 
With your eToro wallet, you can buy Bitcoin on eToro, blue-chips like Ethereum, however, also get exposure to Defi with UniSwap and Fantom, Interoperability Coins like Polkadot and Chainlink, and GameFi assets such as Decentraland. Whatever you need, eToro has you covered.

What is impressive regarding eToro crypto fees, is that they have a minimum investment of $10 or R160 (at the time of writing this). This means that you can have ownership of an asset as sought after as  Bitcoin for as little as $10. In addition, eToro also has one of the best crypto wallets on the market.

Another impressive, and perhaps the best feature eToro has to offer is the use of smart portfolios. This means that with 1 trade, you can have exposure to a basket of different cryptos. eToro Smart Portfolios are similar to ETFs and are managed by eToro’s team of professional investors and account managers.

Cryptoassets are a highly volatile unregulated investment product.

Shares
Ever wondered how to buy shares in South Africa? Our eToro in South Africa review has concluded that stocks and shares on eToro are their specialities. They have more than 2500 shares available from several different markets. Therefore, making eToro the best trading platform in South Africa.

eToro.com offers some of the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) top 40 shares. This includes British American Tobacco and Anglo American. However, South Africans that use eToro will use it more to invest in shares from overseas markets, like the FTSE, where you can buy shares such as Glencore and National Grid. Additionally, eToro provides access to US markets like the NASDAQ, DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AND S & P 500, where you can purchase the largest companies on the planet, including Tesla, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and many many more for your eToro trades.

eToro review 
Furthermore, eToro also gives individuals entry into markets in France, Germany, Hong Kong and Japan, just to name a few. 

As mentioned earlier, eToro has a minimum trading amount of $10 (R160), therefore allows you to own a fractional share of a company, even as large as Tesla 
Instead of investing thousands of dollars (or Rands), eToro users can invest just a few dollars here or there, and passively manage their portfolios
This makes trading/investing quickly and openly accessible to a diverse group of people 
You can create your own diversified portfolio with great ease

 
A small to medium-sized investment of $500 could see you own multiple of the best companies on the planet, in all the leading markets on the globe 
The best thing about tracking stocks and shares on eToro? It doesn’t charge any commissions whatsoever, making it one of the most cost-effective brokers out there.

Moreover, eToro offers smart portfolios to investors, and this offers diverse exposure to an investor. eToro’s team of professionals take care of this. 

Many companies that eToro has available to its users, including American Electric Power Inc, Altria Group Inc and Oneok Inc, offer dividends. Subsequently, eToro users will see their dividends reflected in their account balance. 

Note: Shares can also be gauged by CFD trading. In short, this allows South African citizens to leverage their trades as well as short a company. 

ETFs
Our eToro in South Africa review has shown us that ETFs are one of the most popular tradable assets that eToro has to offer. An ETF (exchange-traded fund) is exactly as the name suggests, it is a fund that is traded on exchanges that generally tracks but is not limited to a specific index. 

An ETF, simply put, is a basket of assets instead of one specific asset. This gives buyers of ETFs great exposure to multiple elements of the market in one place, hence the basket of assets. 

Again, where eToro stands out is that you can invest in some of the most essential ETFs on the market for as little as $10 (R160). eToro has access to an amplitude of the most coveted ETFs on the globe. This includes Vanguard, Ark and iShares. 

The reason ETFs are so desirable is that they essentially eliminate hours of research and not knowing what shares to buy. Well, an ETF solves this problem, you can now access all of them. For example, you can buy the SPY S & P 500 ETF, which gives you exposure to the top 500 companies in the US via a single trade. 

Note: South African citizens may trade using leverage, as well as short an ETF.

Indices
One of the most popular financial instruments that our eToro in South Africa review has displayed to us is indices. These happen to be traded via CFDs and are intrinsically linked to popular index funds such as the DAX or the CAC 40.

eToro review in South Africa
The main difference between an ETF and indices is that ETFs can be bought and sold during the day, whereas Index Funds can only be traded at the set price point at the end of the day. Indices are a cheap way to invest and have historically outperformed ETFs. Indices at eToro will allow South African investors the ability to decipher whether indices will go up or down. 

eToro South Africa can offer 15 indices from all of the leading markets globally. You can get exposure to Asian markets as well as European and US markets, which is ideal for a South African investor to maintain a diversified portfolio. 

Forex
eToro currently offers 49 forex currency pairs, making them arguably one of the best Forex broker in South Africa. eToro always caters to the demands of its users, so do not be surprised to see this number increase in the future. 

eToro forex has a mixture of major and minor currencies. However, it does not include any exotics. Moreover, eToro offers a minimum spread of 3.0 pips (a pip helps forex traders put a monetary value on their profit targets and stop losses) for the EUR/USD currency pair. Relative to other forex brokers in South Africa, this is very high. 

eToro review in South Africa
It is crucial to remember that forex on eToro is represented by CFDs. In short, South African users of eToro without holding the underlying asset, are technically enabled to trade the expected value of a forex pair.

What this means in practical terms, is that you may leverage your trades by a ratio of 1:30, which implies that you can leverage your trade by up to 30 times on major and minor currencies. You may apply a ratio of 1:20 for leverage. An investment of $100 (R1600) can be taken as high as $3000 (R48 000). 

eToro South Africa does protect its clients against potential losses via leverage. This is done through negative balance protection, which means that clients can never lose more money than what is in their trading accounts.

Commodities
Through our eToro in South African review, we discovered that commodities are somewhat of a safe haven for investors to buy. Furthermore, this includes the 3 main commodities, which are metals, energy, and agricultural products. 

Commodities on eToro are supported via CFD instruments. You may trade Gold using futures, which means you may set an expiry date for your trade. 

South African investors will be able to short (bet against) a commodity or go long (investment for the future) without physically holding the asset. You may leverage your gold trades by 1:20. Albeit, although other commodities can only be traded with a leverage of 1:10.

Excitingly, eToro allows users to access commodities by different means, which include purchasing an ETF commodity like Teucrium Corn Fund. 

eToro in South Africa Fees & Commissions 
We can now proceed with the fees and commissions associated with eToro South Africa, and how this impacts you. 

eToro Trading Fees
The fees associated with eToro are dependent on the type of asset that you are trading. 

Shares and ETFs
Shares and ETFs on eToro can be traded on a 0% commission basis. As a result of this commission-free offering traders typically only have to cover the cost of the bid-ask spread. Firstly, this makes eToro stand out above its competitors, particularly in South Africa, where many local brokerages, such as Nedbank Online Share Trading, have high fees.

The most important fact about the 0 fees for trading shares and ETFs is that it also applies to overseas markets. Above all, this is a plus for South African investors.

Traditionally, having access to shares such as Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, and Apple has been a stumbling block for South African investors. Because local trading brokerages were charging high premiums, to be able to trade these shares. However, eToro has offered a solution to the problem, easily and effectively. 

Furthermore, there are usually associated fees when buying a share of a company on the JSE. On the other hand, eToro solves this issue and allows South Africans to buy shares from the JSE with 0% commission.

Cryptocurrencies
At 1% plus the market spread, that is the fee that eToro charges for trading crypto. For example, eToro has 70 available cryptocurrencies for its users to choose from, and a 1% fee is low relative to the market. However, the spread is the standard when it comes to the best cryptocurrency exchanges in South Africa.

Furthermore, one of eToro’s fundamental aims is to make the user experience as seamless as possible. eToro includes a 1% fee in the trade. 

After purchasing cryptocurrencies on eToro, the tokens will be stored directly in the customer’s portfolio. 

Visit eToro Now
Cryptoassets are a highly volatile unregulated investment product.

Forex, Commodities, Indices, and Other CFDs
The only cost endured when trading CFDs when trading on Etoro, which includes forex, commodities, and indices, is the spread. The spread, simply, is the difference between the bid and ask price for a specific asset. Other than this, there are 0 commissions to be paid.

A spread is dependent not just on the type of asset but also on the market. Furthermore, when you are trading major forex pairs like the GBP/EUR. For example, the lowest spread is 1.0 pip. Despite this, when trading minor forex pairs such as the ZAR/USD, the minimum fee increases to 2.5 pips.

As we explained earlier about pips, they range according to the asset class. Energy commodities such as oil and natural gas can be traded from 5–10 pips, and gold begins at 45 pips. Naturally, spreads that have a higher value, such as gold, are likely to have a higher pip. 

Conversely, when we look at indices on eToro, the speed starts at a mere 0.75 points. This is due to the zealous indices trading on eToro. Buying and selling stocks using CFDs succumbs to a minimum fee of 0.09%.

Overnight Financing Fees on CFDs
When CFD trading on eToro, you must be cautious of potential costs that could occur that you may not be aware of. For example, on eToro, overnight fees do apply, and this fee is payable each day of the CFD being open.

Moreover, overnight fees are also more expensive on the weekend. Note that depending on the leverage of the CFD trade,  fees will increase accordingly. 

eToro is fully transparent on this matter because they will specify the overnight fees in dollars and cents, making the user fully aware of such costs.

eToro review in South Africa
As you can see in the above image, we are placing a $1000 (R16 000) order on silver CFDs with a leverage of 1:10. eToro states what the daily and weekend overnight fees come to. With the weekly overnight fee being $0.87 and the weekend overnight fee coming to $2.60.

Asset    Trading Fee
Stock, for example, Amazon    0% commission 
Crypto, for example, Bitcoin    1% commission included on the bid-ask price 
CFDs    Spread-only — varies depending on market 
eToro Non-Trading Fees
eToro fees for non-trading are as follows:

Deposit Fees
eToro’s fees on deposits in ZAR are a flat rate of 0.5%. As previously stated, this is due to the fact that eToro provides access not only to the South African market but also to global markets.

Moreover, eToro simplifies this process for you, instead of having to frequently change from the ZAR to other currencies. eToro fixes this problem at the point of deposit, therefore if you deposit rands, it will be converted directly to US dollars.

In essence, for every R100 deposited, only 50 cents is payable. 

Note: The broker enables South African citizens to make fee-free deposits by installing the eToro Money app.

eToro Withdrawal Fees
There is a minimum withdrawal amount of $30 which is circa R480. eToro has a fee for withdrawals that is $5, approximately R80. Irrespective of the amount being withdrawn.

Inactivity Fees
If you as a user of eToro, fail to make a trade for 1 year, eToro will charge you an inactivity fee, this is a common practice for a majority of online brokers. 

Despite this, it is critical to remember that if a user does indeed have assets in their portfolio, the inactivity fee will not be charged. The monthly inactivity charge is $10.

Type    Fee
Deposits    0.5% conversion fee
Withdrawals    $5 
Inactivity     $10 per month after 1 year
Is eToro User-Friendly?
We have concluded that the platform is indeed very user-friendly. It is not user-friendly in one area; it is diverse in its ease of use. For example, from opening an account, and making a deposit, searching what asset intrigues you most, to placing an order. 

 eToro is one of the best platforms for early-stage investors and for those who want a simple layout. Moreover, eToro is a great example of taking something which can seem complicated, like leveraged trading and making it easy to understand and simple to use. The process of setting up an account can be completed in around 5 minutes. 

eToro review in South Africa
Moreover, as shown in the graphic above, eToro simplifies the process of choosing what shares you would like to buy. For example, if you want to buy Tesla, you just need to type it into the search bar. 

Once you have selected Tesla, all you need to do is click ‘Trade’, which tells eToro that you would like to purchase this share. Then you just have to select how much you want to spend. 

eToro Tesla
Additionally, eToro offers an “education hub” where new investors go and search a plethora of topics, and have answers to any questions they may have. Moreover, eToro also has an in-depth help centre that explicitly explains how eToro works. 

This is aided further by the fact that eToro allows investors to trade with as little as $10 (R160) which is a great achievement in making investing accessible to all. eToro also offers a demo trading account known as “virtual portfolio” mode, which enables users to test out eToro and they may trade assets with “fake” money, therefore making it risk-free.

eToro South Africa Social Trading
Another feature that you will get exposure to is cutting-edge social and copy trading capabilities. 

Social trading works in a  similar way to social media, but just for investing. In a sense, it is a new medium for social media like Instagram for photos. However, eToro uses this cleverly for investing. Investors can share their analysis of the market, and gain interaction through likes and comments.

You cannot make a ‘private’ account like you can on Instagram. Instead, everything is open-sourced, which gives it a social feel with complete transparency. Moreover, you can add your favourite investors to your “friend list”, and like on social media, you will receive a notification when they share a post. 

eToro’s most popular feature, however, is its “Copy Trading” feature, which we will explain in detail below.

Copy Trading on eToro
eToro allows users to copy other traders, through eToro copy trading. On eToro, you will have access to thousands of investors’ portfolios, and you can make an informed decision on whether or not you would like to copy their trades. eToro recommends the top traders so you can see how much they are up by. Then you can copy their entire portfolio with just the click of a button. We will show you how to copy trade on eToro.

eToro Copy Portfolios
The reason copy trading has become so popular is that it just works. The concept is simple but effective, think about if you could copy Warren Buffet’s trading portfolio, you would. Therefore, what eToro has done so brilliantly, is that they allow you to copy other successful traders on eToro so that you can mirror their trades.

Furthermore, whenever there is money to be made, something naturally becomes more popular. Copy trading in 2020, saw an 83.7% profit, and 30.4% in 2021, and this number can be excepted to grow in the future too.

eToro copy trading
For example:

Consider that the stocks of Tesla, Meta, and Alphabet are all included in the portfolio of your chosen investor 
That person has $50 000  (50%) in Tesla, $30 000 in Meta (30%), and $20 000 (20%) invested in Alphabet.
You make an informed decision to invest $10 000 of your money into this copy trader
This means that your $5000 (50%) will be made up of Tesla shares, $3000 (30%) in Meta, and $2000 (20%) in Alphabet.
As described above, it does not matter if you have $100, $1000, $10 000 or $100 000, it is all applicable in the same way because your portfolio will be the same in percentage terms, which means that it will be weighted accordingly to your personal investment.

It is completely free for South Africans. However, it should be noted that the minimum amount to copy any trader is $200.

Now let’s take a look at what happens when the trader cashes out their Tesla shares. For example, 
Tesla shares have suddenly increased by 30%, which sees the trader sell their position 
The eToro customer invested $5000 in Tesla, therefore they will take home a $1500 profit 
The subsequent Meta and Alphabet shares will remain in the portfolio until they are sold
The best investors to follow at this moment for stocks and crypto are as follows:
Lukasz Kisicki — With 699 people following this trader since he began trading on eToro, he is up 62.99% in profit. Lukasz mainly focuses on stocks.
Evelyn Braga — This trader has a risk score of 3, which is pretty low. She has over 2000 people copying her portfolio and is one of the best traders on eToro.
Dmitrii Ishutin — In 2021, Dmitrii saw gains of 25.51%, and with a risk score of 4, Dmitrii indicates a moderate association with riskier assets; however, he still performs well. He has a diversified portfolio with good exposure to commodities.
Albert Dietrich — With a score of 2, Albert is a risk-free option for eToro investors. He has a history of favouring indices, which is why his risk is lower than other investors. However, he almost always provides positive returns.
Mona Beeg-Sauer — In 2020, Mona realised gains of almost 60%, which is incredible, and the following year, in 2021, she had returned just shy of 35%. Mona likes Bitcoin and continues to hold it. 
A reminder that past results are not an indicator of the future. Always do your research and be aware of the risks of investing in stocks and crypto on eToro.

eToro South Africa Charting and Analysis 
Our eToro review in South Africa has found that eToro is popular amongst first-time or early-stage investors. However, eToro also allows more experienced investors to be able to analyse charts and tools to help them do that. 

ProCharts
If technical analysis is your thing, and you love using candle sticks as an indicator. Then look no further, eToro has you covered. ProCharts is software that eToro users have access to, via both their mobile app and desktop versions. 

eToro procharts
You can fully customise, your preferred indicators, including tools, timeframe, and colours. You can enable the Relative Strength Index (RSI), which is a good indicator of when something is oversold or overbought.

ProCharts is updated to the second, with live prices. eToro caters to more experienced investors, with this software. However, it is easy enough to understand for beginners too.

eToro Account Types 
An overwhelming majority of eToro users in South Africa may only have the option of one type of account, which is a standard account that offers users access to many markets. This is a live trading account.

On the other hand, there are only two other accounts that an eToro user may have access to. It doesn’t differ too much from a regular account except for offering users higher leverage amounts for trades and enabling you to trade cryptocurrency derivatives. 

Secondly, the demo account is an account which allows you to trade without using “real funds”. This gives you exposure to how it is to operate an eToro account, without the risk of losing real money.

eToro App Review
In this eToro in South Africa review, we look at the eToro app. Almost everything that we do today is on our mobile phones. Subsequently, the eToro app has been created in a customer-centric way. Therefore, you can easily access eToro on the App Store or Google Play. You can trade on the go and are not reliant on having a laptop or desktop computer.

Using the eToro mobile app is perfect for beginners, as you do not need a fancy set-up to trade, you just need your phone. 

Everything is simple and easy to understand. Moreover, the design and layout of the app is as desirable as the desktop version, and its processing times are lightning-fast. Therefore there is no hindrance, comparably speaking, between the eToro app and the desktop version. 

etoro money mobile app
eToro in South Africa Payment Methods 
eToro makes your experience as convenient as possible. eToro has instant deposits, with a minimum initial deposit of $200 (R3200) and a withdrawal time that can be as short as 2 business days. This will be explained below. According to our eToro in South African review, eToro supports the following payment methods: 

Debit Cards
Credit Cards
South African Bank Account
Neteller
Skrill
PayPal
eToro Minimum Deposit 
The eToro in South Africa minimum deposit is $200 (R3200), which when you factor everything in and what eToro has to offer and how little their fees and commission are, this is a very reasonable minimum deposit.

eToro Withdrawal Times
The following withdrawal times are listed by eToro for all accepted payment methods:

Debit/Credit Cards — Up to 10 business days
Bank transfer — Up to 10 business days
PayPal — Up to 2 business days
Skrill — Up to 2 business days 
Neteller — Up to 2 business days
The withdrawal times mentioned above are typically substantially quicker. 

eToro Bonuses & Promos
eToro South Africa offers a referral bonus of $50 (R800). If everyone refers a friend or family member to eToro and they create a real account, you stand to get $50 (R800). However, this is capped at 10 new customers. Nevertheless, this is a great incentive to promote eToro. You may gain up to $500 (R8000). 

eToro in South Africa Demo Account 
A further impressive feature of eToro is that before creating a real account with real money, they allow you to open a demo account, which in turn provides you with $100 000 (R1.6m) of paper funds, to trade and try out eToro and all its accessories. It is 100% accurate in likeliness, so it gives you a good feel of how eToro is to use.

eToro in South Africa Customer Support 
Our eToro in South Africa review found that if you were facing an issue on eToro, customer support was readily available to help, at the click of a button. This is done via the chat facility. However, you will have to have an account status of “Silver” to enable this feature. Therefore, you may have to email eToro if you have an issue, as telephone support is not yet offered in South Africa.

eToro Licensing & Security 
Prior to opening an account and most definitely before making the decision to invest, it is critical to evaluate the safety of the investment funds when deciding on an online broker. eToro South Africa holds 3 tier one licences. 

Which include:

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)
The first thing you should notice is that the Financial Sector Conduct Authority of South Africa (FSCA) has not been included in the above list. This is not a problem at all. As we mentioned earlier in the eToro review, eToro South Africa operates under these regulatory authorities, and they all offer full safety and security to eToro South African customers, regardless of their geographic location. 

For Example:

Regardless of where you are on the globe, all eToro customers are required to upload their ID and proof of address. This makes eToro compliant with anti-money laundering laws.
All eToro customers’ funds are stored in separate bank accounts, which means that eToro cannot fund its business operations with your money.
eToro will be fully compliant and transparent and go under audit from all 3 licensing authorities.
How To Start Trading with eToro in South Africa 
This is an easy-to-understand guide on how to buy shares on eToro.

We cover all the relevant steps, and this entire process should take no longer than 5 minutes.

Step 1: Open an eToro Account 
eToro create account
You will just need to fill in some personal details like your:

Full name 
Home Address
Date of Birth
South African Tax Number 
Mobile Phone Number
Email Address
You then must create a username and password.

Step 2: Verify Account  
eToro will ask you to verify your email agreement. Once this is completed, you will need to upload your ID for KYC verification. 

Step 3: Deposit Funds
eToro review in South Africa
Now you will need to deposit some funds. This can be done by selecting a South African debit or credit card, as well as a bank transfer or e-wallet.

Step 4: Search for Asset
eToro stocks and shares
Those who already know which tradable asset it is that they want to purchase can type it into the search bar and then select ‘Trade’ from the results that will be displayed to you. 

Step 5: Place Investment 
eToro apple
When you click the ‘Trade’ button, there will be an order box, as depicted in the below image.

This is where the investor will decide the amount of money they want to invest. This mint will be in US dollars.

Click on the ‘Open Trade’ for the investment to go through.

Step 6: How To Sell on eToro 
Proceed to the portfolio section on the dashboard. The eToro customer may then choose whichever asset it is that they would like to sell.

eToro will execute the sell order immediately after confirming the asset that they would like to sell. However, this is dependent on whether the market for that particular asset is open or not. If the market is not open, it will go through the following day, when the market opens again.

Once the asset is sold, the money will be reflected in the customer’s account balance.

Conclusion
Overall, in this eToro in South Africa Review, it is evident to see that this is the best brokerage available to South African citizens. Albeit, if you are a beginner or more advanced in trading.

If you are looking to invest in any kind of asset, our eToro in South Africa review is the place to do it. With access to multiple different markets and their innovative social trading. 

eToro South Africa is an incredible brokerage for any South African wanting to start investing, with 0 fees and a small $10 (R160) deposit to get started.

#crypto #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #blockchain #ethereum #btc #bitcointrading #cryptocurrencies #trading #forex #cryptonews #investing #altcoin #bitcoinnews #xrp #binaryoptions #forextrader #cryptomarket #cryptoworld #bitcoins #bitcoincash #eth #invest #money #litecoin #hodl #bitcoinmining #investment #forextrading #ripple