Sarwa vs Wealthsimple Trade — which broker is better?

Pros

• Free local AED transfers from UAE banks, with Sarwa's own published conversion rates (AED 3.6823 per USD in, AED 3.6639 per USD out as of 02.11.2026; about 0.5% apart)
• No custody, inactivity, account opening or account closing fee and no withdrawal fee to UAE banks, according to Sarwa; a withdrawal from Sarwa Trade to a Saudi bank costs USD 35
• One app for self-directed trading (Sarwa Trade), managed ETF portfolios (Sarwa Invest) and money market funds (Sarwa Save)
• US stocks and ETFs almost around the clock in four sessions from Sunday evening to Friday, plus fractional shares, IPO Access and Auto Trading
• Trade assets are held in a fully disclosed account at Alpaca Securities LLC, which Sarwa names as a SIPC member (USD 500,000 including USD 250,000 cash)
• An optional Shariah Screener with compliance reports from Musaffa, plus an Islamic portfolio line and an Islamic money market option, as Sarwa describes them
• Licensed by the FSRA in the ADGM under permission 190037 since 20 February 2020, shown on the public register
• Website in English and Arabic; WhatsApp support seven days a week, on weekends from 9:00 to 18:00 UAE time

Cons

• Four FSRA penalties since 2022: three for CRS and FATCA reporting failures (AED 36,000, AED 50,000 and AED 40,000) and USD 122,500 for offering shares in its own holding company without an approved prospectus; the DFSA fined the former Dubai company USD 191,100 over the same offer
• Percentage commission with no cap: the greater of USD 1 or 0.25% per stock or ETF order, so a USD 10,000 order costs USD 25
• Options at USD 4 per contract and crypto with a 1.5% spread on every buy and sell
• Only US-listed securities on Sarwa Trade: no bonds, futures, mutual funds or listings outside the US such as UCITS ETFs
• Not a bank, and Brokaro classes its regulator, the FSRA, as tier 2; we found no ADGM investor compensation scheme, and the SIPC cover belongs to Alpaca, not to Sarwa
• Card deposits cost 2.99% + AED 1 (UAE cards) or 3.99% + AED 1 (other cards), and Sarwa Invest charges at least USD 7 a month: in Sarwa's own example, USD 7 for a month on a USD 1,000 balance

Pros

• CAD 0 commission on Canadian and US stocks and ETFs, plus USD 0 per US-listed equity and ETF options contract on every tier, including free assignment
• Futures at USD 1 per contract with free real-time futures market data — no Canadian competitor matches that combination
• CAD 0 to transfer your account out, where Questrade, Qtrade and the banks all charge CAD 150
• Best-rated broker app in Canada at 4.6 on the App Store across roughly 130,000 ratings, with real-time streaming quotes free to everyone
• 24/5 trading on eligible US stocks and ETFs and 24/7 on gold and crypto — the longest trading hours available in Canada
• Margin priced by total loan size, from 5.70% CAD under CAD 10,000 down to 3.24% from CAD 10 million, below the big banks' standard margin rates
• CIRO-regulated with CIPF coverage of CAD 1,000,000 per account category, backed by Power Corporation of Canada with a 52.4% stake
• Interest on chequing balances of 1.25% to 2.25% by tier, against effectively 0% on idle cash at most brokers

Cons

• The 1.5% CAD/USD conversion is the same as Questrade's. A USD account (CAD 10 a month on Core, free on Premium from CAD 100,000) removes it on the US trades themselves but not on the CAD you convert into it, which still costs 1.5% per transaction under CAD 10,000 and falls to 0% only from CAD 100,000; journalling at CAD 9.95 is the other way round it
• Crypto costs a flat 0.5% per trade plus a market-order spread for anyone without Active Trader status (50+ trades a month), every crypto order under CAD 100 carries a CAD 1 surcharge, and the 0% fee needs CAD 15 million of 30-day volume; staking takes 30% of rewards before validator fees
• No bonds, no GICs and no mutual funds anywhere in the self-directed account, so a fixed-income allocation has to be built entirely from ETFs
• No desktop platform, no Level 2 depth, no API and no paper-trading account; the research stack is news and basic charts rather than screeners and analyst coverage
• The crypto assets themselves sit outside CIPF protection and are held in trust instead — only the cash balance in a crypto account is covered, and the cold-storage insurance cited is USD 75 million per custodial partner, not per client
• Meaningful benefits are gated behind CAD 100,000 and CAD 500,000 balances, so the sticker price a small account actually pays is the least attractive version of the offer