BlackBull Markets Review: Is ECN Prime Worth the Weaker Regulator?
BlackBull runs its ECN Prime account on New Zealand ground with 0.46-pip spreads and a $6 commission, backed only by tier-two FMA oversight. We tested pricing, withdrawal speed and the CopyTrader platform to see if the trade-off holds up.
Best for: Cost-focused ECN traders comfortable with tier-two New Zealand regulation instead of a tier-one licence
BlackBull Prime prices close to the cheapest ECN accounts we have tested this batch, at 0.46 pips plus a $6 round-turn commission, and support answered our test query in a little over two minutes around the clock. The New Zealand base gives it a tier-two FMA license rather than a tier-one one, and there is no investor compensation scheme behind that license, so a trader weighing BlackBull against an FCA- or ASIC-regulated rival is trading some protection for a genuinely competitive spread. Withdrawals cleared quickly in our testing and the CopyTrader platform is a real addition, not a marketing label.
Price $0 minimum deposit on ECN StandardMaker BlackBull Groupblackbull.com
BlackBull Markets built its name in Auckland in 2014 on a simple claim: institutional-grade ECN pricing without an institutional account size. We opened both ECN Standard and ECN Prime, timed withdrawals across two methods, and checked whether the New Zealand base behind the pricing holds up the way an FCA or ASIC license would.
Prime earns the ECN label, Standard does not
ECN Standard quotes 1.1 pips on EUR/USD with no commission, a number that reads as ordinary once you know Prime sits one tier above it. Prime drops that spread to 0.46 pips and adds a $6 round-turn commission, landing close to 1.06 pips all-in once both sides are counted against the raw quote, competitive with several dedicated ECN brokers we have reviewed separately this year. Both accounts share the same $0 minimum deposit, so the honest advice is the same one we give for every broker running a split account structure: skip Standard and open Prime, since the extra commission buys a real spread improvement rather than a marketing gimmick.
Above Prime sits Prime+, an invitation-only rebate programme that pays $1 to $2 back per round turn once a trader clears roughly 200 lots a month. That threshold puts Prime+ out of reach for most retail accounts, so treat it as a ceiling for high-volume traders rather than something to plan around from day one. BlackBull also runs a separate stock investing arm, BlackBull Invest, giving access to more than 26,000 shares, options, ETFs and bonds for traders who want to hold equities alongside forex rather than opening a third brokerage account elsewhere.
CopyTrader is a real platform, not a rebrand
BlackBull built its own copy trading infrastructure rather than licensing a third-party white label, and it shows in the detail: a trader can review a lead trader's one-month, six-month and one-year returns before committing capital, set custom risk parameters on exactly how funds deploy, and stop copying at any time without a lockup period. The platform won Best Copy Trading Broker at the 2025 Forex Expo Dubai, and joining costs nothing on top of a standard account.
