OANDA Japan Cuts MT4 Leverage to 10x, Forces MT5 Transfer for Low-Margin Accounts

OANDA Securities, the Japanese arm of the FTMO-owned global broker, will more than double margin requirements on its Tokyo server MetaTrader 4 platform from June 12, 2026, cutting available leverage well below the 25:1 cap permitted under Japanese rules and force-transferring accounts with weak margin coverage to MetaTrader 5.

Two customer notices setting out the changes also detail a separate overhaul of how required margin is calculated on Tokyo platforms, taking effect from June 6.

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Margin Rate Hike Cuts Tokyo Leverage to 10x

The moves slot between OANDA's March announcement that it will shut MT4 entirely on November 27 and the planned September halt to new order placement. The broker framed the changes as a response to recent market volatility and a tightening of risk controls. The selective application, with no equivalent changes on the company's New York servers or on MT5, points to a parallel objective of pushing remaining MT4 holdouts onto the newer platform before the cutoff.

The platform shift is no longer marginal. FM Intelligence data shows MT5 overtook MT4 in combined trading volume, capturing 54.2% of MetaTrader activity against MT4's 45.8%.

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Currency pairs currently set at 3%, 4% or 5% margin will move to a uniform 10% rate, equivalent to 10x leverage. Pairs already at 10% or higher are unaffected. Stock index CFDs jump from 10% to 20%, halving Halving Halving represents a phenomenon when crypto mining rewards are cut in half. Cryptocurrency networks that run on Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithms require the computers (nodes) that uphold them to solve complex equations that are used to confirm transactions. This process is known as mining. In exchange for their work, these nodes are given rewards in the form of the crypto token that belongs to that particular network. For example, on the Bitcoin network, halving happens regularly at preset interva Halving represents a phenomenon when crypto mining rewards are cut in half. Cryptocurrency networks that run on Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithms require the computers (nodes) that uphold them to solve complex equations that are used to confirm transactions. This process is known as mining. In exchange for their work, these nodes are given rewards in the form of the crypto token that belongs to that particular network. For example, on the Bitcoin network, halving happens regularly at preset interva Read this Term leverage from 10x to 5x. Commodity CFDs move from 5% to 10%, cutting leverage from 20x to 10x. The New York server MT4 and MT5 platforms keep their existing margin rates.

Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) caps retail FX leverage at 25:1, equivalent to 4% margin, under rules in place since 2011. OANDA's new uniform 10% rate on Tokyo MT4 sits well above that floor, meaning customers on the affected platform will trade at less than half the leverage Japanese rules permit.

The company cited compliance and customer asset protection as the rationale, the same framing it used when it first set the November shutdown date.

Forced Transfers for Low-Margin Accounts

Tokyo MT4 accounts running below 200% margin maintenance at the close of business on June 12 will see their open positions and cash balances moved to MT5 automatically. Customers with existing MT5 accounts will receive transfers into those accounts, while new MT5 Standard Plan accounts will be created for everyone else. FX positions cannot be transferred to the MT5 Discretionary Plan.

Stop-loss and take-profit orders attached to existing positions move with them, but pending limit and stop orders will not. Custom expert advisors, indicators and chart layouts will also be lost in the migration. Customers wanting to keep their MT4 setup intact through the November cutoff have one option: top up the account so margin maintenance exceeds 200% before June 12.

The mechanism extends a phased approach OANDA Japan started in 2024, when it shut down two MT4 servers and asked clients to consider switching.

A Wider MT4 Retreat Across the Industry

The push echoes a migration away from MT4 that has played out unevenly across the retail brokerage industry for more than a decade. Saxo Bank's Japanese unit terminated MT4 support in September 2022, citing a similar mix of platform aging and strategic alignment, after Saxo had already abandoned its retail MT4 offering in Cyprus in 2015 in favour of its proprietary SaxoTraderGO platform.

Brokeree's analysis of more than 900 global brokerages found 68% now offer MT5 against 40% still running MT4, with 23% maintaining both. MetaQuotes stopped selling new MT4 white-label licences to brokers years ago, leaving the platform in maintenance mode while reserving feature development for its successor.

What sets OANDA Japan apart is the speed and sequencing. Where Saxo allowed clients to keep trading on its proprietary platforms, and prop firms like FundedNext have pivoted to alternative platforms such as Match Trader only when MetaQuotes restrictions on prop trading forced their hand, OANDA is using selective leverage Leverage In financial trading, leverage is a loan supplied by a broker, which facilitates a trader in being able to control a relatively large amount of money with a significantly lesser initial investment. Leverage therefore allows traders to make a much greater return on investment compared to trading without any leverage. Traders seek to make a profit from movements in financial markets, such as stocks and currencies.Trading without any leverage would greatly diminish the potential rewards, so traders In financial trading, leverage is a loan supplied by a broker, which facilitates a trader in being able to control a relatively large amount of money with a significantly lesser initial investment. Leverage therefore allows traders to make a much greater return on investment compared to trading without any leverage. Traders seek to make a profit from movements in financial markets, such as stocks and currencies.Trading without any leverage would greatly diminish the potential rewards, so traders Read this Term cuts and automatic position transfers to compress the migration timeline ahead of a hard November cutoff.

Methodology Overhaul Brings Tokyo Closer to New York

A separate change taking effect on June 6 reworks how required margin is calculated on both Tokyo MT4 and MT5. The broker will switch from valuing positions at the entry price to using the previous day's closing price.

From June 8, MT5 will recalculate margin daily during scheduled maintenance windows. OANDA's NY servers already use a current-price model, so the change brings Tokyo in line with the rest of the firm's platform stack.

The shift carries real consequences for customers holding open positions. OANDA's own worked example shows a 0.1-lot USD/JPY long opened at 153 yen requires roughly 61,200 yen in margin under the old rules, with no recalculation as the rate climbs. After June 6, the same position would require around 63,600 yen if the closing price hits 159 yen, raising stop-out risk for thinly funded accounts.

The wind-down follows FTMO's acquisition of OANDA, which closed earlier this year and brought FTMO founders Otakar Šuffner and Marek Vašíček in as co-CEOs of the global broker in March. OANDA Japan has told customers further details on how any remaining open positions will be handled at the November termination date will be issued at a later stage.

Customers using the company's NY server MT4, who are not affected by the Tokyo margin changes, will be moved to fxTrade or TradingView when MT4 disappears.