IG Review 2026: Twelve Companies, One Bank Licence, No Fines Found

Quick facts

IG is the oldest business in this industry and one of the few listed ones, and the checks we run on every broker return better answers here than anywhere else we have looked. It is a licensed bank in Switzerland. It holds the South African authorisation that three brokers on this site quote a lesser licence in place of. It has no enforcement action we could find at any of its regulators. It scores 8.3, the highest on this site, and the reasons it is not higher are worth reading.

Why we rated IG Trusted

1. Forty other brokers’ CFD businesses ran on IG’s licence

Open IG Markets Limited on the FCA register, expand the trading names table, and set the previous names list to show all of them. There are forty.

They are not old IG brands. They are other firms: Redmayne-Bentley CFDs, Spreadex CFDs, Killik & Co Trading Services CFDs, ProRealTime CFD, Fortuneo Derivatives, CFD par Bourse Direct, Accendo Markets CFDs, SVS CFDs, Guardian CFDs, Blue Index Trading. The earliest runs from 23 July 2004, the most recent ended 4 June 2024.

Each of those was a white-label arrangement: a broker or stockbroker offering CFDs to its own clients, with IG as the authorised firm actually writing the contracts. For twenty years a large part of the UK retail CFD market was IG underneath another brand.

That matters for two reasons. It tells you IG is infrastructure as well as a broker, which is a different kind of business from a firm that only serves its own clients. And it tells you the trading-names field on a register is worth reading in full, because it is where this kind of arrangement shows up and nowhere else does. The same field is how we test whether a brand is declared against a licence or only associated with it, and it is the first check in our guide to checking a broker's licence.

2. In Switzerland, IG is a bank

This is not a phrase to use loosely, so here is the check. IG Group states that IG Bank S.A. is “authorised as a bank and securities dealer” by FINMA. We then looked IG Bank S.A. up on the esisuisse member bank list, which is the Swiss depositor protection scheme, and it is there.

Membership of esisuisse is compulsory for every bank with a branch in Switzerland, and esisuisse states that “the protection is limited to CHF 100 000 per client and bank”. So a Swiss IG client is not holding money at a CFD broker with segregated accounts. They are holding it at a bank inside a depositor protection scheme.

No other broker in our database has a banking licence. It is the single strongest fund-safety arrangement we have recorded.

3. IG holds the South African authorisation that three brokers here quote a lesser one in place of

Our guide on the FSCA gap sets out a finding we have made against four brokers: they publish an FSP number under the FAIS Act, which authorises advice and intermediary services, where writing CFDs as principal requires a separate OTC Derivative Provider authorisation under the Financial Markets Act.

IG holds both, and says so without being asked. From its own South African site:

IG Markets South Africa Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (in South Africa) as an over-the-counter derivative provider and an authorised financial services provider (FSP No 41393).

And then it explains the distinction itself, which we have not seen any other broker do:

Whilst IG Markets South Africa Limited is a regulated FSP and acts as an intermediary as understood in the FAIS Act in relation to the international accounts offered by IG Markets Limited, CFDs issued by IG are not regulated by the FAIS Act as they are undertaken on a principal-to-principal basis. CFDs issued by IG Markets South Africa Limited are regulated by the Financial Markets Act, and IG Markets South Africa Limited is a licenced over-the-counter derivative provider.

We checked the FSCA’s own OTC Derivative Providers register. IG MARKETS SOUTH AFRICA LIMITED (SOUTH AFRICAN BRANCH) is listed with status Approved.

There is a second entry on the same register that nobody has written about. IG MARKETS LIMITED, the UK company at Cannon Bridge House, London EC4R 2YA, appears with status Application Withdrawn. IG applied for an ODP authorisation for the UK entity, withdrew it, and authorised the South African branch instead. That is the group choosing to put South African clients with a locally authorised company rather than route them offshore, which is the opposite of the pattern we usually find.

4. No enforcement action found at any regulator

We searched the FCA register’s published documents for IG Markets Limited and IG Index Limited, the FSCA’s enforcement actions register for IG Markets, and ASIC’s enforcement publications. We found no fine, no final notice, no enforceable undertaking and no infringement notice against any IG entity. The only FCA documents attached to the two UK firms are intra-group liquidity modification directions, which are routine waivers rather than sanctions.

Not found is not the same as none. Our search covered three regulators out of ten jurisdictions, and a clean result is the absence of a public record rather than proof of conduct. But it is the check we ran, and on the same check FOREX.com‘s US entity returns a $700,000 NFA fine from 2022.

5. The costs are simple and mostly low

IG publishes minimum spreads per pair on its charges page. On both CFD and spread betting accounts: EUR/USD 0.6, USD/JPY 0.7, EUR/GBP 0.9, GBP/USD 0.9, in basis points, with no separate forex commission.

Around that: bank transfer, debit card and credit card deposits and withdrawals are all free. Account opening, closing and maintenance are free. So is the inactivity fee, which is worth noting because a lot of published comparisons still quote a monthly charge for it.

Two costs are not low. Currency conversion on a trade in a currency other than your account base is 0.8%. And overnight funding is the interbank rate plus an IG admin fee, which is where the next section starts.

What holds the score down

The same position costs more to hold as a spread bet than as a CFD

This is published, and almost nobody reads it, because the two products sit on different tabs of the same page.

Overnight funding has two parts: the relevant interbank rate, and IG’s own admin fee on top. The admin fee is not the same on both products.

Same underlying market, same minimum spread, same platform, and half a percentage point a year more to hold it as a spread bet. Spread betting is the product marketed to UK retail clients on the tax treatment, and the tax treatment is real, but the holding cost is higher and the charges page does not put the two numbers next to each other.

If you hold positions overnight, this is the number that decides what IG costs you, not the 0.6 spread.

Outside the tier-1 markets you get a Bermuda company

IG’s international site states it plainly:

CFD Accounts provided by IG International Limited. IG International Limited is licensed to conduct investment business and digital asset business by the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

We checked the BMA register. IG International Limited holds two entitlements, both effective 18 February 2020: an Investment Business licence, and a Digital Assets Business Class F registration, number 54814, for operating as a digital asset derivative exchange provider. The investment business licence is specific about its limits, in the BMA’s words: the company “is permitted to deal in investments, arrange deals in investments, and safeguard and administer investments” and “is not permitted to manage investments or provide investment advice.”

That is a real, narrow, published licence, and Bermuda is a better supervised jurisdiction than most offshore alternatives. It still has no investor compensation scheme. If you are not in one of IG’s named markets, the FCA licence, the banking licence and the FTSE 250 listing are not obligations of the company you contracted with. Our guide on compensation schemes explains why that distinction is the one that decides the worst day.

There is no IG-branded broker in the United States

Type ig.com/us into a browser and you land on tastyfx.com.

IG’s US business trades as tastyfx, LLC, a CFTC-registered Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer and Introducing Broker and an NFA Forex Dealer Member, NFA ID 0509630. It is, in its own words, “an affiliate company of tastytrade, Inc. and tastylive, Inc. through common ownership of IG US Holdings, Inc.”

Nothing here is concealed and the rebrand was announced. But a US reader researching “IG” will not find an IG-branded broker, and a reader who opens an account with tastyfx on the strength of IG’s reputation should know that the FCA licence and the Swiss banking licence belong to different companies in the same group. tastyfx also states it may not offer accounts to residents of Arizona or Ohio. US retail forex has no compensation scheme.

Three loss rates, two client counts, and a missing country

These are small things individually. Together they are the reason the transparency pillar is 8.5 and not higher, because they are the kind of drift that shows nobody is reconciling the group’s own published statements.

• The risk warning differs by site. The UK site says 69% of retail investor accounts lose money. The international site says 70%. The Swiss site says 75%, and adds that 3.54% of retail accounts had positions closed on a margin call in the last twelve months. Each figure is calculated for that entity’s own clients under that regulator’s rules, so all three can be correct at once. It is still the same broker publishing three different answers to the question a reader is most likely to ask.
• The client count differs by site. ig.com says 346,000+ clients worldwide and 15,000+ markets. tastyfx.com says IG Group “provides 17,000+ markets to 300,000 clients worldwide”. The Swiss site says 17,000+ markets.
• The group regulation page leaves out South Africa. It runs through the UK, EU, Switzerland, Dubai, Singapore, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Bermuda, entity by entity, and does not mention IG Markets South Africa Limited, which holds an active FSP and an approved ODP. The best-disclosed jurisdiction in the group is the one missing from the group’s own list.
• The Australian entity does not match. IG Group’s regulation page says IG Markets Limited is the firm regulated by ASIC. AFCA’s member register lists IG Australia Pty Ltd, AFSL 515106, ACN 096585410, member number 73624, joined 20 September 2019. Both can be historically true. Only one of them is the company an Australian client contracts with today, and the group page does not say which.

The entity map

IG’s group regulation page names its companies and says what each licence permits, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. That is better than most of this industry manages and considerably better than FOREX.com, whose equivalent page names eight regulators and no companies at all.

We checked each of them. Eight are confirmed on the regulator’s own register or on a statutory scheme’s member list; four are stated by IG and not independently verified on the check date.

Three of the twelve carry a compensation scheme. That is the number worth holding on to, and it is not a criticism of IG so much as a description of the industry: outside the UK, the EU and Switzerland, almost nowhere protects a leveraged trading account.

The parent is IG Group Holdings Plc, established in London in 1974 and a constituent of the FTSE 250, which means audited accounts and public disclosure on a timetable. Regulation and fund safety together carry 55% of the weight in our scoring method, and this map is most of why IG scores where it does.

What we would still want to know

• Which company an Australian client actually contracts with. The group page and AFCA’s register disagree, and the client agreement is the only thing that settles it.
• The EdW limit. We confirmed IG Europe GmbH is a member of the German investor compensation scheme but could not read the statutory limit at source on the check date, so this review does not quote a figure for it.
• Dubai, Japan and New Zealand at the register. Stated by IG, not checked by us. We will add them.
• Why South Africa is missing from the group regulation page, given it is the jurisdiction where IG’s disclosure is best.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Financial Conduct Authority register, IG Markets Limited, FRN 195355: status Authorised since 01/12/2001, registered name from 16 October 2000, trading name “IG” from 19 June 2012, can hold and control client money, 88 Wood Street London EC2V 7DA, and the previous names table of forty entries. Checked 19 September 2026.

Financial Conduct Authority register, IG Index Limited, FRN 114059: status Authorised since 01/12/2001, registered name from 26 October 2009, trading name “IG” from 19 June 2012. Checked 19 September 2026.

Bermuda Monetary Authority regulated entities search, IG International Limited: Investment Business licensed entity and Digital Assets Business Class F registration 54814, both with licence effective date 18 February 2020, and the permitted and not-permitted activities quoted above. Checked 19 September 2026.

Monetary Authority of Singapore Financial Institutions Directory, IG Asia Pte Ltd: Capital Markets Services Licensee and Exempt Financial Adviser. Checked 19 September 2026.

Australian Financial Complaints Authority financial firm search, IG Australia Pty Ltd: AFSL 515106, ACN 096585410, ABN 93096585410, member number 73624, joined 20 September 2019. ASIC Connect was unreachable on the check date. Checked 19 September 2026.

Financial Sector Conduct Authority OTC Derivative Providers register: IG MARKETS SOUTH AFRICA LIMITED (SOUTH AFRICAN BRANCH), status Approved; IG MARKETS LIMITED, status Application Withdrawn. FSCA enforcement actions register searched for IG Markets, no results. Checked 19 September 2026.

Entschädigungseinrichtung der Wertpapierhandelsunternehmen, list of member institutions dated 19 May 2026, entry 359, IG Europe GmbH, Frankfurt am Main. Checked 19 September 2026.

esisuisse member bank list, IG Bank S.A., and esisuisse’s statement that “the protection is limited to CHF 100 000 per client and bank”. Checked 19 September 2026.

IG Group, Regulation page at iggroup.com, for the entity-by-entity description of each licence and its permitted activities. Checked 19 September 2026.

IG South Africa site footer, for the ODP and FSP declaration and the FAIS Act and Financial Markets Act distinction, quoted above. Checked 19 September 2026.

IG international site footer, for the IG International Limited disclosure and the FTSE 250 statement. tastyfx.com, for the tastyfx LLC registration, NFA ID and ownership statement. Checked 19 September 2026.

ig.com/uk/charges, CFD and spread betting tabs, for minimum spreads per pair, share commission, overnight funding admin fees, currency conversion, deposit and withdrawal charges and the fee schedule. Checked 19 September 2026.

Risk warnings and client figures taken from ig.com/uk, ig.com/en, ig.com/en-ch and tastyfx.com on 19 September 2026.

FCA register published documents searched for IG Markets Limited and IG Index Limited; ASIC enforcement publications searched. No fine, final notice, enforceable undertaking or infringement notice found against any IG entity.

Answered in detail

Verdict changelog