IG Review:
Best CFD & Forex Broker in 2020 (Low fees)

As one of the best CFD brokers in the world, IG is well-known as a UK based online trading company, In fact they have been in the market longer than almost everyone else; since 1974.

In the United Kingdom, IG is governed by (FCA): Financial Conduct Authority, and In Europe under Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). They have managed to ne regulated by Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) too.
In Oceania, both countries regulated IG (Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) & Financial Markets Authority (FMA) of New Zealand).

In the Middle east and Africa they are governed by South Africa & Dubai (Financial Services Authority (DFSA) as well as (FSCA) which is Financial Sector Conduct Authority).

The last 2 authorities are from Japan and Singapore (Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) & Japanese Financial Services Authority (FSA)) This way IG is regulated literally everywhere.
The portfolio of products and services that IG offers are very comprehensive. The list is as follow:

Stock, ETF, Forex,

Options, CFD, Crypto,

IPO

There is also equities available clients form United Kingdom.

We have analysed over 31 Tier-1 online brokers & online trading paltforms, and rated IG as an option for:

Best low fee broker for stock index CFD

Best forex broker

Best Online Trading Platform

Best Educational Materials for Online Traders

Decent Online broker with Comprehensive Portfolio

IG pros and cons

Apart from regulation that we talked about, online trading platform that IG offers to you as a trader is among the best. It's comprehensive, and very easy to use.IG also offers great educational materials & demo account to practice.

There is always a flip side of the coin and it is IG's slow response rate on phone, and when it comes to fees, IG's stock CFD fees are pretty high. Remember, They have limited portfolio in many countries that are focused on CFD.

If you wish to compare IG with other alternativve online Brokers, click here, otherwise keep reading.

Best online CFD broker
No Minumum Deposit

Trade Now

Account Fees:

NO

Minimum deposit:

$0

Withdrawal Fees:

Free

Investor Protection:

£85,000 for UK residents,
€20,000 for Europe,
Swiss 100,000 CHF

Regulated:

YES, UK, UAE, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Swiss, US, South Africa & New Zealand

Customer Support:

Live Chat, Phone, Email

Demo Account:

YES

Trading Options:

Stock, ETF, Forex, Options, CFD, Crypto, IPO

Expert rating:

Online Trading Platform: Desktop, Mobile, Web

Commission rating:

Research rating:

Education rating:

Overall Ranking:

4.7 / 5

Deposit & Withdrawal Type:

Free / Bank Transfer, Credit/Debit card, Electronic wallets

Open Account

IG Pros and Cons

Apart from regulation that we talked about, online trading platform that IG offers to you as a trader is among the best. It's comprehensive, and very easy to use.IG also offers great educational materials & demo account to practice.

There is always a flip side of the coin and it is IG's slow response rate on phone, and when it comes to fees, IG's stock CFD fees are pretty high. Remember, They have limited portfolio in many countries that are focused on CFD.

If you wish to compare IG with other alternativve online Brokers, click here, otherwise keep reading.

How Much is IG Fees

There are Pros and Cons here too.
The fees for S&P 500 CFD, Europe 50 CFD, EUR USD are built into spread.
✓ For S&P 500 CFD the fee is 0.6 average spread cost, which is considered to be low.
✓ For Europe 50 CFD the fee is 1.5 average spread cost, which is considered to be low.
✕ For EURUSD the fee is €0.7 for each lot for PRO accounts, which is considered to be low.
✕ There is inactivity fee of $12 per month after 2 years.

TIP: In reality it can take couple of business to deposit via bank transfer, Yet credit card and debit cards are done instantly.
Some other positive points are:

Pros

Free deposit and no cost withdrawal

Low forex fees

Decent Customer Service

Good Online Trading Platform

Cons

Stock CFD fees are high

Portfolio may vary from country to country

There is Inactivity fees

Trading Vs Non-Trading fees

Thats not all the fees
As you can see in the table above we ranked IG fees (in the table in 3 different categories: from low, average to high) compare to 2 other competitors and brokers: XTB and eToro
Well, you need to keep an eye on broker fees such as trading fees and non-trading fees too.

Trading fees are very easy to understand. Those fees are there only when you trade anything.
IG is very transparent with its trading fees.

They use different fee structures for each asset classes:
For share CFDs, they charge trading commission. The same applies to real shares & options.
When it comes to FX forex, stock index CFDs, it's clear and called all-inclusive spreads.
The situation for cryptocurrency, commodity CFDs, and bond CFDs are the same as Forex.
Administration fee and spreads for Smart Portfolios Trading fees come in formes of:

Now it's time for Non-trading fees
These charges are not 100% related to what you trade. You have seen them in the table above. they are fees such as withdrawal and inactivity fees.

IG

Best online CFD broker
No Minumum Deposit

---

4.7

Minimum Deposit

$0

Trade Now

IG Trading fees

Except UK, IG is primarily offering forex and CFD in other countries. Unlike other brokerage providers, IG gives you options to trade based on your country of origin.
For instance, if you are from either one of these countries: (UK, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, Australia) you can enjoy trading Forex, CFD & Equity.
USA citizens can only go fo FX Forex.
You can opt in for Forex, CFD, and additionally Options if you come from this list:(Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden)
IG only offers Forex & CFD to the rest of the world.
The Scenario is running this way: A typical trade means buying a leveraged position, holding it for 7 days and only sell after that period.
* Volume: a $2,000 position for the stock Index
* Volume: a $2,000 position for CFD
* Volume: $20,000 for the forex transactions.
The leverage in this scenarios is:
• 20:1 stock index CFDs
• 5:1 CFD
• 30:1 forex
• Stock CFDs are Apple & telecommunication giant Vodafone


Here is the tabular view of XTB's fees and side by side comparison with other 2 brokers.

To start trading XTB does not charge any deposit fees, but you ought to remember that in order to deposit money you have to use funding sources that are in your own name. If you are ready to trade, go ahead and use the live account, If not IG offers a demo account to practice..

IG's Online Trading Platform

IG offers 2 of the best trading platforms (And In Good Quality). Even though desktop is not available, mobile trading app, and web trading platforms are user-friendly and easy to navigate.

. One fun part is the search functionality. They have an inhouse online trading platform called or you may use the 3rd party tool called MetaTrader 4.

If you want to trade on to go, you may use mobile trading platforms on your android and ios device. it gives you the flexibility of mobile as well as some cool features such as push notifications or enhanced touch experience to act by swiping right or left.
To add more security and protect your account, you can setup two-step login feature in your profile.
The UI & UX of XTB trading platform is unique and user friendly.
At a glance it looks like this:



You should not be worried if English is not your strength, because XTB online trading platform is available in the following19 languages: In middle east it covers Arabic, Bulgarian, Simplified Chinese, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, their origin language of Polish, then Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Portuguese & Spanish languages, Thai, Turkce for Turkish citizens, Vietnamese and of course English.

When it comes to online trading, customer service plays a good role.
Overall, IG customer support team responds fast via email and they answer your Phone calls (With a waiting list of almost 10 minutes). They have a live chat and offer help in English.

IG

Best Online broker for CFD & Forex Trading

---

4.7

Minimum Deposit

$0

Trade CFD Now

What can you trade on IG

The trading options that are available to you at XTB are:

Stock,

ETF,

Forex,

Options,

CFD,

Crypto,

IPO

Unfortunately, you can not adjust the default leverage.
When you buy with no leverage (leverage=1) you buy real stocks and not contract for difference. That's why Non-leveraged buy positions for equities, ETFs and cryptocurrencies (digital currency) are traded as real assets. (Be aware of the risks of price movements)
All other positions are kind of contract for difference (this applies to cfd traders). An example could be leveraged buy positions and all sell positions of stocks, ETFs and cryptos as well as all forex, commodities and indices positions.

Tip: Changing the leverage manually is a very useful feature when you want to lower the risk of a trade. For instance, rather than trading with X:1 leverage (x higher than Y), only trade with Y:1 leverage for stock CFDs. Please be reminded that forex and CFD trading default leverages are high, don't gamble.

Trade Online Now Important Tip: You can not change the default leverage level of the products.

Currency pairs:

95

Stock index CFDs:

68

Stock CFDs:

10,500

ETF CFDs:

1900

Commodity CFDs:

47

Bond CFDs:

13

Future CFDs:

--

Cryptos:

8

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Disclaimer: Indicative prices; current market price is shown on the broker's trading platform. Past performance is not an indication of future results. The trading history presented is less than 5 years old and may not suffice as a basis for investment decisions. This post is not investment advice.

How to open account on IG.

You can expect a very easy, smooth and professional process to open your account with IG. All you need is an email or a social platform login
You don't want to wast time, so do they. therefore, you will get your account opened in 1-3 day.
You can immediately use your demo account.

However, if you decide to move forward as a trader and work with real money and real shares or trades, get ready to provide your passport or ID along with proof of residency (something like a utility bill or bank statement).
As you can see in the image below, you will be prompted with easy to use wizard for getting onboard with IG.

in brief follow these 7 steps for account opening at IG:

1. Get ready with you email address
2. Select the country of residency.
3. Provide demographic data
4. Choose your preferred online trading platform
5. Select your account type & base currency.
6. Explain your trading experience and provide employment history
7. Provide identity and residency proof for activation.

Performance Tracking

Tip about away times:
You can set alerts and notifications on IG and customise it. For instance, your alert can be set for a time that an asset reaches certain price target, or for fulfilment of order.
No matter you use web or mobile trading tools, you can get different kind of notifications.

I will put it simply, whether you need a pie chart, or list of assets, you can easily generate it and track the performance of your portfolio in IG, It's kinda easy and you can see a structured cash flow and other financial related reports.
IG offer news feed and it is pretty engaging.

Finally, Research & Education

Alright, if you are looking for fancy videos and a lot of videos to begin with, apart from top 10 best blog, you can use IG education repository as they offer plenty of pages and videos about trading and the tools, guides and articles. (We do not offer investment advice and guarantees).
IG education is Great. You will get a demo account and sufficient balance to begin practicing, Access to vides, and webinars is another advantage.

IG offers a trading academy for Basic, Intermediate, Expert, and premium users.
The Research part is also strong. for instance, they have a feature called 'Market sentiment' that illustrates the log and short positions of percentage of the clients.
IG offers one more fancy tool called the 'Heatmap,' that visually shows the winners and losers.
On the Contrary, when it comes to research it offers decent technical analysis tools (in 21 languages) that engages you with good UI and user friendliness environment, nice interactive charts, and some recommendations about analysis and ideas on trading.

The charts and charting feature is pretty good. Please remember that IG's fundamental data is very limited, and it does provide just a few trading ideas.

Our Take

After careful evaluation, we believe IG is not only among top-tier CFD and forex brokers in 2020, it can be positioned among top 3.
Couple of reasons could be it's regulation, as it is supervised by several financial authorities globally.
A decent research and educational resource, along side reputable history makes it safe to trade with.
Good thing is that IG's fees on forex are low, and they allow you to withdraw for free and it's done pretty fast. No need to talk about the fully automated account opening process.
On the negative side, IG's stock CFD fees are rated as high. IG is good for FX and CFDs in many countries but does not offer much of other options to trade, especially if you are outside Europe.

IG

Best Online broker for CFD & Forex Trading

---

4.7

Minimum Deposit

$0

Start Trading