IG Review 2024

Is IG regulated?

Yes, it is regulated by several financial authorities globally, including top-tier ones. Here is the full list:

• UK – Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• Germany – Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin)
• Switzerland – Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA)
• USA – Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association (NFA)
• Australia – Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)
• New Zealand – Financial Markets Authority (FMA)
• Singapore – Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)
• Japan – Japanese Financial Services Authority (FSA)
• South Africa – Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA)
• UAE – Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA)
• International – Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA)

Is IG safe?

To be certain that a brokerage is safe, we highly advise that you check two facts:

• how you are protected if something goes wrong
• the background of the broker.

How you are protected

This is important for you because the investor protection amount and theregulator differ based on which entity you belong to.

*If you choose a spread betting account, you will belong to this legal entity.
IG provides negative balance protection for forex spot and CFD trading, but only to retail clients from the European Union. Professional and non-EU clients are not covered with any negative balance protection.

Our brokerage experts put together a comprehensive guide on the safety profile of IG.

Background

IG was established in 1974. The longer track record a broker has, the more proof we have that it has successfully survived previous financial crises.
IG Group, the parent company of IG, is listed on the London Stock Exchange, which is a big plus for safety as IG releases financial statements in a regular and transparent manner.
Being listed on a stock exchange, providing financial statements, and being regulated by a top-tier authority are all great signs for IG's safety.

Find your safe broker

Account base currencies

At IG, you can choose from the following 6 base currencies:

When you open an account, you cannot select your account base currency.You can change the currency of your account only if you write an email to IG's Customer Service, which makes the whole process a bit inconvenient.

IG offers a great base currency selection when compared to its closest competitors.

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your trading account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your trading account base currency, you won't have to pay a conversion fee.

A convenient way to save on currency conversion fees is by opening a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank. These usually offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates, as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. Opening an account only takes a few minutes on your phone.

Deposit fees and options

IG charges no deposit fees.

In addition to bank transfers, you can also deposit money via credit/debit cards and PayPal.
In case of bank card deposit, IG accepts:

• Debit cards: Maestro, Visa, Electron, MasterCard
• Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, Discover
• Major prepaid cards

Here's all you need to know about minimum deposit requirements and depositing money at IG.

A bank transfer can take several business days, while payment with a credit/debit card is instant. You can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.

There are a lot of deposit options at IG, including electronic wallets such as PayPal.

IG withdrawal fees and options

IG doesn't charge any withdrawal fees.

Read our guide containing all key info on available withdrawal methods and related fees at IG.

You can only withdraw money to accounts in your name.

How long does it take to withdraw money from IG? We tested the debit card withdrawal and it took 2 business days.

How do you withdraw money from IG?

1. Log in to your 'My IG' account.
2. Select the account you wish to withdraw the money from.
3. Click on the three dots menu on the right side.
4. Go to 'Withdraw Funds'.
5. Select the withdrawal method you prefer.
6. Enter the withdrawal amount.
7. Initiate the withdrawal.

Can you open an account?

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Clients from the US can use only IG's forex trading service, CFD trading is not available to US clients. For our review, we opened an account at IG's UK entity.

Read our separate article on how to get your account started with IG.

What is the minimum deposit at IG?

The required IG minimum deposit is $0.

The no minimum deposit rule applies to bank transfers. For credit/debit cards and PayPal transfers the minimum deposit is $300/€300/£250.

Account types

The country of your residency determines the account type you can open. In most countries, you can trade only forex, CFDs and options.

*There are also tax-efficient accounts available, such as ISA and SIPP.
**You will need to open a second account for stock trading.

How to open your account

IG has a straightforward and fully digital account opening process. The online registration takes only 5-10 minutes, but the account verification can take a bit longer. Our account was verified after 3 business days.
The 5 steps of IG account opening:

1. Enter your name, email address, country of residence and select your account type.
2. Provide some personal details, like your date of birth and address.
3. Answer a few questions about your financial and employment status.
4. Provide information about your financial knowledge and fill out a short test.
5. Verify your ID and residency. You can upload a national ID, passport or driver's license for verifying your ID. Utility bills and bank statements are accepted for residency verification.

You can use both IG's own mobile trading platform and the MetaTrader 4 platform. They are available for both iOS and Android devices.
In this review, we tested IG's own platform on an iOS device.

Look and feel

The IG mobile platform is very intuitive, similarly to the web trading platform. You can easily find all available features.
The design is OK, nothing great, and not as good as the web trading platform.

Login and security

IG provides a safer, two-step login for its mobile platform.

You can set up the two-step authentication with a separate app called IG Authentication.

You can log in using biometric authentication, which is a convenient feature.

Search functions

The search functions are good.

The search results are categorized by assets.

Placing orders

You can use the following order types on the mobile trading platform:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop
• Trailing Stop
• Guaranteed Stop

There are also order time limits you can use:

• Good 'til Cancel (GTC)
• Good 'til Date (GTD)

Alerts and notifications

You can set alerts and notifications on the IG mobile platform.

To be more precise, you can only set price alerts as the mobile platform's alerts function is not as extensive as the web trading platform's.

Our analysts personally tested IG's mobile trading platform; read the IG mobile app review for a detailed verdict on its performance and features.

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

You can use either IG's own trading platform or MetaTrader 4, a third-party trading platform. In this review, we tested IG's own trading platform.

Look and feel

The IG trading platform is one of the most intuitive and well-designed web trading platforms we have seen.
It can be easily customized and the flexible design allows you to move windows around and save layouts. You can create watchlists and there is also a one-click trading feature.

Login and security

IG provides a safer, two-step login.

You can easily set up two-factor authentication. To do so, download the 'IG Authentication' app on your mobile and activate the two-factor authentication.

Search functions

The search functions are good.

You can search for products in the sidebar on the left. It works as you would expect. You can also browse available investment options by typing manually or browsing through the asset class categories.

Placing orders

You can use the following order types:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop
• Trailing Stop
• Guaranteed Stop

If you are unfamiliar with some of these terms or want to learn more, read our overview of order types.

There are also order time limits you can use:

• Good 'til Cancel (GTC)
• Good 'til Date (GTD)

Alerts and notifications

You can set price alerts and notifications on the IG web trading platform.

To do so, go to 'MyIG', then 'Settings', and click on 'Communication Preferences'.
You can choose from multiple alert and trade/deal notifications:

• price alert (prices reach an important level)
• indicator alert (technical tools reach an important level)
• economic alert (big economic announcements)
• automated or manual deal opening/closing
• automated or manual position editing

Portfolio and fee reports

IG has clear fee reports.

The main performance and status of your account is available on the dashboard of your live account. By opening the menu on the right, you can see the 'History' tab where you can check all the costs and returns on your past trades.

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

IG is primarily a CFD and forex broker. US clients can only trade forex products.
You can also trade stocks if you are from one of the few countries where this is provided, such as the UK.
Whether you wish to trade CFDs of currency pairs, stock indices, stocks, ETFs, commodities, bonds, futures, you will find an extraordinarily wide selection of products at IG.

Disclaimer: 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. CFDs are not provided for US clients. Forex trading involves risk. Losses can exceed deposits.

You can't change the default leverage level of the products. This is a drawback, as we believe this is an important factor you should be in control of.
Changing the leverage manually is a very useful feature when you want to lower the risk of your trade. Be careful with forex and CFD trading, since the pre-set leverage levels can be high.

Real stocks and ETFs

IG's real stock offer falls behind competing brokers. Both eToro and XTB offer more stock markets to trade on.

You can trade stocks only if you are from:

• UK
• Ireland
• Malta
• Cyprus
• Australia
• Some smaller countries, like Gibraltar, the British Virgin Islands, etc.

IG provides access to 8 exchanges and 2,000 stocks.

Options trading is available only in the following countries: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, and Sweden.
At IG you can trade:

• equity index
• forex and
• commodity options.

The most popular equity indices, forex pairs and commodities are all available.
You can choose from two option types:

• Vanilla options
• Barrier options

IG Smart Portfolio

IG Smart Portfolio is available only in the UK. IG Smart Portfolios are iShares ETF portfolios managed by BlackRock. This is basically a robo-advisory service, that is, these are automatically managed low-cost portfolios.

IPO

If you prefer to buy shares in IPOs,you can do it with IG. An IPO is an initial public offering, or stock market launch, where a company's shares are sold to the general public for the first time.
There are two ways to participate in IPOs at IG:

• IPO Grey Market – this allows you to open long/short positions before the IPO happens
• After the IPO – this allows you to place orders after the IPO happens

Turbo24

IG also offers an innovative product called Turbo24. At the time of writing, it was available to clients in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway.
Turbo24s are exchange-traded products that can be traded 24/5.
When you place an order, you have to set a knock-out level, which is the price where your position will be liquidated. Selecting the knock-out level works like selecting your leverage because you have to fund your position up to the knock-out level. If you choose a lower knock-out level, you'll use higher leverage, while a higher knock-out level means lower leverage.

We recommend IG for traders with any experience level looking for an easy-to-use trading platform.

Below you can find links to all aspects of IG in this comprehensive collection.

Lower fees, lower costs?

We detailed this in our IG fees article.

What about the minimum deposit?

Our ultimate guide to the IG minimum deposit is updated regularly.

How to start your IG account?

Look no further than our evaluation of the IG account opening.

How's their trading app?

Here's our expert view after checking the IG trading app.

Is the quality of customer service satisfactory?

All you need to know about the IG customer service.

Legit or scam?

Is IG legit features all the key aspects you need to look at to see if a broker is safe and legit.

Free or premium? Or both?

A glance at actual costs and whether IG is really free.

Is this broker good for beginners?

We checked it in Is IG good for beginners.

Should you buy your silver bullets on IG?

Research for silver bugs in the Silver buy on IG guide

I want to trade options, are they available at IG?

We explored the topic in Can you trade options on IG?

What is the minimum account balance at IG?

Check out the current account balance requirements at IG in our What is the minimum account balance at IG article.

Looking for commission and fees data for IG?

We collected them in IG commission and fees.

How do you withdraw money from IG?

We tested it and collected the options and costs in How to withdraw money on IG.