IG to stop offering crypto to UK retail clients

Photo: Leaprate

London-listed financial broker IG Group announced its decision to remove cryptocurrencies from its offering to UK-based retail clients. Ahead of the removal of the crypto offering, IG Group will raise its margin requirements on existing positions. The move results from UK FCA’s ban on crypto derivatives sale.

A post on IG Community Forum states that clients were asked to close all their open spread bets and/or CFD positions on cryptocurrencies by Mar 24. After that, the company will close open positions based on the prevailing bid/ask prices.

The broker noted that the margin on Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Crypto 10 Index, EOS, Ethereum, Litecoin, NEO, and Stellar will increase to 100% from Monday on Feb 22.

The post said:

"On Jan 6, we restricted UK retail clients from increasing their exposure to cryptocurrencies, in accordance with the ban imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on the sale of crypto derivatives. We have now reached our internal product limit for exposure to cryptocurrencies, and as a result, will be removing cryptocurrencies from our offering to UK retail clients. Ahead of this, we will also be increasing margin requirements."

IG Group recently issued a trading update regarding Brexit for its EEA clients asking them to transfer their accounts to IG Europe.

Later in January, the broker proposed a $1 billion acquisition of a high-growth US online brokerage and trading education platform tastytrade.

Reprinted from Leaprate, the copyright all reserved by the original author.