IG Markets, the large British Forex and spread betting broker, is about to publicly announce its withdrawal from the US market. IG Markets opted to completely withdraw from the United States following latest regulatory and will thus not continue to be registered as an FDM or FCM.
IG Group, the parent of IG Markets will continue to operate in the US through its fully owned subsidiary - NADEX. NADEX is the first retail-focused binary options trading venue in the US and IG Group would like to maintain this unique position. Current IG Markets clients (there are only about 400 of them according to last quarter's profitability report) will be given the opportunity to transfer their accounts to PFG Best or to open accounts directly to with NADEX where they can continue trading NADEX contracts.
IG Markets is thus joining the very long list of forex brokers withdrawing from the US market. Since 2009 CMS Forex, Ikon GM, Easy Forex, I-Trade, ODL, GFS and Hotspot have stopped offering Forex in the US. Foreign brokers have been chased by CFTC for opening gates to US clients and have probably already stopped doing that. This leaves US clients with only 12 retail forex brokers according to my latest count here, two forex banks - CitiFX and dbFX and several semi-retail outfits such as MF and RCG.
My money is on Advanced Markets being next, after all they only have 50 retail clients so why even bother with the $20+ million requirement?
