IG Invest: The UK’s most popular forex platform

Experienced traders and ambitious beginners.

IG is a rare platform that works hard to court traders of all abilities. Usually, a platform is either carved out for the needs of advanced, experienced traders, or it’s clearly tailored to the distinct needs of beginners.

Although beginners are likely to find aspects of IG tougher to master than a simpler platform like eToro or Trading 212, there is so much help on offer, it pays to stick with it if you ultimately want all the advantages of a platform designed for seasoned pros.

By help, I mean one of the best free trading academies anywhere on the web, unlimited use of the IG demo account, and a 24-hour help desk. The clean design of the multi-award-winning IG trading platform means it’s not totally impenetrable to beginners – the complaint often levelled at Interactive Brokers and Saxo. There’s even a MetaTrader4 demo account if you’re interested in trying it out.

It’s not perfect, of course. There’s no fractional share dealing which could be a problem if you’re starting with a small budget. And it’s not the cheapest platform either.
But, if you’re a beginner who is serious about trading regularly, there’s room to grow at IG.

And if you’re an advanced trader, you won’t be left wanting with an outstanding suite of professional research and trade execution tools, and a hard-to-beat choice of interfaces to trade on.

Account types

IG offers trading within a:

• General trading account
• Stocks and shares ISA
• Self-invested personal pension (SIPP)

Within each account, you can either choose to build your own portfolio (DIY) or choose a ready-made portfolio (Managed).

Stocks and shares ISA

With a stocks and shares ISA, you can invest up to £20,000 tax-free via either IG’s share dealing account or one of IG’s ready-made Smart Portfolios.

Why choose IG over other ISA providers? Well the fact it’s a Flexible ISA might swing it for you. They’re still relatively uncommon, but flexible ISAs offer the benefit of being able to withdraw funds and reinvest them during the tax year – providing the total you invest never tops £20k.

SIPP

IG does offer a SIPP but it’s administered by Options UK, an independent pension administrator and trustee company, rather than IG directly. That means you’ll fund your account through Options UK, who will then transfer the money into your IG trading account. The fact that a transfer needs to take place does add another potential delay into the equation. IG says transfer times between Options UK and IG are generally one working day, but could be longer, so you won’t be able to trade immediately after making a deposit or transfer.

With a self-invested personal pension, you can take more control over where your pension is invested. IG provides a wide choice of stocks, ETFs and investment trusts, giving you a good deal of freedom over how your pension is invested. As the SIPP is administered by Options UK, you cannot use IG’s Smart Portfolios to build your portfolio. So, you’ll need to be confident building your own investment strategy as there’s no ready-made option with this vehicle.

I would say that if you are not an experienced trader, and you’re simply looking to get started with a SIPP, there are far less complex platforms you could use to get the same tax benefits.

Assets

If you choose to build your portfolio yourself, IG offers access to an impressive 17,000+ markets where you can trade the following assets/instruments:

• 13,000+ UK, US and rest of the world stocks
• Forex
• Indices
• Commodities
• CFDs
• Spread betting
• ETFs
• IPOs

You can trade on bond price movements via leveraged CFDs and spread betting or buy a bond ETF, but you can’t directly buy or sell individual bonds and gilts with IG. There’s also no crypto trading with IG unless you’re a professional trader, but it’s otherwise an extensive, comprehensive offering for retail traders.

If you’re a forex trader, you’ll find a huge array of trading markets including major, minor, Australasian, Scandinavian, exotic and emerging markets pairs. It’s a huge list, explaining IG’s position as the UK’s most popular forex trading platform.

Leverage

IG offers trading with leverage (also called ‘margin’) to those who can demonstrate they have sufficient understanding of derivatives, and the added risks associated with leveraged trading.

The maximum leverage offered is:

Forex – 1:30
Indices – 1:20
Shares – 1:5
Commodities – 1:20

Ready-made options

IG offers a range of ready-made portfolios called Smart Portfolios. The range of different BlackRock funds are fully managed by IG’s investment team, and offer exposure to different global markets, including fixed income and equity, and alternative investments such as gold and property.

For a fully managed fund, the pricing is reasonable (see fees section below). But equally as important as fees, when considering whether to invest in a readymade portfolio, is fund performance. We only have six years of data for IG’s Smart Portfolios, but our independent comparison research shows that they have not performed well. Our Senior Equity Analyst, John Choong, provides a more detailed analysis of the funds' performance in the next section (portfolio performance).

IG offers an exceptional selection of trading platforms to choose from. As an IG client, you can pick from:

• IG’s proprietary trading platform
• Mobile app

And third-party platforms:

• MetaTrader 4 (on desktop and mobile)
• ProRealTime
• L2 Dealer

Online trading platform

IG’s proprietary trading platform has a simple, clean design that allows for an instant overview of market prices, spread, and margin. It’s also an award-winner, bagging ‘Best Finance App’, ‘Best Multi-Platform Provider’ and ‘Best Platform for the Active Trader’ at the ADVFN International Financial Awards 2023.

Helping to hook those awards is IG’s reputation for fast execution speeds: the average trade execution time is 0.014 seconds.

IG facilitates automated trading, with price alerts and triggers, and also allows traders to switch between preferred currencies which can help to keep conversion costs down.

Mobile platform

I really like IG’s mobile platform. It’s a clear and clean interface with all the functionality of the web platform, cleverly designed so it doesn’t feel crowded and ill-fitting like some other mobile apps.

MetaTrader 4

MetaTrader 4 (MT4) is most commonly associated with forex trading, but it can be used to trade other markets too, including indices, commodities and forex via CFDs and spread betting. Because it’s used for trading complex instruments, MT4 is designed for advanced traders.

MT4 is incredibly popular with traders for two reasons: One, it’s highly customisable, and two, it can be used to automate trading via algorithms that open and close positions according to limits you have pre-set.

Not all leading UK brokers offer MT4. Others who offer it include AvaTrade, Pepperstone, FX Pro, and CMC Markets, but IG is the most well-established and most popular from that list.

It’s also possible to download an MT4 demo account and there’s an MT4 mobile app too so you can have the whole suite.

ProRealTime

IG is the only UK spread betting and CFD provider to offer ProRealTime. Designed for advanced and professional traders, ProRealTime can be integrated into your IG interface and is designed to help professional traders code their own algorithmic trading programmes, and fully automate their trading.

L2 Dealer

IG also offers access to L2 Dealer. This won’t be suitable for beginners and intermediate traders, but again, what IG does very well is keep things attainable for those who are newer to trading, but give more advanced traders the option to ‘level up’. L2 Dealer is only an option for those granted ‘professional’ status by IG, but it offers direct market access (DMA). That means you can trade share or forex CFDs, or deal shares outright, straight through the order books of international exchanges, without needing to go through a broker. This enables traders to get deep liquidity, full market visibility and advanced execution tools on DMA shares and Forex Direct services.

Demo account

IG provides a demo account with £10k of virtual money so you can get a feel for how different products and financial markets work. Unlike most other platforms, there’s no limit on how long you can keep your demo account for, so you can keep practising and perfecting for as long as you wish. And if you’re interested in using more advanced software, you can request access to an MT4 demo account as well.

For those choosing to build and manage their own portfolios, fees are calculated on the basis of what you’re trading.

If you trade stocks and/or ETFs, your fees will consist of:

• Custody fees

IG’s custody charge is a flat fee of £24 per quarter.

Charging flat fees is unusual. Of the big investment/trading providers, only interactive investor and Freetrade also use a flat fee model. Flat fees can work out good value for those who have large portfolios, but on the flip side, can work out pricey for those with smaller portfolios.

Even more unusually, there are ways to avoid paying custody fees altogether:

• If you place 3+ trades during the quarter, you don’t need to pay them.
• If you invest £15,000 or more in an IG managed Smart Portfolio.

• Trading fees

IG’s trading fees are calculated based on how many trades you make. Although IG advertises “commission-free trading on US shares”, that actually only applies when trading more than three times in a month. US stocks are, otherwise, a hefty £10 per trade.

That £10 per US stock trade for the most infrequent traders is at the higher end of dealing charges in the UK market. However, the fact that you can get it to zero by simply increasing your trades to three per month, means it’s not something I’d focus too heavily on when making comparisons between platforms, unless you trade infrequently.

I’d be more concerned about the price of trading UK stocks. When you have other trading platforms such as Trading 212 and eToro offering commission-free trading, it’s hard to get enthusiastic about that drop from £8 to £3 per trade.

If you can eradicate custody fees by trading more than three times per quarter, you can see from the table below that IG works out as a relatively low-priced option when compared to the big-name investment platforms. I’ve chosen 12 trades per annum as the assumption in the table below as it’s the point at which IG’s custody fees become exempt (3 per quarter). Note, however, that the IG fee with custody fees, and assuming you made 10 trades over the course of the year instead of 12 (so weren’t entitled to the discount) would be a massive £176. The lesson, here, is to trade more than 3 times per quarter, every quarter, to keep your costs down at IG.

The second lesson is, if you’re only going to be trading stocks, then there are even cheaper trading platforms out there.

FX (currency conversion) fees

IG charges 0.5% to convert trades made in one currency into your account currency (if they are different). That’s not the cheapest rate going, but it’s also not the most eye-watering either, as you can see:

If you trade CFDs or spread bet, your fees will consist of:

• Spreads/commission

IG makes the majority of its money on leveraged products (spread betting and CFDs) with a small portion of revenue coming from other fees. The main way they earn money on their leveraged products is through the spreads (or in the case of shares CFDs; commission) that they wrap around the market price.

Spreads at IG start from 0.6 points on key FX pairs, 0.8 points on major indices, and 0.1 points on commodities. Overall, spreads come in slightly pricey when compared to other top-rated providers. Of course, spreads vary considerably across different markets, but to illustrate what I mean, I’ve compared IG’s prices in two different scenarios:

• FX (currency conversion) fees

Again, FX fees are a fairly middle-of-the-road 0.50%.

• Overnight fees

When you place a spread bet or CFD, you’re using leverage. That means you are effectively being lent money to make a larger trade than you would otherwise be able to make. Overnight fees are levied when you keep your position open after 10 pm (UK time), and providers charge for this extended time period of funding your position.

The formulas used to calculate the overnight fees for different markets can be found on IG’s website.

Fees for ISAs

In keeping with most of its competitors, IG does not charge any admin fees for use of its ISA, so your fees will be the same as those listed in the ‘If you trade stocks/ETFs’ section.

Fees for SIPPs

IG’s SIPP is administered by Options UK. You pay Options UK an annual administration fee of £210. This is a flat fee so could be pricey if you only hold a small amount in your SIPP. Conversely, this could work out great value for money if you have a large pension.

Fees for Smart Portfolio

IG’s Smart Portfolios are well-priced for a managed fund, at just 0.50% per annum. Compare that 0.50% to Wealthify’s 0.60%, and Nutmeg, and Moneyfarm’s, 0.75% annual percentage fees.

And it’s even better news if you have a large sum to invest, because IG Smart Portfolios are managed free of charge once you reach and exceed £50k – effectively capping fees at £250 p.a.

You’ll need a decent chunk of money to get started with a Smart Portfolio, though, as the minimum initial deposit is £500, and subsequent deposits must be at least £250 if paying by card, or £50 if using a bank transfer.

Withdrawal fees
£0.

Deposit fees
£0.

Minimum deposit
£1.

Inactivity fees

£12 per month after 24 consecutive months of inactivity. That’s pretty high although you’re given a lengthy period of time before any inactivity fees are levied.

Interest paid on cash

Unlike most of its competitors, IG doesn’t pay interest on uninvested cash. IG says that’s because they want you investing all your available money, but it means you’ll miss out if you’re holding money between investments. And with rates of more than 5% at other providers, that’s a bit of a missed opportunity.

For comparison:

I’ll focus on IG’s own platform to start with, which is where you should head if you’re a new or intermediate-level trader.

As you’d expect with a platform of this calibre and popularity, research tools are excellent.

What’s on offer allows you to get a good feel for the sentiments around a stock. It doesn’t offer the sea of data that it’s possible to access through a platform like Interactive Brokers, but that’s a positive if you find yourself not knowing where to start with IBKR. I personally find IG a much more manageable source of valuable research data and analysis.

If you’re a very advanced trader, IG offers MetaTrader 4 and is the only UK spread betting and CFD provider to offer ProRealTime – a web-based charting package that allows you to automate your trading and analysis.

If not at the stage of needing advanced charting tools, you’ll welcome IG’s approach. That’s because IG focuses on providing expert analysis and crowd sentiment – so you can skip straight to the ready-formed opinions of experts, rather than needing to trawl through heaps of raw data and analyse what it means yourself. It’s a smart approach.

With IG, you get TipRanks at your fingertips as it’s incorporated into the trading interface. It’s a great asset, granting you easy access to:

• Stock analyst ratings (updated every 24 hours)
• Buy/Hold/Sell consensus
• 12-month forecasts
• Insider transaction data
• Hedge fund trends
• Crowd wisdom
• News sentiment
• Technicals: SMA, Momentum
• Fundamentals: Return on equity, Asset growth
• Price target data

ProRealTime

For advanced traders, there’s the option of integrating ProRealTime into your IG trading platform interface, to automate your analysis and trades. Tools include:

• 100 different indicators to analyse everything from price to volatility
• Advanced charting with unlimited timeframes
• Build your own algorithms

When selecting a provider for your investments, it is very important to first ensure they meet certain minimum safety standards. We judge IG to meet the threshold for a ‘safe’ provider because:

• IG is regulated by the top-tier UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
• IG is a financially robust, FTSE 250 company.
• Investors are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) which protects investments up to a value of £85,000 in the event the company liquidates.
• Unlike banks, trading platforms like IG must separate client money and assets from their own. They cannot be used to fund IG’s business activities, so they’re completely ring-fenced.
• IG has a long history and is well-respected and trusted.

Account security

IG accounts are secured using gold standard security features including:

• Two-factor authentication
• Passcode and biometric recognition on your mobile devices.

There are few places better than the exceptional IG Academy when it comes to learning how to trade. The free courses, videos, live sessions and webinars will take those starting from scratch through the essentials and fundamentals you’ll need to know. And for those who already have some knowledge, there’s the chance to upskill with courses and live sessions designed for intermediate and advanced-level traders too.

Popular courses include:

• Introducing the financial markets
• How does trading work?
• Orders, execution and leverage
• Planning and risk management
• The basics of technical analysis
• Trading psychology
• How spread betting and CFD trading work
• Choosing a market to spread bet on
• Understanding risk and reward
• Using stops and limits to manage risk
• Trading options with CFDs

Social trading is a relatively new concept that combines trading with social features. eToro leads the way with social trading offering social-media-style feeds and a copy-trading function that allows users to copy the moves of experienced traders.

IG hasn’t incorporated social trading features into its platform (as yet), but it does have a community forum which provides a useful space for traders to talk to each other, ask for advice and share insights and strategies. It’s a useful place to ask questions about how to use the trading platform too.

Voting rights

IG supports all corporate actions, including voting rights, relating to the shares you hold. You'll find there's a big difference in the level of customer support you get in this area with IG, than with some other providers so if this is important to you, it's worth checking our reviews for those providers you are interested in.

You have choices about how you vote at IG:

With your IG share dealing account, you can buy global shares, which IG then hold for you in their nominee account. As IG administers the account, they can, if you wish, vote on your behalf at formal company meetings like AGMs.

Alternatively if you want to attend an AGM or shareholder meeting in person, IG will arrange this for you. They charge £100 plus VAT for arranging your attendance.

Dividends

Dividends are automatically paid into your IG account. IG says that: “As soon as we receive dividend payments for any of the shares you own, we will credit your account with the amount you are eligible for. This usually would occur on, or around, the dividend payment date.” My own experience is that dividends are promptly.

IG has an edge over competitors in this area by offering help 24 hours a day from 8 am Saturday – 10 pm Friday. There’s even a WhatsApp number as an alternative to phoning or emailing.

Help can be accessed via:

• A 24-hour help desk
• Tel: 0800 195 3100
• Email
• WhatsApp (8 am – 6 pm UK time)
• Tweet @IGClientHelp – IG’s Trading Services team are available 24 hours a day, Mon-Fri

IG scores well on Trustpilot with a “Great” rating of 4.1 from more than 6,600 reviews.

Opening an account

Opening an IG account is a pretty straightforward and painless affair. It’s a fully digital process that only required 5-10 minutes of my time, and an identity verification document such as a driving licence or passport. ID verification takes place virtually so there are no original documents or signed copies to send in.

Transfering an account

All electronic transfers to and from IG are free of charge.

It’s a bit of a labour-intensive process, however, as you’ll need to print a form, place a wet signature on it and then email or post it back to IG. You’ll tend to find that more newly established providers offer paperless processes for things like this, so it feels clunky to still need wet signatures on printed-out forms.

You can at least use the IG dashboard to monitor your transfers, and IG endeavours to get the transfer completed within 2 – 3 working days once they’ve received your form. Of course, the exact timing will depend on how responsive and helpful your old broker is.

Closing an account

This annoys me – you need to email/write to IG’s help desk to request closure of your account. I don’t believe it’s necessary in this day and age, to have to request closure of an account and be at the mercy of the company you’re leaving – who are most likely going to try and persuade you otherwise. When other brands make it possible to leave via the click of a couple of buttons, and without any need to contact customer services, I resent it when other companies make it more tricky.

Before contacting customer services, make sure you have no open positions and you’ve withdrawn all remaining funds.

IG has invested heavily in tools that help clients to trade profitably. As well as famously fast trade execution times, they offer trading alerts that allow you to instantly react to market movements, events, emails and push notifications.

If you decide to integrate ProRealTime into your IG trading interface, you’ll also be able to place orders according to data and pattern recognition, instead of just price movements, and get to opportunity on options faster, filtering by expiration date and strike price.

Round-the-clock trading

IG leads the field here with pre- and post-market trading available on more markets than any other provider, including more than 80 key US stocks, indices, forex and more. You can spread bet, trade CFDs, deal shares and get direct market access, so access leveraged and non-leveraged products services.

Extended market hours are offered to all clients and, as you can see from the charts produced by IG, below, the number of extended hours offered exceeds those offered by competitors in almost all cases. Trading 212, again, poses probably the only real threat to IG’s dominance here with their recent rollout of extended trading hours to all clients.

Order types

IG offers what you’d expect here – stop losses and limit orders – so you can choose entry and exit points, and help manage exposure to unfavourable market movements.

That’s particularly important when spread betting and trading CFDs as these complex instruments come with leverage which can amplify profits and losses. IG also offers plenty of free educational resources, though, to help manage the risks associated with leveraged derivatives – more so than most other platforms.

Order types offered by IG:

• Stop losses
• Guaranteed stops
• Limit orders

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