IG Q3 2026: Revenue Down 14% as OTC Retention Slips to 70%

IG Group told the market on Friday 2 October that it expects revenue of about £240 million for the three months to 30 September, roughly 14% below the £280.1 million it booked a year earlier. The cause was not fewer clients or less trading — both rose. It was that IG kept a smaller share of what its clients traded. The broker cut its full-year 2026 revenue growth outlook to a mid-single-digit range, its shares fell sharply, and the sell-off dragged Plus500 and CMC Markets with it until Plus500 issued a statement of its own. For European CFD traders, the episode is a rare public window into how the market-making model earns its money.

The numbers

Demand rose; the take fell

The striking feature of the update is how healthy the client side looks. Organic first trades — new clients placing their first position — rose by more than 25%, organic active customers grew by about 17%, and OTC customer income was up around 8%. By the measures that track whether people want to trade with IG, the quarter was a good one.

The miss sits in a single ratio. IG's OTC revenue retention — broadly, the share of client trading activity it converts into its own revenue once hedging and client outcomes are netted off — fell to about 70%. Since IG introduced what it calls market-making optimisation measures in the second half of 2025, that figure had averaged around 80%. Chief executive Breon Corcoran put the quarter down to "reduced OTC revenue retention in less supportive market conditions", and the Board said it still expects those measures to lift retention structurally over the medium to long term, with more short-term volatility along the way.

What revenue retention tells a trader

Retention is the clearest public evidence that a CFD broker's revenue is not only spreads and commissions. A broker that acts as the counterparty to client trades — internalising some flow rather than passing every position to the market — earns more when the book of client positions loses and less when it wins. IG "optimising" its market making in 2025 and retention then dropping in a quarter where clients fared better is that mechanism showing up in a set of accounts. Industry coverage of the update, including FinanceFeeds, linked the shortfall to clients performing better than expected while IG hedged less of its book.

None of this is improper. Market making is a legitimate, regulated model, and in the EU it operates under MiFID II conflict-of-interest and best-execution rules, alongside the ESMA retail CFD measures: leverage caps of 30:1 on major forex pairs, mandatory negative balance protection, margin close-out at 50%, and a standardised warning showing the share of retail accounts that lose money — typically 74–89% across EU brokers. But it does mean two traders paying the same spread can be economically different to their broker, and it is worth knowing which kind of execution you are buying.

Practical checks: read the broker's order execution policy for whether it acts as principal or routes to external liquidity, note its own published loss-rate percentage, and compare the all-in cost of a spread-only account against a raw-spread-plus-commission account. Our ECN broker rankings for Europe cover brokers that price on a commission model.

Guidance and the sector sell-off

For the full year, IG now expects total revenue growth in a mid-single-digit percentage range, with an EBITDA margin in the low 40s excluding one-off items. FinanceFeeds reported the previous growth outlook as 10–15%. One-off costs tied to moving the group's legal domicile to Jersey and the July restructuring are expected to total about £30 million for 2026, of which £16.4 million was booked in the first half. Corcoran said he remains "confident in meeting our medium-term guidance".

The market read it as a sector signal. Plus500 and CMC Markets shares fell alongside IG as investors asked whether weaker retention was an industry-wide condition. Plus500 responded that it is trading in line with current full-year market expectations, described a strong third quarter, said it retains a strong cash position, and pointed to a proprietary risk framework it says has held up across several market cycles. The statement carried no revenue, EBITDA or customer figures; a full Q3 trading update is due later in October. Our analysis of Plus500's H1 2026 update sets out the baseline that report will be measured against.

What it means for European clients

A revenue miss at a listed broker is not a solvency event, and nothing in either statement touches how client money is held. EU clients of IG are served by IG Europe GmbH, authorised by BaFin (licence 148759), with client funds segregated from company money and statutory investor compensation up to EUR 20,000. Plus500's EU business runs through Plus500CY Ltd under CySEC licence 250/14, covered by the Cyprus Investor Compensation Fund up to EUR 20,000. Both groups publish audited accounts and are subject to continuous disclosure on the London Stock Exchange — the reason this quarter's numbers are visible at all.

Where the update may matter to traders is indirect. A broker under pressure to restore retention has levers that touch clients: pricing, financing rates, hedging policy, and how aggressively it markets to new accounts. IG's first-trade growth of over 25% shows acquisition is already running hot. It is also spending heavily outside CFDs — its agreed purchase of US prediction-market operator Underdog for up to about $1.3 billion is expected to close in late 2026 or early 2027, subject to approvals — a sign the group wants revenue less dependent on OTC retention swings.

What to watch

• Plus500's Q3 update (later in October): customer income, active and new customers, and how much client trading outcomes moved revenue.
• IG's full-year results: whether retention recovers towards 80% in Q4 or 70% becomes the new run-rate.
• Pricing changes: any move on spreads or overnight financing at IG Europe after a quarter like this is worth checking against the published fee schedule.

Bottom line

IG's quarter was strong on clients and weak on the share of their trading it kept. The 14% revenue drop is a reminder that market-making brokers' earnings move with their clients' results, not just with volumes — useful context for anyone choosing between a spread-only market maker and a commission-based account. For EU clients, client-money protection at both IG Europe and Plus500CY is unaffected; the open questions are about pricing and strategy, and Plus500's own numbers later this month will show whether IG's problem is IG's alone.