UK CFD and spread-bet complaints rose 22% while the wider ombudsman caseload fell almost 30%

New Financial Ombudsman complaints about contracts for difference and spread betting increased 21.9% in 2025/26, even as the service's total new complaints fell 29.8%. The two leveraged-trading categories rose from 270 to 329 cases: 260 CFDs and 69 spread bets. Across all products, the exact total declined from 305,726 to 214,649. Matching the corresponding product rows across the two annual releases establishes the divergence, while also showing why it cannot be treated as a direct measure of broker misconduct.[1][2]

The divergence matters to the retail trading industry, but it does not establish that broker misconduct increased or that any named brokerage generated a higher complaint rate. The tables measure cases referred to the independent dispute service, not all complaints received by regulated firms, all dissatisfied customers or all opened CFD accounts. A consumer may complain directly to a broker and resolve a dispute without reaching the Ombudsman. Others may not bring a complaint at all. The figures identify a shift in one adjudication pipeline, not the incidence of every possible problem among UK traders.[1][2][3]

A second and easily missed finding concerns the percentages presented beside those new cases. The Ombudsman's 2025/26 table shows an 18% uphold rate for CFDs and 18% for spread betting. Those rates concern complaints resolved during the year, not necessarily the same complaints newly received. Multiplying 329 new cases by 18% and announcing that precisely 59 complaints were upheld would mix two different populations. The numerical result looks neat but is not established by the source. A proper count of upheld cases would require the corresponding number of resolved complaints in each product cohort and any publication rounding.[1][2]

The original two-year reconstruction

The starting point is the classification used by the service itself. In 2024/25, the Ombudsman reported 220 new CFD cases and 50 spread-betting cases, making 270 in the two categories. In 2025/26 it received 260 CFD complaints and 69 spread-betting complaints, making 329. The CFD increase is 40 cases or 18.2%; the spread-betting increase is 19 cases or 38.0%. The total rises by 59 or 21.85%, rounded here to 21.9%. These are changes in counts under corresponding published product labels, not a statement about the number of trades or value of positions.[1][2]

The exact all-product decrease was 91,077 cases, or 29.8%. The CFD-and-spread-bet increase was only 59 cases against that much larger institutional movement. The service identifies substantial changes in other product and representation categories affecting its total inflows. Comparing directions is informative, but it does not establish that a common factor drove both series or that the wider decline was the benchmark leveraged trading ought to have followed.[1][2]

The narrow CFD-and-spread-betting total represented only about 0.15% of all new Ombudsman complaints in 2025/26. That is an arithmetically accurate scale indicator based on 329 divided by the reported total of 214,649. It is not the proportion of UK broker users who complained. The denominator encompasses all kinds of finance disputes, from current accounts and motor finance to insurance and pensions. By putting the small product-specific count beside a system-wide population, the ratio can convey administrative scale, but it cannot estimate a firm's customer-conduct risk.[1]

Another potential source of confusion is that the Ombudsman lists rolling spot forex in the derivatives table separately and suppresses its small incoming count as fewer than ten. Other derivatives are likewise listed separately. The 329 cases therefore cover only the two categories explicitly added; they are not a verified total for all retail FX, options, futures or trading complaints. Nor may one safely replace the suppressed less-than-ten value with nine, five or zero and calculate a precise all-derivatives total. The correct formulation is that at least the two specified lines sum to 329, with other separate categories outside the constructed comparison.[1][2]

An apparent improvement in uphold rates is a separate finding

For CFD complaints, the published uphold percentage moved from 29% in 2024/25 to 18% in 2025/26, a decline of eleven percentage points. Spread betting moved from 22% to 18%, a four-point decline. This is interesting precisely because the number of incoming cases in both categories increased. The pair of developments is not a contradiction: new complaints and resolved complaints are different cohorts, and the Ombudsman may resolve older cases, settle some earlier in the process or face a different mix of allegations. Nothing in the table establishes that the 2025/26 intake itself had an 18% chance of success.[1][2]

An uphold rate also is not a probability that a random trade was mishandled. It measures the outcome of a subset of disputes that reached and were resolved through the service. Selection effects can be large: consumers may be more likely to seek external review in some circumstances; firms may settle certain complaints before adjudication; legal issues and factual evidence may differ by dispute type. The Ombudsman presents percentages as an accountability and insight tool, not as a complete statistical audit of the leveraged-trading market.[1][2][3]

The cross-year decline in uphold percentages should not be reported as an 11% improvement in CFD broker conduct. Moving from 29% to 18% is eleven percentage points, not eleven percent of the original number. It represents a relative decline of about 38% in the published percentage measure, but even that arithmetic does not determine the direction of underlying compliance standards without matching resolved cohorts, issue types and firm populations. A changed mix of cases, evidence or legal questions could produce the measured decline with unchanged industry conduct.[1][2]

Nor does 18% uphold mean the other 82% were fraudulent, malicious or baseless complaints. Some customers may not prove the particular claim, while others may disagree reasonably with a provider's commercial conduct without establishing a legal or regulatory breach. Complaints can be resolved through processes with different outcomes and factual bases. The service's consumer guidance explains that it weighs legal rules, relevant terms, the communications made to customers and the trading record. Each case is decided on its own merits.[3]

What a CFD dispute actually asks the adjudicator to examine

The Ombudsman's specific guidance on spread betting and CFDs points to several evidence categories: the agreement between the customer and financial business, regulatory requirements, product documents, any investment advice, what a firm promised to do, and the history of the trades in question. This is why a trader's loss, however painful, does not automatically translate into a complaint that should be upheld. A leveraged position can lose money because the market moves against it, with no broker error. A complaint may become substantively different if the trader alleges an order was handled contrary to the published terms, a margin process was applied unfairly, a promised safeguard did not work or information was misrepresented.[3]

The distinction affects brokers as well as consumers. A firm cannot infer that a low upheld percentage proves there was no operational problem in the complaints it received directly. Conversely, an independent adjudication against a firm in one dispute does not establish that its whole client base was harmed. Systemic assessments require comparative facts, an appropriate population and documented decisions. The annual FOS table groups products rather than reporting a named firm's exposures, trading volumes, leverage mix, client losses or number of active retail accounts. It does not support ranking brokers on conduct quality.[1][2][3]

There is also a legal-entity problem. Retail brokers often operate under multiple regulated subsidiaries in different countries. Some customers are served by a UK-authorised firm; others may be customers of an offshore entity operating a similarly branded platform. The UK Financial Ombudsman's remit and eligibility rules cannot be inferred from branding alone. Neither a global client count nor a worldwide reported customer-loss percentage would provide a valid denominator for the UK cases on this table without establishing which customers and products fall within the service's jurisdiction.[3]

Plausible reasons for the divergence — none yet proved

One possible explanation for the rise in leveraged-product referrals is a change in how investors use CFDs and spread bets, including market volatility, participation or disputed execution and financing costs. Another is an operational or marketing change at one or more providers. A third is a change in propensity to escalate unresolved disputes. The public tables do not break these possibilities apart. They contain no product-level active account counts, turnover or breakdown of complaint causes sufficient to identify what drove the increase. It would be wrong to attribute the 59 additional cases to manipulation, slippage or misconduct without separate evidence.[1][2]

A different explanation may account for the overall national decline. The Ombudsman notes substantial changes in motor-finance and professionally represented complaints during the year, which affected total inflows across the institution. Comparing the CFD categories with that much larger and compositionally different system makes the divergence newsworthy, but it does not establish that leveraged trading was uniquely deteriorating. Changes in the denominator of the comparison may produce an apparent contrast even where one small sector is relatively stable. In absolute terms, 59 extra product cases are significant enough to merit scrutiny but not enough to support dramatic claims about nationwide harm.[1][2]

Even the two leveraged-product categories need to be kept distinct. Spread betting and CFDs may be economically related but can differ in tax treatment, legal structure and platform distribution. A broker may offer both, either or neither. Their year-on-year increments were different: CFDs accounted for 40 of the 59 extra cases, spread betting for 19. An aggregate 21.9% increase does not show the faster percentage growth from the smaller spread-betting base. Because the source categories are explicit and match across years, combining them can illuminate an industry trend while the separate lines preserve the precision needed for policy interpretation.[1][2]

What further reporting can establish

The next evidence needed is a matched account of the cases: when they arose, what conduct was disputed, which eligible legal entities received them and how the cases were resolved. Active-customer counts for the same products and periods would also be necessary to estimate a referral rate. Without those denominators, the public data establish a rise in referred cases, not the probability that an individual customer's trading relationship produced a complaint.[1][2][3]

The two annual tables therefore support two separate findings. New CFD and spread-bet referrals increased, while the reported uphold percentages for resolved complaints in both categories fell to 18%. Neither finding cancels the other, because incoming and resolved cases are not the same cohort. For consumers and firms, that distinction is the difference between a useful measure of complaints entering the system and an unsupported claim about the outcome of those new cases.[1][2][3]

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