The companies, products and regulatory developments shaping the broker industry.
The FCA’s client-assets rules distinguish written notice about cash interest from prior consent to securities lending. Both sit alongside Consumer Duty conditions, with specific collateral and record-keeping safeguards for lending.
Goldman reported $78.50bn owed by brokers and clearing organisations, $146.49bn of customer and counterparty receivables, and separate cash and securities held for regulatory and other purposes. Their different growth rates are not a reserve-coverage test.
Comparing ASIC’s separate GFA suspension and Trive cancellation reveals two different legal tests, a still-live review request, and safeguards that continue despite a firm’s change of status.
The FCA record required Zeal’s UK company to close positions and seek permission cancellation. International terms name a separate Seychelles company; the documents do not establish a transfer of UK customers.
CMC Markets ended its 2026 financial year with £1.15 billion of segregated client money, £454 million more than a year earlier, yet income on client funds declined 3.7%. The divergence shows why closing balances, average balances, rates and customer pass-through cannot be collapsed into a single apparent yield.
IG’s transitional seven-month accounts reveal a regional earnings imbalance: the United States produced 52.6% of client-fund interest but 19.0% of trading revenue. FXBrokers.ai mapped the group’s £5.0 billion customer-cash ecosystem to show why rates, custody structure and pass-through policy now matter alongside trading activity.
The FCA now requires written notice and Consumer Duty compatibility before a firm retains retail client-money interest. CMC’s £23.4m group revenue line shows the economics can be material, but its closing balance cannot be used as a yield denominator.
CMC’s customer-money pool grew 65% to £1.1491bn while recognised group cash rose 12% to £276.5m. The accounts show why the two balances cannot be combined—and why the missing average balance prevents a credible yield calculation.
Saxo’s client-assets measure reached DKK1.144 trillion while reported assets were DKK113.644 billion. The tenfold gap is not evidence of unreported balance-sheet leverage: it reflects a metric that crosses custody assets, client securities and cash-deposit accounting boundaries.
Trading 212 UK Limited ended 2025 with a balance-sheet constituency that expanded much faster than the income statement. Segregated client money rose from £6.94 billion to £17.92 billion and client custody assets from £6.57 billion to £14.57 billion. Together, the two year-end measures increased from about £13.51 billion to £32.49 billion, or roughly 140.5%. Revenue rose 71.7% to £277.63 million.
CMC’s profit increased, but its growth required substantially more collateral at brokers and produced much weaker operating cash conversion. The largest customer-money pool remained safeguarded outside the balance sheet and unavailable as corporate liquidity.
Gross client-fund interest was almost flat, but the expense passed to customers rose 92%, reducing net interest despite a larger cash base.
Marex disclosed US$12.71bn of segregated client money at June, but recognised only US$2.08bn as an asset. Separately, net interest supplied 48.7% of third-quarter clearing revenue as average client balances rose 41%.
A newly announced banking agreement is already operational for Capital Vault affiliates in Cyprus and the UAE, covering fiat settlement and client-money services.
A new institutional banking arrangement supports the Capital Vault entities' fiat settlement and client-money arrangements; it is not a blanket licence or a change to every Capital.com account.