Is IG Safe? A Verdict After 20 Safety Checks

IG is a legitimate, well-regulated broker, not a scam. We checked 20 safety factors, and it scored 87/100. Our verdict draws on hundreds of hours of testing, plus IG’s licenses, its public accounts, court records, and 10,000+ user reviews.

Written By
Christian Harris

Fact Checked By
Tobias Robinson

Edited By
James Barra

Updated
October 2, 2026

IG Safety Assessment

To judge IG’s safety, we rated it from 0 to 5 on 20 measures, from its 10+ regulatory licenses and PwC-audited accounts to withdrawal complaints and the protections offered by its different brands. Combined, those ratings give IG a score out of 100.

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IG Safety Assessment
Metric	Score (0-5)	IG Details
1. Regulated	5/5	Yes – IG’s companies are licensed in multiple jurisdictions, including the FCA in the UK for IG Markets Ltd (FRN 195355), IG Index Ltd (FRN 114059) and IG Trading and Investments Ltd (FRN 944492), plus BaFin (IG Europe GmbH), FINMA (IG Bank S.A.), ASIC (IG Australia Pty Ltd, AFSL 515106), MAS (IG Asia Pte Ltd), the JFSA (IG Securities Ltd, Kanto No. 255), the DFSA, (IG Limited, F001780), New Zealand’s FMA (IG Australia Pty Ltd), the CFTC/NFA (tastyfx, NFA ID 0509630) and FINRA (tastytrade). The weak link is IG International Ltd, licensed by the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), which offers leverage up to 1:200 and doesn’t carry UK, EU, or Australian-level retail protections.
2. Investor Compensation Schemes	4/5	Yes – but it depends on the entity. UK clients get FSCS cover up to £85,000 if IG fails, and up to £120,000 if one of its banks fails. EU clients of IG Europe get 90% of a claim up to €20,000 through EdW, and Swiss clients get up to CHF 100,000 through esisuisse (IG). In the US, tastytrade securities accounts carry SIPC cover up to $500,000, but its futures and crypto accounts don’t, and tastyfx forex deposits have no regulatory protection. Australian, Singapore, Dubai and New Zealand accounts have no scheme, and UK crypto isn’t protected.
3. Age	5/5	Founded in 1974 as IG Index, the world’s first spread betting firm. That’s over 50 years of trading through the 2008 crash and the 2015 Swiss franc shock. Scam investment brokers often disappear within weeks or months.
4. Listed On Stock Exchange	5/5	Yes – IG Group Holdings plc trades in London under IGG and sits in the FTSE 100. A plan to move the parent company to Jersey keeps the London listing.
5. Registered As A Bank	3/5	Partly – IG Bank S.A. in Geneva is a Swiss bank that holds restricted cash under FINMA’s privileged deposit scheme. But many of its companies/entities aren’t banks, so most IG clients don’t benefit from bank-level capital rules.
6. Third-Party User Reviews	3.5/5	IG holds roughly 3.5+/5 Trustpilot score from around 10,100 reviews, with approximately 55% five-star and 20% one-star. IG invites customers to review and pays for a Trustpilot subscription. Praise centres on the platform and polite staff, while criticism centres on phone waits and slow emails.
7. Withdrawal Complaints	4/5	Isolated. One reviewer says a withdrawal stalled for over two weeks after IG flagged a bank statement as altered. A settlement glitch took money from around 50 clients’ accounts, and refunds took more than a week. We found no sign of blocked withdrawals at scale and some withdrawal complaints, while always serious, are found at virtually all brokers we’ve tested.
8. Handling Of Complaints	4.5/5	IG replies to over 80% of negative Trustpilot reviews from our checks, usually within a week, and clients in some regions can escalate to external bodies, e.g. to the Financial Ombudsman Service in the UK. After the 2015 Swiss franc shock, an Ombudsman ruling led IG to adjust client accounts at cost of about £1 million. It also refunded clients hit by a margin error on short oil options.
9. Regulatory Fines & Infractions	3/5	Its US arm tastytrade was fined $850,000 by FINRA over best-execution reviews, after a $30,000 FINRA fine. In Australia, IG was one of seven CFD issuers that self-reported selling CFDs above ASIC’s leverage caps; ASIC said the seven had together repaid AU$4.3 million to over 1,500 clients, without giving IG’s share. A consolidated class action over CFD sales is ongoing, and a court voided IG’s manifest-error clause, costing it AU$5.5 million.
10. Accounts Audited By Big Four	5/5	Yes – PricewaterhouseCoopers audits IG Group. For example, its opinion on the accounts for the seven months to 31 December 2025 was unqualified, and it reviewed the H1 2026 interim figures.
11. Hands-On Testing Experience	4/5	I’ve personally traded real money with IG for over five years without a problem with deposits, withdrawals, the platform or support. IG’s published EUR/USD averages of 0.85 pips in core hours and 1.04 pips across the week sit well above its 0.6-pip minimum. A wide range of platforms include IG’s excellent proprietary web platform and mobile app, MT4, MT5, ProRealTime, TradingView and L2 Dealer, but there’s no support for cTrader. Guaranteed stop loss orders (GSLOs) are also supported in some regions on select markets.
12. Working Support	4.5/5	Live chat, WhatsApp and phone run 24/7 except 10pm Friday to 8am Saturday UK time, plus email and telephone. Our experience has been generally positive, although occasionally we have experienced long queues, including a call that dropped.
13. Security	3.5/5	IG offers app-based two-factor authentication and biometric login, but 2FA is optional and doesn’t work with MT4. IG’s Japanese arm disclosed that 162,879 clients’ data was reachable by unauthorised staff inside the group, with 29,734 records on an outside server; it found no external leak. The FCA has flagged an IG clone (’ictmarket24.com’), and scammers have used lookalike domains such as ‘ig-global.vip’. Only log in at ‘ig.com’.
14. Realistic Marketing	5/5	Region-specific IG websites show regulatory mandated warnings, e.g. the percentage of losing retail CFD traders in the EU and UK. The broker publishes transparent pricing with average spreads and makes clear professional accounts with lower margins strip out negative balance protection.
15. Industry Reputation	4/5	Well-respected and IG has many awards from multiple industry bodies. Its record also includes platform outages during volatile markets, when some clients couldn’t manage positions.
16. Segregated Retail Client Accounts	5/5	Yes – retail cash sits in trust accounts at banks including Barclays and Lloyds in the UK, or in qualifying money market funds, under FCA CASS rules. Similar rules apply in other tightly regulated jurisdictions where IG operates. Professional clients on title-transfer terms lose this segregation.
17. Negative Balance Protection (NBP)	4.5/5	Yes – for retail clients but not in the US. If a spread bet or CFD account falls below zero, IG resets it at no cost. Professional clients don’t get it, and non-UK/EU entities follow local rules instead.
18. Number Of Clients	5/5	IG Group serves over 1.4 million customers across its brands. It had 843,600 active customers at 30 June 2026.
19. Transparent Fees	4.5/5	Its charges page lists spreads, overnight funding (IG adds 1.5% for FX and 3.4% for other spread bets), 0.8% currency conversion on leveraged trades and 0.7% on share-dealing FX. There’s no inactivity or withdrawal fee. SIPPs in the UK carry a £205 yearly fee from administrator Options Pensions.
20. Company Transparency	5/5	IG names its CEO and CFO, publishes half-year and annual results, and lists entity numbers in its site footers. IG will set out a refreshed strategy on 22 October 2026, after announcing a proposed Jersey move and the $1.1 billion Underdog deal that takes IG into US prediction markets.
Total	87/100

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IG online trading platform from testing

IG In The United States

IG Group has a large US business, but it follows different rules than the rest of the group. US regulations prevent retail clients from trading CFDs and spread bets, so ig.com does not accept US residents. Instead, IG serves Americans through separate US brands.

How IG operates in The US:

Forex trading (tastyfx): For forex trading, tastyfx, LLC is a CFTC-registered retail foreign exchange dealer and an NFA member (ID 0509630). It started as IG US in 2019 and changed its name to tastyfx in June 2024. US residents can trade over 80 currency pairs there, but not CFDs, shares, or crypto.
Stocks, options, and futures (tastytrade): IG bought Chicago-based tastytrade, Inc. (formerly tastyworks) for $1 billion, completing the deal on 28 June 2021. tastytrade is a FINRA, SIPC, and NFA member offering US stocks, ETFs, options, futures, and crypto, plus prediction markets launched in 2026. SIPC covers securities accounts up to $500,000, including $250,000 in cash, but it doesn’t cover futures or crypto accounts.

Key differences for US traders:

If you open an account with tastyfx or tastytrade, your terms differ sharply from an IG account in the UK, EU or other regions:

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Key Differences For US Traders
Feature	IG UK / EU	tastyfx (US)	tastytrade (US)
Available products	Spread bets (UK and Ireland only), CFDs, shares, and UK ISAs and SIPPs	Spot forex only, 80+ pairs	US stocks, ETFs, options, futures and crypto, plus prediction markets
Regulator	FCA (UK), BaFin (EU)	CFTC and NFA	SEC and FINRA, plus NFA for futures
Maximum retail leverage	1:30 on major FX pairs	1:50 on major pairs, 1:20 on others	1:2 on standard margin, about 1:6.7 with portfolio margin; futures use exchange-set margin
Client money protection	Segregated trust accounts, plus FSCS up to £85,000 or EdW up to €20,000	None: deposits can be commingled and may rank as an unsecured claim if the dealer fails; no SIPC cover	SIPC up to $500,000, including $250,000 cash; futures segregated at Apex Clearing; crypto not covered
Negative balance protection	Yes, for retail clients	No, losses can exceed deposits	No, you’re liable for any deficit
Retail accounts losing money	69% on spread bets and CFDs (will vary over time)	65.5% of 8,801 active accounts, Q2 2026	Not published
Who can open an account	UK and EEA residents, by entity	US residents, except Ohio	US residents and those in eligible countries

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The US setup is fully regulated, but a tastyfx balance has far less protection than the same cash at IG UK for example. If you trade forex from the US, we recommend you keep only active margin with the dealer.

You can learn more in our guide to whether IG is a legal and available trading broker in the United States.

Professional Opinion

I’d happily hold a trading balance with IG. The broker going bust isn’t what worries me.

On safety, IG sits near the top of the retail market. It has over 50 years of history, three FCA-authorised UK companies, PwC-audited accounts, and had £779.1 million of regulatory capital at 30 June 2026, more than double its £328.8 million requirement (H1 2026 results). Client cash sits in segregated trust accounts, and retail clients in some regions may get access to an investor compensation scheme in the event of broker insolvency.

I’ve personally traded with IG using real money for over five years without a single significant problem with deposits, withdrawals, the platform, or support.

The real danger is the product: The majority of IG’s retail spread bet and CFD accounts lose money. The group is also changing fast, with a proposed move to Jersey, a $1.1 billion Underdog acquisition that takes it into US prediction markets, two FINRA fines at tastytrade, and a data-handling lapse in Japan. None makes IG unsafe for clients, but all are worth watching.

Before you open an account, check which IG company you’re signing with because an IG International account in Bermuda carries no negative balance protection or investor compensation cover. Turn on 2FA, skip professional status unless you accept losing more than you deposit, and only log in at ‘ig.com’.

Start on the demo, use a stop-loss on every leveraged trade, and test a small withdrawal before adding more.

Safest Alternatives To IG

While IG is a legitimate, well-regulated broker, other firms might be better for you if you want bank-level capital rules or compensation cover in every country they operate. See our list of the safest brokers for online trading.

If safety is your main concern, start with a demo account when trying a new broker. When you switch to real money, fund a small balance and test a withdrawal before adding more.

After reviewing IG’s regulatory licenses, financial filings, court records, and feedback from over 10,000 reviewers, we believe IG is one of the more secure brokers available. However, no broker is ever 100% safe because leveraged trading and running a brokerage always involve risk.