A: Financial Spreads uses the Capital Spreads platform so the spreads and markets available will be the same; in fact they share the same staff. Same goes for the other numerous white-labelled London Capital Group brands like dealingdesk.co.uk, webtradeindia.com, finansbet.com, tradefair..etc (full list below)...
My guess is it works like this: Two experienced punters have decided they can do some marketing and get clients signed up to trade CFDs, Forex or spreads. They approached London Capital Group for a commission and wanted to label the London Capital Group platform. All work would be done by London Capital Group except that the 'experienced traders' would market the new brand. In return they will receive a commission on the spread from London Capital Group.
Surprised? If you go to the FSA web site and enter City Index's FSA regulation number 113942 and then Names at the top you will see the following alternative names for City Index:
Registered Names of City Index Limited
City Index Limited
Barclays Stockbrokers Advisory CFDs
Barclays Stockbrokers CFDs
Barclays Stockbrokers Financial Spread Trading
Barclays Wealth CFDs
Easy2spreadbet
Finspreads
FinspreadsCFD
FXSolutions UK
Galvan Derivative Trading
GTS
GTS Trader
Halifax CFDs
Halifax CFDs and Spread Trading
Halifax Spread Trading
IFX
IFX Direct
IFX Markets
Iweb CFDs
IWeb CFDs and Spread Trading
IWeb Spread Trading
TwoWayTrade CFDs
City Index is an extremely well managed company with obvious connections in the city; and as you can see a whole lot of stockbrokers have signed up to use it as the basis of their own client CFD/spread betting service.
This is not uncommon and Capital Spreads will also do it if you have an active client base. If I were a UK broker and losing clients to CFDs and spreads I would actually do the same to protect my income stream and in fact this is what Selftrade have done with Selftrade Markets (a clone of Capital Spreads - same markets and spreads as both companies are run by London Capital Group).
Registered Names of London Capital Group Ltd -:
London Capital Group
247 Markets
Accendo Trading
Capital CFDs
Capital Derivatives
Capital Forex
Capital Forex Pro
Capital Spreads
DealingDesk
Financial Spreads
Finansbet
FirstSpreads
FXcel
Goodbody Trader
Guardian Spread Trading
InterTrader
Intertrader.com
JPJ Spreads
LCG FX
LCG Markets
LCG Metatrader
Pelican Spreads
Precision Financial Markets
QTrade FX MT4
Savi FX
Saxo Bank
Financial Spreads
SC Market
Selftrade Markets
Spread Trader (DK)
Spreadlink
TD Financial Spread Trading
Tradefair Spreads
TradeWise Spreads
Twowayspreads
Web Trade India
XTB Spreads
Secondary Brands
Spread Co: Devere Group, LSE Spreads, Prime Spreads
CMC Markets: RBS, NatWest, Hoodless Brennan
See here for a more complete list of white labels and promotions (pdf format) including the trade names of the spreadbetting companies (correct as at October 2012).
If I were someone like Vince Stanzione with 'thousands of happy clients' this would be a great little earner if you can direct all the new punters to trade with your firm. And same goes with World Spreads and its host of clones including ixspreads.com, alpeshpatelspreads.com, twowayspreads.com and portspreadbetting.com!
Wealth managers and traditional brokerage incumbents are also moving in with their own spread betting and CFD trading white label sites in response to their clients demands for such services. In such cases what happens is that either the broker brand is put on the front-end of say, the City Index platform so that this is hidden or if broker houses aren't worried about the branding issue, then CityIndex will underwrite the full risk. From a house broker's perspective, they avoid having to meet stringent capital requirements as the product is actually being provided by a third party and they do not have to build the platforms.
Personally, I can't see the benefit of adding another middleman in...
At one time I did consider using the Barclays CFD service, and thought, (before the credit crunch!! ) maybe so my account would be more secure, with the financial strength of Barclays behind it?? So I gave them a call (this was about 3/4 years ago) and asked them, if City Index were to go belly up (not that I'm suggesting that's going to happen) what would happen to my funds, would my account monies be backed by Barclays? They discussed amongst themselves for a while, and told me that my recourse would be to the Financial Service Compensation Scheme.
In these turbulent times, it's definitely worth knowing exactly who you're dealing with, and how financially robust they are. Personally, I mainly trade with listed providers like Capital Spreads and IG Index whom being exchange listed have to report everything to the public.
The content of this site is copyright 2016 Financial Spread Betting Ltd. Please contact us if you wish to reproduce any of it.
