The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
CFI Financial Group is an online brokerage offering leveraged CFD and margin trading across forex, single-stock CFDs, indices, commodities, ETFs, futures and cryptocurrency CFDs, alongside direct local stock trading on exchanges such as the Dubai Financial Market. It lists more than 15,000 tradable instruments, including around 80 forex pairs, roughly 3,000 share CFDs and hundreds of ETFs, and gives clients access through MetaTrader 5, cTrader, TradingView, a proprietary multi-asset platform, and a mobile app built around its "Kaiana" AI trading assistant. It also supports code-free algorithmic trading via a Capitalise.ai integration. The group differentiates itself through the breadth of its regulatory footprint rather than a single-market focus: it operates upward of a dozen licensed entities spanning the UK (FCA, license 828955), Cyprus (CySEC, license 179/12), South Africa (FSCA, license 53711), the UAE (SCA), Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt, Colombia, Brazil, Azerbaijan and Mauritius (FSC, license C161178), among others, positioning itself as a Tier-1-regulated option for retail and professional traders in over 100 countries who might otherwise use an offshore-only broker. It operates as a market maker, offers zero minimum deposit, leverage up to 1:500 depending on jurisdiction, and negative balance protection with segregated client funds across its entities. The brand traces to Credit Financier Invest SAL, a Lebanese financial firm founded in 1998; the CFI Financial Group brokerage brand was established in Beirut in 2015 by co-founders Hisham Mansour and Eduardo Fakhoury as an international expansion of that business, and the group relocated its primary headquarters to Dubai, UAE in 2017. Ziad Melhem became Group CEO in June 2025, with Mansour and Fakhoury moving into chairman and vice chairman roles. The firm reported around $6.4 trillion in total trading volume across 2025 and employs roughly 500 staff across more than 30 offices globally. Its Cyprus entity was fined 150,000 euros by CySEC in May 2022 over anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing rule breaches, and Oman's Financial Services Authority revoked the license of CFI Financial LLC in September 2025 for non-compliance with AML requirements and marketing non-Omani securities outside its license scope. CFI has built a high-profile sponsorship portfolio to support its retail brand, including a shirt/marketing partnership with Paris Saint-Germain FC (through June 2026), sponsorship of the Nissan e.dams Formula E team, ambassador deals with Lewis Hamilton and Maria Sharapova, and status as official trading partner of the EuroLeague Final Four and Abu Dhabi's Etihad Arena. In 2026 it launched direct trading access to more than 40 Dubai Financial Market-listed local stocks for regional investors, extending its offering beyond CFDs into cash equities on its home exchange.
