The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
Interactive Brokers is a Nasdaq-listed electronic brokerage (ticker IBKR) that gives retail and institutional clients direct market access to stocks, ETFs, options, futures, bonds, mutual funds, spot forex, cryptocurrency, contracts for difference and prediction market contracts through its Trader Workstation platform, mobile and web apps, and a full API stack for algorithmic trading. As of June 2026 it reported 5.185 million client accounts and $930.3 billion in client equity, with 5.269 million daily average revenue trades (DARTs) for the month. Within the CFD and forex category its main differentiator is pricing structure: rather than embedding cost in a dealer spread as most retail CFD and forex brokers do, Interactive Brokers charges a transparent, separately itemized commission on top of pass-through interbank or exchange pricing, with forex commissions starting near 0.2 basis points of trade value (roughly $2 minimum per order side) and falling for high-volume traders. Its CFDs are issued by Interactive Brokers entities and are not available to legal residents of the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand or Israel, so the CFD business serves an international client base of active and professional traders rather than the retail-heavy customer mix typical of dealing-desk CFD brokers. The firm operates two account tiers, IBKR Lite (commission-free US stock and ETF trades for eligible retail investors) and IBKR Pro (fixed or tiered commission pricing with direct market routing), and targets active traders, financial advisors, hedge funds and other institutions alongside retail users. The company traces to 1977, when founder Thomas Peterffy, a Hungarian immigrant who had been designing commodity trading software, bought an individual market-making seat on the American Stock Exchange; he incorporated his market-making firm, T.P. & Co., the following year, renamed it Timber Hill in 1982, and formed Interactive Brokers LLC in 1993 as the retail and institutional brokerage arm built on Timber Hill's execution technology. The company went public on Nasdaq on May 3, 2007. Peterffy remains chairman and, through IBG Holdings LLC, the majority owner; Milan Galik has served as president and CEO since 2019. Interactive Brokers LLC is a member of NYSE, FINRA and SIPC in the United States, and its affiliates are separately regulated in other jurisdictions including the UK (FCA), Ireland (Central Bank of Ireland), Canada (CIRO), Australia (ASIC), Singapore (MAS), Hong Kong (SFC) and Japan (JFSA). Interactive Brokers joined the S&P 500 index in August 2025. For full-year 2025 the group reported revenue of $6.205 billion and net income of $4.357 billion, on a base that had grown to 4.40 million accounts and $779.9 billion in client equity by December 31, 2025, figures that continued climbing through mid-2026 per its monthly metrics disclosures.
