The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
Plus500 is an online trading broker built around its own proprietary technology platform, WebTrader plus native mobile apps, that lets retail and professional clients trade contracts for difference (CFDs) on forex, indices, commodities, shares, ETFs, options and cryptocurrencies. Outside the core CFD business it runs Plus500 Invest for share dealing, and through its 2021 acquisition of Cunningham Commodities LLC and Cunningham Trading Systems LLC it offers exchange-traded futures and options on futures to US clients, a non-CFD product line the company reports crossed $100 million in annual revenue for the first time in 2025. The group is listed on the London Stock Exchange's Main Market and is a constituent of the FTSE 250. The firm differentiates less on price than on owning its technology stack in house rather than licensing a third-party platform, a common practice among smaller CFD brokers, and on running a large number of separately licensed regional subsidiaries so it can adapt to local regulatory regimes rather than serving every market from one entity. It describes itself as debt-free since inception and highly cash generative, and has used that balance sheet to buy regulated brokerages in new geographies, most recently in India and Indonesia, rather than depending on a single-market retail funnel; that acquisition-led geographic diversification, plus the US futures business, sets it apart from CFD-only rivals concentrated in the EU, UK and Australia. Plus500 was founded in Israel in 2008 by six Technion alumni, Alon Gonen, Gal Haber, Elad Ben Yitzhak, Omer Elazari, Shlomi Weizman and Shimon Sofer, starting as Windows desktop software before moving to web and mobile (iOS in 2011, Android in 2012). It listed on London's AIM market in 2013 and moved up to the LSE Main Market and the FTSE 250 in 2018. The company has faced real regulatory scrutiny along the way: the UK FCA fined its UK subsidiary over inaccurate transaction reporting in 2012, and in May 2015 the FCA froze all Plus500UK client accounts during an anti-money-laundering review, roughly halving the group's market capitalisation at the time. It now holds licenses from more than a dozen regulators, including the UK FCA, Cyprus's CySEC, Australia's ASIC, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Dubai's DFSA and Canada's CIRO, and states it has over 33 million registered customers since inception across roughly 65 countries. For full year 2025 it reported revenue of 792.4 million dollars, up from 768.3 million dollars in 2024, and net profit of 281.3 million dollars, ending the year with roughly 0.8 billion dollars in cash and no debt. In March 2025 Plus500 agreed to acquire Mehta Equities Limited, an Indian brokerage regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India with memberships on the NSE, BSE, MCX, MSE and NCDEX, for approximately 20 million dollars, aimed at Indian futures, cash equities and wealth management. In December 2025 it entered Indonesia by acquiring the locally licensed broker Global Intra Berjangka, becoming regulated there by Bappebti, the country's futures and commodities regulator; both moves extend the acquisition-led expansion strategy that also produced its 2021 entry into US futures.
