The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
Skilling is a CFD and forex broker offering leveraged trading in currency pairs, stock CFDs, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies. Clients trade through Skilling's own proprietary Skilling Trader platform or through MetaTrader 4, cTrader and a TradingView integration that lets users place CFD trades directly from TradingView's charting interface. The firm advertises more than 1,200 CFD instruments, including roughly 70 currency pairs and several hundred equity CFDs, alongside spreads it markets as starting from 0.1 pips. The company's EU business operates as Skilling Ltd, licensed by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CIF license 357/18, granted 7 May 2018) and headquartered at 62 Athalassas Avenue in Strovolos, Nicosia. A separate UK branch has operated under FCA authorisation since January 2020. Its offshore business, previously Skilling Seychelles Ltd under a Seychelles FSA licence obtained in 2020, was rebranded to TradingMoon in 2025 and now serves clients outside the EU and UK under that name, while the Skilling brand continues for CySEC-regulated EU clients. This split between a retail-facing proprietary platform, third-party platforms for more advanced traders, and separately licensed EU versus offshore entities is a common structure among mid-sized European CFD brokers competing against larger multi-asset brokers. Skilling was founded in 2016 by Swedish entrepreneurs Henrik Persson Ekdahl and Mikael Riese Harstad and Norwegian entrepreneur Andre Lavold, backed by Optimizer Invest, a Malta-based investment group the same three founders had set up in 2012 with a background in iGaming and online consumer businesses. The company first incorporated in Malta in mid-2016 before establishing its regulated Cyprus entity in 2017. In 2019 it signed a shirt-sponsorship deal with English football club Fulham for the 2019/20 season as part of an early push into the UK, Swedish, Norwegian and German markets. In October 2025, an investor group led by Marc Joppeck, a board member of the INFINOX group, announced an agreement to acquire Skilling from its prior ownership, subject to regulatory approval; the companies said Skilling would keep its brand while gaining access to INFINOX's technology and compliance infrastructure.
