The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
ThinkMarkets is a multi-asset online brokerage, trading under the TF Global Markets group, that lets retail and active traders speculate on CFDs, forex and, in the UK, spread betting across more than 4,000 instruments spanning currency pairs, indices, commodities, metals, share CFDs, ETFs and cryptocurrency CFDs. Clients trade through the company's proprietary ThinkTrader platform, MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, or TradingView, and can open a commission-free Standard account or a raw-spread ThinkZero account priced per lot for scalpers and algorithmic traders. The firm was launched in Auckland, New Zealand in 2010 as ThinkForex, moved its base to Melbourne in 2012 after securing an Australian Securities and Investments Commission license, opened in London in 2015 to obtain UK Financial Conduct Authority authorisation, and adopted the ThinkMarkets name in 2016. It differentiates on regulatory breadth rather than a single market niche: its operating entities hold licenses from the FCA (629628), ASIC (AFSL 424700), CySEC (215/13), Japan's FSA and South Africa's FSCA (FSP 49835), plus an offshore Seychelles FSA license, letting it onboard clients across roughly 165 countries under whichever entity fits their jurisdiction. ThinkMarkets was co-founded by brothers Nauman Anees, who remains CEO, and Faizan Anees. The company reported $62 million in revenue for 2022, up 24 percent year over year, and about 138,500 clients at the time it agreed a reverse-merger business combination with the Nasdaq-listed SPAC FG Acquisition Corp in May 2023 that valued the group at a $160 million pre-money valuation; the two sides mutually terminated that agreement in early 2024 without completing a public listing. The company operates from offices including London, Melbourne, Dubai and Chicago, with headcount reported at over 200. In June 2026 ThinkMarkets launched ChelseaAI, connecting live ThinkTrader accounts to AI assistants including Claude, ChatGPT and Grok through the Model Context Protocol. The integration exposes 26 tools for checking positions, placing and modifying orders and reading market data, offers separate read-only and full-trading permission tiers, times out sessions after seven days or 24 hours of inactivity, and explicitly excludes any access to deposits or withdrawals.
