What does IG do with my money and my assets?

Unlike banks, trading providers like IG are required to separate client money and assets from their own resources. This means that we’re not allowed to use them in the course of our business activities, and that client money and assets are completely ring-fenced and protected in the unlikely event that IG became insolvent.

IG is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA have strict regulatory requirements, known as the client money and client assets rules (found in the Client Assets Sourcebook – CASS), which govern exactly what we can do and how we do it.

We may place funds in notice or term deposit accounts, which require a notice period of up to 95 days for withdrawals. This does not in itself affect your ability to deal with or withdraw funds from your account with us, however such amounts may not be immediately available upon request.

Under the FCA’s CASS Rules we may also place client money in Qualifying Money Market Funds. A Qualifying Money Market Fund is mostly made up of low-risk investments such as government bonds and the primary objective of the fund is to maintain the value.

What makes it “qualifying” is that the QMMF must meet higher regulatory standards for quality and liquidity than other money market funds.

QMMFs offer an alternative way for IG to hold your client money funds without compromising their security. They are a standard tool used by large financial institutions to diversify credit risk.

Where client money is placed in QMMFs, the units or shares in those QMMFs will be held as safe custody assets in accordance with the FCA’s CASS rules.

The only clients whose money and assets aren’t treated like this are professional clients (such as other financial firms), or eligible counterparties who have signed a legal document explaining how their money and assets are held differently (this is known as ‘title transfer’).