TOP 5 Industry Moves Q1 2026

The most consequential deal of Q1 2026 was not a new acquisition but what happened after one. FTMO founders Otakar Suffner and Marek Vasicek assumed co-CEO roles at OANDA in late March, replacing outgoing CEO Gavin Bambury. The leadership change followed FTMO’s completion of the OANDA acquisition from CVC in December 2025 and marked the first time a proprietary trading firm has taken direct operational control of a major multi-regulated brokerage.

The integration is already producing structural changes. OANDA’s prop trading unit, OANDA Prop Trader, began migrating clients to FTMO’s platform on March 2, 2026, allowing OANDA to refocus on its core brokerage operations across eight jurisdictions including New York, London, Tokyo, and Singapore. FTMO’s parent company reported $329 million in revenue and over $62 million in net profit in 2024, providing the financial foundation for what the founders describe as a “global trading powerhouse.” Both companies will continue to operate as separate entities.

Two CFD brokers pursued public listings in Q1 2026, the highest concentration of IPO activity in the sector since Plus500’s 2013 debut. iFOREX, the British Virgin Islands- based broker, began trading on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market on February 25 under the ticker IFRX, with shares rising 6% to 207 pence at open. The listing, priced at £43.3 million, completed a process that had been delayed eight months to address compliance issues raised by BVI authorities.

Separately, New Zealand’s BlackBull Markets launched a non-deal roadshow in late March exploring a dual listing on the ASX and NZX with a $90 million revenue profile. Co-founders Michael Walker and Selwyn Loekman presented preliminary financials to fund managers at UBS’s Chifley Tower offices in Sydney, with Barrenjoey Capital Partners and Forsyth Barr running separate investor meetings. Sources indicated that BlackBull could push ahead with a pricing process as early as H1 2026.

The fintech disruption that incumbent CFD brokers had long anticipated arrived at scale in Q1 2026. Revolut quietly rolled out contracts for difference trading in 29 countries, targeting “active traders” across Europe. The expansion followed an initial pilot in just three EU markets, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Greece, launched in September 2024. European users can now access CFDs through the Revolut app under its Investment tab, offered via the company’s Lithuanian entity operating under a MiFID II license.

Revolut leverages CMC Connect’s institutional infrastructure for its CFD execution. With 68.3 million global customers, £4.5 billion in 2025 revenue, and £1.7 billion in pre- tax profit (up 57% year-on-year), the neobank brings a distribution advantage that no standalone CFD broker can match. However, CMC Markets noted that the revenue impact of its Revolut partnership was “not significant” in its half-year financials due to limited initial geographic coverage. The key question for the industry: what happens as Revolut scales CFD access to a larger share of its user base?

London’s two largest listed CFD operators delivered strong financial signals in Q1 2026. Plus500 launched a new $100 million share buyback program in February, managed by Panmure Liberum, on top of approximately $800 million in cash reserves. The program allows the purchase of up to 3.8 million shares and will run through the release of full-year 2026 results. Since its 2013 IPO, Plus500 has returned roughly $2.9 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.

IG Group, meanwhile, guided for approximately £300 million in Q1 2026 revenue. The company is also exploring prediction markets, with CEO Breon  Corcoran describing them as essentially a rebranding of binary options and noting that IG has existing capability and intellectual property in the space. IG’s own buyback programs have totaled over £300 million since 2024. The combined message from both operators: the listed CFD sector is cash-generative, disciplined on capital allocation, and sees little need for transformational M&A.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority escalated its oversight of the CFD sector in Q1 2026 with what FM Intelligence described as a “triple squeeze” that has since expanded into a four-front compliance campaign. An analysis published in March identified 23FCA-regulated CFD brokers with combined monthly trading volumes of $9.3 trillion that fall directly within the regulator’s enforcement perimeter.The latest addition came when the FCA confirmed final rules requiring financial firms to report operational incidents and supply chain disruptions through a single standardized portal, landing a fresh compliance obligation on top of three others already converging on the sector. The regulator also fined DMBL £338,000 after surveillance gaps left $3 billion in CFD trades undetected, signaling that enforcement actions are accelerating alongside rulemaking. For the industry, the compliance cost stack is rising at a pace that favors larger, better-capitalized operators and adds pressure on smaller firms weighingthe viability of maintaining UK authorization.