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What does the ESMA CFD Intervention Mean? How is CFD Trading Affected?

What is ESMA?

Who is affected by this ESMA CFD intervention?

Many CFD brokers are regulated in the UK. How is Brexit ...

What are the next steps?

When are measures stepping into effect?

CFD Regulation: How is CFD Trading Affected?

What’s the benefit of this ESMA CFD intervention for ...

How did brokers react?

What additional changes are planned?

TradingBrokersView’s overall view

Best brokers for forex and CFD trading

Following a more than a year long preparatory work, a regulatory guideline that is often referred to as the ESMA CFD intervention got recently published. These are new regulatory measures affecting online brokerages operating in the European Union and investors using these brokers as a vehicle to achieve their investment goals.

The press release headline of the supranational regulator is more than telling:

ESMA agrees to prohibit binary options and restrict CFDs to protect retail investors – see the full release here.

Continue reading to get answers to the most important questions related to this 2018 ESMA CFD intervention.

ESMA CFD Regulation

What is ESMA?

The European Securities and Market Authority is safeguarding the EU’s financial stability to enhance investor protection. The finalized CFD regulation and forex regulation measures will have to be implemented by each member state of the EU mandatorily.

ESMA CFD Regulation

Who is affected by this ESMA CFD intervention?

As mentioned earlier ESMA is a pan-European authority, thus the measures will affect brokerages under EU jurisdictions. Without listing all, some of the other major players are affected: Saxo Bank, CMC Markets, XTB, and City Index.

If you want to analyze the brokers more thoroughly visit the broker comparison page.

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ESMA CFD Regulation

Many CFD brokers are regulated in the UK. How is Brexit affecting the new ESMA CFD regulation?

ESMA regulation are binding to all members of the EU. The process of Brexit is ongoing, with a planned withdrawal dated to 30 March 2019. Given it steps into force, the UK will no longer be part of the EU. Currently what is known that the FCA expects to consult on whether to apply ESMA measures on a permanent basis to firms offering CFDs and binary options to retail clients.
ESMA CFD Regulation

What are the next steps?

ESMA is awaiting reactions from the CFD brokers and also welcomes client feedback before putting the final text in the Official Journal of the EU, after which the regulations would start to apply within two months. The new measures will first apply for three months, at which point they may be renewed.
ESMA CFD Regulation

When are measures stepping into effect?

Binary options brokers will be prohibited to market their services to retail clients from 2 July 2018. Fx and other CFD traders will face the new regulatory conditions from 1 August 2018.

We suggest traders to review if their opened positions comply with new margin requirements set by ESMA. Clients having stretched CFD positions risk having a margin call on their investment accounts. The maximum leverage setting will be 1:30 for major Fx pairs and even smaller for less liquid CFDs.

ESMA CFD Regulation

CFD Regulation: How is CFD Trading Affected?

Most importantly, the ESMA CFD regulation introduces maximum leverage caps, based on the volatility of the given instrument.
  • 30:1 for major currency pairs
    (EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD)
  • 20:1 for non-major currency pairs, gold and major indices
    (EURPLN, USDRUB, US500)
  • 10:1 for commodities, non-major equity indices
    (Silver, Oil, Czech Stock Index)
  • 5:1 for individual equities
    (Google, Apple, BMW)
  • 2:1 for cryptocurrencies
    (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple)

Currently, most online brokers allow trades 100, 200 or even 1000 times the amount available as trading capital. Furthermore, such leverage settings can be set as default.

With the new cfd regulation, traders will have to place at least 3.3% of their capital as a margin deposit in case of major FX pairs and even more for other instruments. This means that for a typical mini lot position (0.1 lot = 10.000 USD value for an fx pair) will be required to have at least 333 USD on the account.

ESMA CFD Regulation

What’s the benefit of this ESMA CFD intervention for retail investors?

Analysing retail trading accounts ESMA concluded that 74-89 percent of clients lose on their investments. The average loss per client amounts are substantial, ranging from €1,600 to €29,000.

High leverage leads to oversized positions, especially in case of novice traders who have little discipline in following general risk management rules.

For example a trader with only a €1000 deposit is able to open an fx position worth of €100.000. Given the market moves only 1 percent against the trader (typical major currency daily range) the entire investment goes under water.

The stricter leverage settings imposed by the new ESMA CFD regulation will create better survival chances for novice traders, and separate CFD trading from pure gambling.

 
European retail traders losing on forex and CFD trading
Infogram
ESMA CFD Regulation

How did brokers react?

There were PR reactions on brokers side- generally positive – and also a market reaction – mixed – in case of the publicly traded CFD brokers like Plus500 or IG.

In case of the LSE listed Plus500 the market reaction was clearly positive, as the brokerage came out with a supportive statement on the new regulations affecting CFD trading.

Some of the official reactions:

“Saxo strongly welcomes and supports the proposals set forth by ESMA and believes that consistent, harmonised regulation at a European level will be positive for clients and the industry as a whole.”

The new regulations are broadly as expected and can be implemented rapidly by Plus500 due to our industry leading in-house technology. We are already compliant in most of the areas targeted…

IG is disappointed that ESMA has chosen to proceed with its proposal to impose disproportionate leverage restrictions which will unduly restrict consumer choice, and risk pushing retail clients to providers based outside of the EU… 

 

ESMA CFD Regulation

What additional changes are planned?

Besides the leverage cap other changes are:

  • Negative balance protection, providing an overall guaranteed limit on retail client losses.
    This feature came to spotlight after SNB announcement of letting the CHF to appreciate, where an instant 20 percent move wiped out several retail traders and even pushed brokerages (FXCM, Alpari UK) to the brink of bankruptcy.
  • Margin close-out rule. If the position drops below 50 percent of the margin deposit value, broker has to close the position(s) automatically. Such rules existed, but at various levels. This gets standardized as well.
  • A standardised risk warning, including the percentage of losses on a CFD provider’s retail investor accounts.
ESMA CFD Regulation

TradingBrokersView's overall view

ESMA Regulations and Their Impact on the CFD Trading Industry

The regulatory measures introduced by ESMA are widely viewed as an important step toward improving the structure of the CFD trading industry. These rules are designed to strengthen investor protection and encourage brokers to adopt a more client-focused business approach. As a result, traders may benefit from clearer safeguards and potentially better long-term outcomes.

Overall, the intention behind these regulatory changes is to promote a healthier trading environment where transparency, responsible leverage, and fair practices are prioritized. Such measures can also help shift the industry toward models that emphasize client sustainability rather than excessive risk-taking.

At a broader level, several key observations can be made regarding ESMA’s regulatory initiative:

  • We very much agree with the prohibition of binary options and the restriction of CFDs
  • Also, limiting maximum leverage based on underlying is a good direction

Several Key Factors to Consider

There are multiple important aspects that should be taken into account when evaluating the situation.

Many retail clients initially have limited knowledge about how CFDs work. However, once the product and its risks are clearly explained, they are generally able to make informed decisions about whether trading CFDs is suitable for them. Because of this, regulators could place greater emphasis on requiring brokers to provide stronger educational resources and clearer explanations to their clients.

  • Clients usually do not prefer or disregard a broker whether it is a CFD broker, but search investment opportunities
  • We think customers face risks not just in the inherent risk of CFDs, but in the fact that customers do not understand how CFDs differ
  • Additionally to the standard risk warning proposed by ESMA, retail investor could benefit from what CFDs are and how they differ from “traditional” investment products

It is not just maximum leverage level, but also the possibility of choice and default settings. ESMA could ask for setting default leverage level to 1:1 and easy leverage change settings.

  • Majority of clients do not seek leverage when selecting a broker
  • They are also not familiar with the leverage concept and the leverage level provided. Hence risks, costs and benefits are also unknown to them
  • At some brokers, it is not possible to easily set leverage levels either on a trade level or on an account level.
  • In most cases, brokers set default leverage amount to the highest level
  • Besides setting a limit on the maximum leverage amount, retail investors would benefit from:
    • a low, e.g. 1:1 leverage level as a default
    • an easily usable feature on the platform to be able to set leverage per trade basis
    • linking available maximum leverage level to tested financial knowledge

Costs of CFDs are very hard to compare. ESMA could define a standard cost measure  and ask brokers to implement

  • Improving Transparency in CFD Trading Costs

    When evaluating CFD brokers, trading costs usually include spreads, commissions, and financing charges. These fees are key factors that affect the overall profitability of trading.

    However, obtaining clear information about these costs can sometimes be difficult. In certain cases, the details are not easily accessible on brokers’ websites. Even when the information is available, it can be complicated for retail traders to compare fees between different brokers because the pricing structures are often presented in different formats.

    Introducing a standardized aggregate cost indicator could help solve this problem. Such a measure would allow investors to view the total expected trading cost in a single figure, making it much easier to compare brokers and understand the real expense of trading CFDs.

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Minor, side point: Crypto CFD regulation should also consider risks of crypto exchanges

  • Why Regulated CFD Brokers May Offer a Safer Alternative for Crypto Exposure

    There has been significant interest from retail investors in cryptocurrencies, particularly during periods of strong market enthusiasm such as the surge seen in November 2017. As a result, many investors began exploring different ways to gain exposure to crypto markets.

    When examining cryptocurrency investment platforms, one important observation is that many crypto exchanges operate with limited regulatory oversight. This lack of regulation can raise concerns about investor protection and platform reliability.

    For this reason, some argue that regulated CFD brokers may provide a more structured way for retail investors to speculate on cryptocurrency price movements compared with using crypto exchanges directly.

    Several factors support this view:

    • Regulatory oversight: CFD brokers are typically supervised by financial regulators, which means they must comply with strict rules regarding transparency, client protection, and operational standards.

    • More established infrastructure: Many regulated brokers operate with robust and well-tested technology systems that can offer greater stability and security than some cryptocurrency exchanges.

    • Investor protection schemes: In many jurisdictions, clients of regulated brokers may be covered by investor compensation programs if the broker becomes insolvent or engages in misconduct. Such protections are usually not available when trading on most crypto exchanges.

    Because of these differences, some investors may prefer regulated brokerage platforms when seeking exposure to cryptocurrency price movements, particularly if investor protection and regulatory oversight are important considerations.

ESMA CFD Regulation

Best brokers for forex and CFD trading

We selected our top forex and CFD brokers for you. Just to get a better picture of the selected brokers, we compiled the following summaries.

Broker Table
Saxo Bank Fusion Markets CMC Markets Interactive Brokers Capital.com
EURUSD spread 0.8 0.0 0.7 0.1 0.6
GBPUSD spread 1.3 0.2 0.9 0.3 1.3
AUDUSD spread 0.8 0.0 0.7 0.1 0.6
EURCHF spread 1.4 0.6 2.5 0.4 2.2
EURGBP spread 1.4 0.3 1.1 0.2 1.5
Broker Table
Saxo Bank Fusion Markets CMC Markets Interactive Brokers Capital.com
EURUSD spread 0.8 0.0 0.7 0.1 0.6
GBPUSD spread 1.3 0.2 0.9 0.3 1.3
AUDUSD spread 0.8 0.0 0.7 0.1 0.6
EURCHF spread 1.4 0.6 2.5 0.4 2.2
EURGBP spread 1.4 0.3 1.1 0.2 1.5
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