Broker expansion, regulatory moves and a wave of AI upgrades defined the past seven days, as firms across the CFD, crypto and equities sectors either seized new licences or found old ones cancelled. For UK retail investors and ISA holders with exposure to any of these businesses, the developments carry practical implications from dividend risk to platform access.
Broker Expansion and Regulatory Moves: The Week in Full
IG Group asked shareholders to approve a new Jersey-incorporated holding company, framing the move as part of the strategic review launched in March. The group reported an 18% rise in first-half revenue to about £643 million, and around two-thirds of that now originates outside the UK. IG Group, a FTSE 250 company operating across nineteen countries on five continents as of May 2025, stressed that its London Stock Exchange listing, UK tax residency and London operations will not change. The reorganisation also merges IG’s regional consumer businesses into a single division, led by Michael Healy. Customer growth numbers look healthy on the surface, though much of the reported rise reflects recent acquisitions rather than organic expansion.
Bank J. Safra Sarasin moved to full ownership of Saxo Bank by agreeing to acquire founder Kim Fournais’ remaining indirect 28.69% stake in Saxo Holding AG. The Swiss banking group had already acquired more than 70% of the business in 2025; this transaction, still subject to regulatory approval, would make it the sole shareholder. Fournais stays on as Chairman. Saxo Bank said it expects its strongest first-half financial performance on record, driven by growth in client numbers and assets under management (AUM, the total value of client holdings managed by the firm).
Trade Nation took a different route into Europe, launching regulated services through a new Portuguese entity authorised by the country’s securities regulator. That licence allows the broker to passport CFD products (contracts for difference, a form of leveraged derivative) across EU member states, covering forex, indices, commodities, shares and bonds. The move builds on a Lisbon office opened last year. Trade Nation’s UK business has also returned to profitability after several years of losses, following the absorption of TD365 into its main brand.
Coinbase Gains FCA Approval for Stocks and Derivatives
Coinbase secured an investment services authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), allowing it to offer equities and derivatives alongside its existing cryptocurrency services. Institutional clients gain access to perpetual futures across crypto, equity and commodity markets; retail customers will, for the first time, be able to trade equities through the platform.
The approval builds on Coinbase’s existing UK e-money licence and crypto registration. Industry reporting specifies that the UK’s full cryptocurrency regulatory regime is expected to come into force in October 2027, adding precision to the timeline. Crowdfund Insider noted that the combined approvals position Coinbase as one of the most comprehensively regulated cryptocurrency platforms operating in Britain. The company described its goal as building a unified financial platform spanning crypto trading, equities, derivatives, payments, savings and borrowing.
ASIC Cancels Trive’s Australian Licence After Industry Review
Australia’s corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), cancelled the financial services licence of Trive Financial Services Australia Pty Ltd, effective 1 July 2026. Trive had stopped onboarding new Australian clients in April 2025 before winding down operations entirely, ending a 14-year presence in the market.
The cancellation was made under s915B(3)(a) of the Corporations Act 2001, according to the ASIC media release. Trive was one of 52 licensed CFD issuers assessed during ASIC’s whole-of-industry review of the CFD sector, which identified widespread compliance deficiencies. More than 38,000 retail traders received around AU$40 million in refunds as a result of that review. ASIC also reported that Australian retail CFD traders collectively lost more than AU$458 million during 2024. Trive may apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal to contest the decision.
The scale of those retail losses underlines why ASIC’s oversight of CFD brokers has intensified. UK retail investors using offshore CFD platforms face a similar question: whether the regulatory protection available to them matches what they might assume.
AI Tools, Platform Upgrades and the Regulation Debate
Platform development kept pace with the licensing activity. eToro launched a redesigned mobile application built around its AI assistant, Tori, adding AI-powered portfolios, active trading tools, desktop trading capabilities and expanded crypto self-custody services, alongside a new logo and brand identity. IC Markets separately confirmed it will migrate its website from icmarkets.com to ic.com, with temporary service interruptions possible but client accounts and referral links expected to remain unaffected.
The AI question extends to regulation. An opinion piece in Finance Magnates argued that AI-powered trading tools should sit under existing financial services rules rather than a new AI-specific framework, with the emphasis on governance, audit trails and clear client permissions. The distinction between execution tools and investment advice products was identified as the key regulatory boundary firms must respect.
Futures prop trading firm Tradeify reported sevenfold growth over the past year to more than 100,000 active traders, citing plans for an introducing broker business, multi-asset expansion and prediction markets. The firm identified fraud detection as its biggest operational challenge, with AI now playing a growing role in identifying suspicious activity.
Rounding things out, the European Parliament called on the European Commission to assess whether decentralised finance, staking, lending, NFTs and tokenised assets need additional oversight beyond MiCA (the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, the EU’s primary crypto rulebook). The review signals that the regulatory perimeter around digital assets in Europe is still being drawn. For investors in any firm with EU crypto exposure, October 2027 in the UK and the post-MiCA review process in Brussels are the two dates worth tracking.
