A year ago the FCA said one CFD firm had cost 90,000 people 75 million pounds. This week it announced 24 firms closing and named none of them, including that one.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
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In short. On 25 September 2026 the Financial Conduct Authority announced that twenty-one firms trading Contracts for Difference had closed since 2025 and three more were cancelling their permissions, "following a FCA crackdown" on firms that misuse their UK authorisation to look more trustworthy than they are [2]. Not one of the twenty-four is named. A year earlier the FCA had quantified exactly this harm at a single firm: "over 90,000 people have lost around 75 million pounds over a 4-year period" through the same redirection-offshore practice [4]. The new release gives no way of telling whether that firm is among the twenty-four, among the two facing an actual enforcement investigation, or still trading. Three documented mistakes: four stars.
On 25 September 2026 the Financial Conduct Authority put out a press release with a number in the headline: twenty-four firms trading Contracts for Difference (CFDs) were leaving its register. The regulator called it a crackdown on firms that "misuse their authorised status to mislead consumers", specifically by using a UK licence as what its own supervisors call a "halo": a badge of trust attached to a UK entity while the money and the risk sit with an offshore "group" affiliate the customer never sees named [2] [3]. The release does not name one of the twenty-four firms. It does not say how much money was involved, how many consumers were affected, or whether any of the twenty-four is the firm the FCA had already put a number on, in public, a year before.
The paper trail before the headline
The FCA has been on this exact problem for years, and its own record shows it. In July 2019 it made permanent a set of retail protections for CFD trading: leverage limits, a rule that a firm must close a losing position once a client's funds fall to 50% of margin, a guarantee that a client cannot lose more than the money in their account, and a standardised risk warning stating the percentage of a firm's retail accounts that lose money [1]. Those are the protections a customer keeps only while dealing with the UK-authorised firm itself.
In December 2024 the FCA wrote to every CEO in its CFD supervisory portfolio setting out its strategy for the following two years. Under the heading "'Halo' firms" it said plainly: "Around 20% of firms in the portfolio appear to be conducting little or no activity, and thus not using their permissions enough to justify continued authorisation. Some of these firms appear to exist purely to provide an FCA 'halo' to wider 'groups'. This gives false comfort to global retail clients who see the FCA association but contract with an offshore 'group' entity rather than the UK authorised firm, without UK regulatory protection" [3]. The letter also described the FCA's actual method for dealing with them: "Where we identify UK firms that do not conduct material regulated activity, we will continue to invite them to cancel their permissions and robustly challenge them on their future plans where they do not accept this invitation" [3]. An invitation to leave, and a challenge if the firm says no, is the mechanism. Nothing in the letter describes fines or public identification as part of it.
Ten months later, in October 2025, the FCA quantified what the same pattern had already cost. Retail protections, it said, "prevent nearly 400,000 people a year from risking more than their original stake in CFDs and provide between 267 million and 451 million pounds worth of protection" [4]. Set against that, one specific case: "The FCA has also found investors are being targeted by finfluencers, who may not make it clear that they are promoting unregulated firms operating offshore... Over 90,000 people have lost around 75 million pounds over a 4-year period in this way at just one firm" [4]. Mark Francis, the FCA's director of sell-side markets, said at the time: "The FCA will take action against firms breaking the rules" [4].
The claims, tested
| The FCA's own words | What the record actually shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "Twenty-one Contracts for Differences (CFD) firms have closed since 2025... Three other firms are currently cancelling their permissions", with "enforcement investigations in the 2 most serious cases" [2] | The December 2024 letter describes the standard method for these closures as an invitation to surrender permissions voluntarily, "challenged" only if the firm refuses [3] | Only 2 of the 24 firms named in the headline face an actual enforcement investigation; the mechanism for the other 22 is described in the FCA's own strategy document as one the firm can walk away from |
| "Over 90,000 people have lost around 75 million pounds over a 4-year period in this way at just one firm" [4], October 2025 | The September 2026 release names no firm and gives no figures on consumer numbers or money lost for any of the 24 [2] | There is no way, from the FCA's own published record, to confirm whether the firm behind its own quantified worst case is among the 24, among the 2 under investigation, or still trading today |
| Dominic Holland, director of sell-side supervision: "These closures show we're prepared to take action to protect consumers" [2] | The FCA's own account of how "halo" firm closures happen is an invitation to cancel permissions, not a sanction [3] | The language of decisive enforcement sits over a process the regulator's own strategy letter describes as substantially firm-initiated |
| The 2024 letter warned that "unscrupulous actors may be seeking to acquire a UK firm to give customers of overseas 'groups' false comfort" and that it had seen "multiple CiC applications on the same firm" [3] | The FCA correctly flagged the halo-firm pattern nearly two years before this week's closures, and before it had quantified the harm | Credited below: this is the one claim that holds up in full |
The mistakes, counted
Not one firm has ever been named, across three years and four separate publications (1). The 2019 restriction, the December 2024 portfolio letter, the October 2025 warning and this week's closures announcement between them describe an entire category of firm accused of misleading UK consumers about the protections they have, without a single name attached at any point [1] [2] [3] [4]. A consumer who dealt with any of them has no way of finding out from the FCA's own record.
The FCA's own quantified worst case has disappeared from view (2). Ninety thousand people and 75 million pounds lost at one firm was a specific, public figure in October 2025 [4]. A year later, the release announcing firm closures for exactly this practice does not say whether that firm is one of the 24, one of the 2 under investigation, or neither.
"Crackdown" and "closures" describe a process the regulator's own strategy letter says works mainly by invitation (3). The December 2024 letter's method for dealing with inactive "halo" firms is to "invite them to cancel their permissions", challenging only those that refuse [3]. Only 2 of the 24 firms in this week's release face an enforcement investigation; the other 22 have no disclosed fine, censure or public identification attached to whatever they did.
Credit where due
The FCA saw this coming. The December 2024 letter named the "halo" pattern, the offshore redirection risk and the danger of unscrupulous buyers acquiring dormant UK firms for exactly this purpose, all before the October 2025 warning put a number on the damage [3]. This week's release also represents a real step up from a supervisory letter: two live enforcement investigations are more than a warning. The 2019 protections, closing positions at 50% margin and capping losses at the funds in the account, are also still the reason a UK-authorised firm's customer is better off than one redirected offshore [1].
Verdict
Four stars, from three documented mistakes. The FCA correctly identified the halo-firm problem in 2024, correctly quantified real harm from it in 2025, and this week announced twenty-four firms leaving its register as a result. What it has not done, in any of the four publications that make up this record, is name a single firm, disclose a single penalty, or confirm that the firm behind its own 90,000-person, 75-million-pound figure is one of the twenty-four it is now willing to talk about.
Sources
- FCA confirms permanent restrictions on the sale of CFDs and CFD-like options to retail consumers, Financial Conduct Authority, published 1 July 2019.
- Twenty-four CFD firms closing in crackdown on misuse of UK authorisation, Financial Conduct Authority, published 25 September 2026.
- Portfolio Letter: FCA strategy for Contracts for Difference, Financial Conduct Authority, 13 December 2024.
- FCA warns investors in CFDs risk losing out on protections, Financial Conduct Authority, published 30 October 2025.