A new
analysis by FMintel, drawing on data from more than 50 retail brokers
worldwide, finds that retail CFD trading now accounts for roughly 14% of daily
global FX turnover, a figure that was barely 2.7% just five years ago.
The
research, published
on the newly launched FMIntel data portal, introduces a new
framework for measuring retail’s growing weight in a market long defined by
institutional players.
A Market Quietly
Transformed
The
backdrop is the Bank for International Settlements’ latest Triennial Survey,
published in October 2025, which put daily over-the-counter FX
turnover at $9.6 trillion in April 2025, up 28% from $7.5 trillion in 2022.
That growth reflected the usual institutional drivers: dollar volatility,
widening interest-rate differentials, and a pickup in emerging-market
currencies.
Retail CFD
volumes grew at a dramatically different pace. Over the same five-year window,
the segment expanded roughly 442%, by more than fifteen times the institutional
rate. Finance Magnates Intelligence has branded the new tracking framework
the Retail Intensity Ratio, or RIR, defined as retail daily CFD turnover
expressed as a percentage of BIS-reported global FX volume. In Q4 2020, that
ratio sat at 2.7%. By Q4 2025, it had reached 14.1%.
The growth
wasn’t steady. From 2020 through late 2023, the RIR climbed gradually from 2.7%
to around 4.5%. Then volume took off, sharply. The acceleration coincided with
an unprecedented
surge in gold and metals trading that reshaped the retail brokerage product mix almost entirely. By
Q4 2025, metals accounted for 74% of all retail CFD activity, up from roughly
42% five years earlier. Currency pairs, once the core of the industry, now
represent just 14% of total volume.
From Rounding Error to
Market Force
The numbers
translate into something concrete: retail CFD traders are now collectively
moving more volume each day than many mid-sized institutional participants.
Five brokers crossed the $1
trillion monthly volume threshold in Q4 2025 alone, a milestone that only three firms had reached in
the prior quarter.
The most
striking element of the FMIntel analysis is what the numbers point to
ahead. At the growth trajectory observed over the past five years, retail CFD
trading could approach the structural weight that retail traders hold in US
equity markets within the next few years. You
can access the full data here.
The
implications reach beyond retail brokers. Prime brokers, liquidity providers,
and exchange operators are already responding. CME Group launched a Dubai hub
last October, citing a 16% jump in regional derivatives activity, a move that
coincided with a broader migration of CFD brokers toward the UAE. Regulators
are also paying closer attention: ESMA finalized new derivative reporting rules
in Q4 2025, while the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority rolled out enhanced
consumer protection tools in response to a sharp rise in investment fraud
cases.
The full
analysis, including the complete RIR time series, forward projections through
2028, and a regional breakdown of where retail volume is growing fastest, is
available on the FMIntel portal. Registration is free.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
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