City Index Review 2024 – The Leading Provider of CFD & Forex Trading

UK-based City Index is a Forex and Trading Contracts for Difference (CFD) spread betting provider and a part of StoneX Group under the control of the Financial Conduct Authority. With headquarters in London, the City Index platform has branches in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Dubai, and Australia. The parent company of City Index, StoneX Group Inc., is a U.S.-based company listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “SNEX”. As of 28 February 2021, StoneX migrated GAIN Capital UK Limited (GCUK) into its StoneX Financial Ltd (SFL) entity. It specializes in options in forex, shares, indexes, commodities, spread betting, CFDs, and interest rates.

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RISK WARNING: YOUR CAPITAL MIGHT BE AT RISK

The GAIN link is very evident in the high operating efficiencies of City Index. Over the years, it has built up an enviable network of research facilities that help traders and investors make considered choices, regardless of whether they are top-of-the-line financial institutions or low skill retailers. A striking product catalog and a lightning-fast trading interface are some of the other optimized features of City Index. However, after the integration of GAIN Capital into the StoneX Group, we can deliver an even more comprehensive offering to our customers by leveraging their capabilities and ecosystem of products. It also has won awards like the Best CFD Provider by ADVFN International Financial Awards 2022 and Best Trading Platform and Online Money Awards 2022. However, read the below content to get an honest City Index review with its features, services, customer support, fee section, and more.

History of City Index

The history of City Index goes back almost four decades to September 1983. Chris Hales and Jonathan Sparke founded the company and started trading and offering spread betting in March 1984. The CFD wing of the company was launched in 2001 in the UK. In 2005, City Index platform acquired IFX Group, which included sister concerns forex broker IFX Markets and Finspreads.com, an established spread betting provider. From this point on, City Index grew exponentially & opened offices in Singapore, Shanghai, and Sydney, mainly to cater to the clients in the Asia Pacific region.

In 2008, FX Solutions, a market leader in the US in white label foreign exchange and retail services, was purchased by City Index, and the next year the company launched City Trading. It was the first CFD and spread betting trading application for the iPhone.

A unique venture, the Trading Academy, was started by City Index in 2012. The Academy runs a six-week web series to show that anybody from any background with the right technical support, training, and discipline can learn how to maneuver in the financial markets.

Michael Spencer, who had acquired controlling interest in the company in 1997, sold City Index to Gain Capital in November 2014 for $118 million. It was a watershed moment for City Index as it grew at a very fast clip from this point due to the market reputation and size of GAIN Capital Holdings. City Index became a trading name for GAIN Capital, which as of Q2 2020, caters to over 250,000 traders globally and holds $3.9 billion in customer equity.

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Overall Summary

City Index has ranked Best in Class in several categories in 2021. Fast execution, tight spreads, and low margins are the highlights of the Company. Before City Index log in, know the overall details of where City Index stands across multiple sections.

• Overall Rating– 4.5 stars
• Trust – 93%
• Offering of Investments – 5 stars
• Commissions and Fees – 4 stars
• Platform and Tools – 4 stars
• Research – 4.5 stars
• Mobile Trading – 4 stars
• Customer service – 4 stars
• Education – 4 stars

Execution of Trade

The execution of the trade policy of City Index trading platforms is one of the fastest in this category. City Index, forex broker UK based offers the facility of going long and short simultaneously, a wide spectrum of flexible order types, and price improvement technology.

If you consider whether to opt for the City Index trading platforms, here are a few pointers to help make up your mind.

• Roll-over Discount – You can continually and automatically roll over all futures trade at expiry by paying for only half the spread. Once the mid-price is reached, your position will be closed and opened again in the next bid/offer contract.
• Using Unrealized Profits – Maximize your trading resources by using unrealized profits from margins in open positions to new positions that you may open in retail investor accounts.
• Going Long and Short Concurrently – You can consider whether you can afford to take the high risk. For hedging of the present position, select the hedging button in the order ticket, which will permit you to go both long & short concurrently on the same ticket.
• Close Out Level – When your funds fall below 50% of margin requirements, or there is a high risk of losing money, City Index automatically closes out trades. This is to prevent negative balances and should not be regarded as a stop loss.
• Flexible Trading – You can add to or close out your trade in increments, helping you to scale up and down in trading easily. The choice is on you to close out a trade on a first in first out pattern or on a non-FIFO basis.
• Price Improvement – City Index executes orders at a better price when the price movement is in your favor during processing. This decreases the risk of losing money and increases the opportunities for marking profits.

With the City Index, the possibility of losing money is minimized.

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The Trust Factor

City Index has a very high Trust Score of 93 of 99, and there is a minimum risk of losing money. It does not operate a Bank, is publicly traded, and is certified by regulators. There are three Tier-1 (high trust) regulators and one Tier-3 (low trust) regulators. The tier-1 regulators are the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the Financial Control Authority (FCA), and the Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC).

City Index is licensed by the Financial Control Authority (FCA) and operates as per the rules of the European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA). These licenses ensure that City Index offers a leverage limit and provides protection against negative balance so that retail investor accounts do not lose money when trading. A study of ESMA has shown that 73% of retail investor accounts currently lose money when trading CFDs, which is the average in the EuroZone. Being licensed by ESMA is an indication that City Index can be trusted and that it has minimized the risk of losing money on its trading platforms.

Adding value to the Trust factor is the stop-loss protection guaranteed by City Index for a premium. Accounts lose money when this feature is not built into trading platforms leaving retail investors accounts with a high risk of losing money. One of the forex broker reviews also shows that a cutting-edge set of conditional orders exists within their trading platforms. Surprisingly, the best forex broker in the Singapore branch of the City Index platform uses two-factor authentication for extra security, which is not there on the UK-based trading platforms. Even though City Index acts as a market maker raising conflict of interest issues, they also provide central clearing as a free service in certain markets requiring additional client applications.

Extensive fees and spread disclosures are offered by the company making for enhanced transparency. But there are certain minor glitches here. Even though fixed and variable spreads are informed as per the venue, side-by-side itemization, which would lead to easier comparisons, is missing. It is also not clear the degree of spreads widening during off-market hours. This raises the bogey of manipulation in unanticipated trading costs.

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Experience on the Desktop

When you carry out City Index login, there is a world of an enriched trading platform experience waiting for you. It includes custom indicators, advanced charts, and workplaces that are fully customizable. When compared to the AT Pro platform, the desktop version has fewer features. AT Pro has more than 100 indicators and detachable charts. But that is about all the differences. Both City Index and AT Pro have updated ticker tapes from Reuters running continually and help retail investor accounts to be in close touch with business developments.

The optimized backtesting and coded automated trading have a power that is not frequently seen at European brokerages. Further, several trading ideas offered on the platform ensure that investors do not have to take the high-risk route.

A City Index review shows that retail investor accounts are only available to professional traders on the AT Pro. However, this information is not in conformity with the other site disclosures, and an inquiry has concluded that professional status is not required to use this very user-friendly desktop software.

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Experience on the Mobile

The City Index mobile applications have been created for both the IOS and Android platforms and have well-organized menus and quick sync between platforms. This is critical when you consider whether to trade on mobile applications and whether you get good value from it. The Index offers customers exclusive facilities for custom alerts, building watch lists, doing initial charting, and chatting with customer support personnel. While the apps are not a replica of web platforms, the interface looks identical, allowing traders to avoid any high risk of losing money while on the go.

The City Index mobile app design has a clean interface and competes effortlessly with the leaders in the field, such as IG, CMC Markets, and Saxo Bank. It offers a smooth experience for users to manage monetary assets when trading, including depositing cash in the account, placing trades, adding alerts, reading news headlines, or analyzing processes to make money when trading CFDs.

The City Index mobile tools have charts driven by Trading View. There are more than 80 indicators and drawing tools to help in technical analysis so that you can sharpen your trading skills and afford to take a high risk at times. Trading Central is also directly linked to the mobile app of the City Index platform. Users benefit from several advanced modules, such as Featured Ideas, Analyst Views, and the Technical Insights sections.

Finally, there is round-the-clock support for complex order types where there is a high risk of losing funds, including OCOs. Traders can also, in one order, close all trades for a specific instrument and trailing stop-loss orders to prevent the possibility to lose money when trading.

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Investment Products

City Index offers a very impressive product catalog created to prevent a scenario where investor accounts lose money. The product range includes Forex via MT4, spread bets, CFDs, and options on indexes, shares, commodities, interest rates, bonds, metals, and cryptocurrencies. City Index platform is the provider you should consider as Index offers more than 4,000 shares from various exchanges while CFDs, index, and metal can be traded on cash or futures so that it becomes avoidable to lose money when trading.

Like other brokers in the UK, City Index offers tax efficiencies to residents of the country for spread betting across available markets as distinct from placing money when trading CFDs. Customers also get offers on Forex and forwards.

Commissions and Fees

A review of the fees and commissions charged shows that City Index offers a highly competitive fee structure that investors can afford to take. The average and minimum spread is 0.69 average and 0.50 pips minimum for EUR/USD. Fixed spreads are offered for different commodities and indexes, and variable spreads for certain markets like Forex. There are no charges for withdrawals. A minimum deposit is required to open a trading account. For a dormant account without any transactions for a year or more, a £12 fee is levied per month. All fees and commissions charged are transparent and are elaborated in fine detail on the pricing page.

Here is a breakup of the major ones.

• CFDs – The average spread against money when trading CFDs on the EUR/USD was 1.1 pips as of August 2020. As a Forex provider, you should consider the City Index as this amount is certainly better than brokers in this category. However, it is marginally higher than the industry average.
• MetaTrader – The spreads on the City Index MT4 (MetaTrader 4) are similar to EURO/USD given above.
• Discounts and rebates for traders – U.K based professional traders get a rebate of £4 per million if the gross turnover exceeds £25M per month, and for volumes over £300M per month, the rebate can reach £7.5 per million. For City Index login in the best forex brokers Australia platform, traders get rebates from AUD 4.5 per million in Tier-1 to AUD 13 per million in Tier-3 in the account.
• As is seen from the review, City Index offers industry-leading and competitive fees and commissions.

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Desktop and Browser-based Platforms

The proprietary AT Pro is a desktop-based platform, and Web Trader, a browser-based platform, complements the various products that City Index offers. However, City Index MT4 has a comparatively limited range for holders of a trading account on this platform.

Check out each platform for trading in detail below.

• AT Pro (Advanced Trader Pro) Desktop – This platform is primarily for professional traders who are willing to take the high risk. There are about 139 charting indicators and 25 drawing tools and automated trading functions on the Development Studio. Top-of-the-line features include the capability to backtest potential strategies to avoid the high risk of losing money. There are over 100 pre-loaded trading systems.
• Web trader – As a platform, Web Trader is very responsive, user-friendly, and flexible. Driven by Trading View, there is a wide range of drawing tools and about 90 indicators. A City Index review confirms that it is optimized to search across markets and access integrated research. The only hitch is that while setting up a new workplace account, all the widgets must be arranged manually. Apart from this minor point, the platform is feature-rich and supports complex order types like OCOs. Watchlists can be synchronized with mobile applications.
• Advantage web – This old legacy platform of City Index that depends on Adobe Flash is still available. But it is advisable to avoid this platform as Adobe Flash is not supported by most browsers today.

It is an advantage for City Index so far as the efficiency of each platform is considered.

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City Index Review – Customer Service and Support

Investor accounts lose money when there is no adequate customer service and support to back traders. In this regard, City Index has all aspects covered through local London and international phone numbers providing 24/5 support. Usually, the phone’s first linkup is through an online chat robot before getting through to a human customer care executive. The broker resolves issues through phone, chat, or email.

Retail investor accounts lose money mainly due to a lack of required knowledge and expertise about trading. Here, City Index has a strong social media presence to spread research and marketing materials so that traders can quickly pick up the ropes about trading on each platform.

To review Customer Service, research groups carry out surveys of various trading platforms. The 2024 review of the City Index is very encouraging. The average connection time is 1-2 minutes, the average professionalism score is 7.6/10, the average net promoter score is 7.6/10, and the Overall score is a high 8.0/10. City Index rank is 10th in a review of the 22 top brokers in the UK. Many forex brokers in the market are providing top-notch services because of the growing forex market.

Education and Training

City Index provides rich education and training content that will help avoid investors’ accounts lose money, regardless of whether they are beginners or professional traders. There are several categories to the education and training module of City Index.

• Video Module – Six videos are available as a training tool, and a television show for beginners is spread out over 6 weeks. Generally, investor accounts lose money due to a lack of skill sets of traders. Top traders provide tips in this video content, which is also available on YouTube. This is a critical reason why City Index should be the provider you should consider to pick up the intricacies of a trading platform.
• Written content – There are ten articles in the training module of City Index and which are highly effective if you want to know in-depth about Forex and CFDs with this provider. Once you open an account and log in, you can develop the required skill sets and know whether you can afford to start trading on this platform.
• Training Modules – A City Index review will not be rounded up without this critical factor. There are six sections, all designed to ensure that you are fully trained in this field. Without expertise, retail investor accounts lose money heavily in trading. The six modules are Technical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis, Trading Strategies, Risk Management, Expert News and Analysis, and The City Index Advantage. A detailed section is also provided on CFDs and why you should trade in CFDs with this provider.

Another complete section deals with the all-important CFDs, which are a popular way for investors to open an account and start trading on various financial markets. Go through this section, and you will know why you should be trading CFDs with this provider. To avoid retail investor accounts lose funds with CFDs, this section is significant.

Once you go through this complete training program, you will know why retail investor accounts lose money and what you should do to avoid this possibility.

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Insights and Research Tools

The research portal of City Index is very impressive. After you make an in-depth study of all the methodologies to carry out trading in CFDs with this provider and Forex and other instruments, you will know whether you can afford to sustain trading in the long run and the tricks of not losing out in your trades. You will get daily updates on market outlooks and forecasts through webinars, tag-based news pages, and other critical reports.

Though there is scope for improvement in integration between website video content and YouTube, you will not find it difficult to get more information on topics of interest that will enable you to avoid losing your money in opening your account and trading in CFDs with this provider. Dozens of Forex and CFD account trading ideas and opportunities are elaborated in fine details, and market approaches are listed on the trading platform. Information required is scanned and filtered and includes the broker’s calculation of fair value against current prices.

The team of analysts at City Index provides daily analysis integrated into the flagship platform of City Index. There is also a continuous stream of critical financial inputs from Reuters. If you want to receive trading ideas straight to your phone on the go to prevent losing your money, you can refer to an economic calendar powered by FxStreet and receive SMS notifications.

Conclusion

The City Index review defines the platform as an ideal base for both beginners and professional traders. If you want to open a trading account and sufficiently acquire the required skill sets to avoid losing your money, City Index should be your first pit stop. The site provides superior research and analysis of prevailing market conditions and offers an overview of competitively-priced trading markets. When you open a trading account, you get the benefit of the GAIN connection as well. It is a potent combination where you get the advantage of GAIN’s standing and trust in the market and the four decades of Capital Index experience.

In its offices across Europe and the Asia-Pacific, there are multiple options for traders who open a trading account to enter global markets. These include over 4,500 CFDs, 65 spot Forex pairs, and 15 forwards spread over multiple trading platforms.

In a nutshell, City Index platform caters to all sections of trading and traders with an account, regardless of the experience level.

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FAQs

Is City Index a market maker?

Yes, City Index is a traditional market maker since 1983. With a trading account, you have the benefit of tight spreads and a platform of choice. These include AT Pro and MT4, both of which are automated trading platforms and allow robust backtesting and full customization. The research tools provided by City Index are ideal for beginners with an account to trade on the platforms. Customer service and support are excellent, and queries from anywhere in the world are resolved quickly over email or phone chats 24/5. Overall, City Index is an excellent market maker with competitive commissions and fees compared to traditional brokers of the same size and scale.

Is City Index a good broker?

Yes, City Index is a reputed broker. The parent company of City Index is StoneX Group, and previously it was owned by GAIN Capital. And apart from this, due to the integration of GAIN Capital into the StoneX Group, City Index can deliver an even more comprehensive offering to the customers.

How to trade CFD with City Index?

Follow the below-mentioned steps:

1. Select your market where you want to trade your CFDs.

2. Once you have determined your market, you can either buy or sell CFD depending on their market value.

3. Determine the size of your trade by considering the number of CFDs you want to trade.

4. Place a stop loss in order to keep your deal safe from losses.

5. Once you are done with the deal, you can click the close trade option to exit the trade.

How much can you withdraw in one time at the City Index?

The maximum you can withdraw in a single transaction is £20,000. And if you want to withdraw more than the limit, you have to contact the agent through any City Index customer support options.