Share Dealing - Platform and Offering Expansion

[Guest rrc]

Hello,

I was wondering if IG could please confirm a) if they are looking in to providing the following and b) if so, what the timelines are.

1) fund dealing, UCITS and mutual funds, the type HL, ii, AJBell and most others offer. 
2) adding new international markets, (Canada, France, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Finland, Japan) EM markets like, India, South Africa, Egypt would also be great.
3) provision of better details for company financials (e.g. what Morningstar, Reuters provide and including cash flow statements)

Is IG going to commit to improving their Stock broking offering for the long term, or should current customers be seeking alternative providers? It would be helpful to understand the direction of travel. The stock broking offering seems to have taken a backseat in the strategy yet there is the potential to create a strong competitor to the likes of HL, II, AJ Bell, that offers DMA and good FX charges for foreign dividends, however personally I am growing impatient waiting for the above improvements to happen.

Any information that can be provided would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

[Guest samjc1319]

I would also like clarification on points 1 and 2 raised by @rrc

The inability to access international markets for share dealing really limits the usefulness of what I otherwise think is an excellent platform.

If I am unable to purchase international shares I will be forced to leave IG for one of its competitors which is something I am keen to avoid.

[JamesIG]

On your first question, our share dealing proposition was launched in 2014 for UK investors attracted to IG’s superior technology and dealing capabilities (DMA), but also those looking to minimise their cost of investing. At current, we do not have plans to offer fund dealing, but this could of course change in the future. As well as offering shares in individual companies, we also offer over 1,000 exchange-traded funds and hundreds of different investment companies. We also offer a range of ready-made, low-cost portfolios called IG Smart Portfolios, which are managed in partnership with BlackRock.

To answer your second question, we currently offer customers the ability to buy and sell companies from eight different markets, namely; UK, US, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Australia. The reason we do not offer the same international market coverage on ISA and share dealing accounts as we do on CFDs is due to the operational investment required to roll out share dealing markets compared to CFD markets. While CFDs reflect the economic impact of owning an underlying share, they do not result in the CFD trader actually owning those underlying shares. This makes the provision of CFDs across a wide range of underlying instruments much simpler from an operational perspective. Conversely, when our clients trade via our share dealing platform we are required to ensure that our clients have proprietary ownership of the share in question which involves significant tax, reporting, custody and settlement obligations.

Hopefully this explains why our CFD asset coverage (over 15,000 markets) is larger than our share dealing coverage. At current, we believe our offering meets the demands of the majority of our client base, but we are continuously reviewing our offering against the demands of our clients and should we spot an opportunity to extend our coverage we will certainly explore it.

Finally, whilst we are looking at bringing it into the platform, data such as cash flow, balance sheet, and other fundamentals are only surfaced on the Market Analysis pages on IG.com. When logged in, check out the following link for example https://www.ig.com/uk/marketanalysis/ig-shares/lloyds-banking-group-plc-LLOY-UK and you should be able to see some of this required info.