How the World’s Largest Publicly Traded Online Brokers Performe:
Latest Annual Results Compared

Executive Summary

The latest reporting round confirms a two-speed retail brokerage sector. Scale platforms with large client cash and asset bases — Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers and, in Europe, Swissquote — delivered double-digit revenue growth and record profitability, propelled by buoyant equity markets, elevated derivatives volumes and resilient interest-related income. Diversifying CFD-heritage brokers posted respectable but more uneven results: CMC Markets and IG Group reached record top lines on institutional/B2B and multi-asset expansion respectively, while Plus500 ground out modest growth through customer-value optimisation. The cost of land-grab strategies is visible at XTB, where record revenue coincided with a 25% profit decline on a 48% cost surge, and at NAGA, which remained in operational turnaround. StoneX illustrates the divergence inside a single group: record firm-wide results alongside a 35% revenue contraction in its Self-Directed/Retail (FOREX.com) segment.

• +22%Fastest revenue growth in the peer set (Charles Schwab, FY2025 net revenues of $23.9bn)
• 77%Highest pre-tax margin (Interactive Brokers, FY2025)
• +69.7%Fastest active-client growth organically (XTB, to 1.19m active clients)
• −24.9%Largest net-profit decline (XTB), the price of a 48% opex expansion
• $12.7tnCombined client assets across the seven firms disclosing them

Methodology, Fiscal Calendars & Currency Normalisation

Each company is compared over its latest completed fiscal year (“FY”) versus the prior fiscal year (“FY-1”), as reported. Fiscal calendars are not uniform across the peer set and are stated explicitly below; growth rates are therefore intra-company (YoY) rather than strictly contemporaneous across companies.

• IG Group (LSE: IGG) — changed its year-end from 31 May to 31 December during 2025. The comparison uses the company’s published 12-month calendar-year figures: CY25 (Jan–Dec 2025) vs CY24, which are unaudited comparatives presented alongside the audited seven-month transitional statements (results dated 19 March 2026).^[S1]
• CMC Markets (LSE: CMCX) — FY2026 (year to 31 March 2026) vs FY2025 (to 31 March 2025); preliminary, unaudited (4 June 2026).^[S2]
• Plus500 (LSE: PLUS) — FY2025 (calendar 2025) vs FY2024; preliminary unaudited (February 2026).^[S3]
• XTB (WSE: XTB) — FY2025 vs FY2024 (calendar years); preliminary results of 29 January 2026, annual report published 20 March 2026.^[S4]
• Swissquote (SIX: SQN) — FY2025 vs FY2024 (calendar years); full-year results, March 2026.^[S5]
• eToro (Nasdaq: ETOR) — FY2025 vs FY2024 (calendar years); results of 17 February 2026, its first full-year report since the May 2025 Nasdaq listing.^[S6]
• The NAGA Group (XETRA: N4G) — FY2025 vs FY2024 (calendar years); preliminary figures of 12 February 2026, audited statements confirmed 26 June 2026.^[S7]
• StoneX Group (Nasdaq: SNEX) — fiscal 2025 (year to 30 September 2025) vs fiscal 2024 (to 30 September 2024); results of 24 November 2025 and Form 10-K.^[S8]
• Interactive Brokers (Nasdaq: IBKR) — FY2025 vs FY2024 (calendar years); 4Q/FY results of 20 January 2026.^[S9]
• Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) — FY2025 vs FY2024 (calendar years); results of 21 January 2026 and Form 10-K.^[S10]

Currency treatment

Primary figures are presented in each firm’s local reporting currency (GBP for IG and CMC; USD for Plus500, eToro, StoneX, Interactive Brokers and Schwab; PLN for XTB; CHF for Swissquote; EUR for NAGA). Indicative USD equivalents, where quoted, use the fiscal-period average rates below; they are provided solely to aid cross-company scale comparison and do not affect the YoY growth rates, which are computed in local currency.

1.Financial Metrics Summary Table — FY vs FY-1

Figures in millions of local reporting currency unless stated. Each cell shows FY, with FY-1 beneath and the YoY change alongside. “n/d” = not disclosed by the company in the cited releases. Derived or caveated figures are marked † and explained in the footnotes.

Table footnotes

†a — IG fiscal basis

IG changed its year-end from 31 May to 31 December. CY25/CY24 are the company’s own unaudited 12-month comparatives published with the audited seven-month transitional accounts. Statutory audited figures for the 7 months to 31 December 2025: total revenue £658.9m, EBITDA £301.9m, profit after tax £292.1m.

†b — One-off items

IG’s CY25 profit after tax includes a £76.0m tax-exempt gain on the disposal of Small Exchange; on the company’s adjusted basis PAT was broadly flat (£401.0m vs £403.3m). Swissquote’s FY2025 pre-tax profit includes net positive one-offs of CHF 49.8m, chiefly the revaluation of its original 50% Yuh stake upon taking full ownership.

†c — Derived comparatives

Where a release stated only a growth rate, the FY-1 absolute figure is derived from it (CMC FY2025 EBITDA; StoneX FY2024 operating and net operating revenues; IBKR FY2024 net income, pre-tax margin and account base; Schwab FY2024 pre-tax margin, derived from reported net income and taxes). These are marked “≈” and reproduced in the companion spreadsheet with formulas.

†d — XTB profitability drivers

Revenue growth was driven by volume (CFD turnover +41.3% to 8.87m lots) against a lower revenue capture of PLN 215 per lot (FY2024: PLN 275). Operating expenses rose 48% to PLN 1,312.5m, including PLN 585.0m of marketing.

†e — Swissquote account base

Swissquote reported “close to 1.2 million accounts” at end-2025 including Yuh, with Swissquote-platform accounts +16.5% and Yuh accounts +39.6%; the FY-1 total of ≈0.94m is derived from those growth rates.

2.Performance & Growth Drivers Analysis

2.1 Top revenue gainers

In local-currency terms, the revenue growth ranking was led by the US asset-gathering platforms: Charles Schwab (+22%), StoneX (+20% operating revenues) and Interactive Brokers (+20%), followed by CMC Markets (+15%) and XTB (+15%). eToro (+10% net contribution), Swissquote (+9%) and IG (+7%) formed the mid-pack; Plus500 (+3%) and NAGA (−1% reported; +3.5% FX-adjusted) trailed. The dispersion maps closely onto business-model exposure: firms monetising client asset bases and exchange-traded volumes outgrew those dependent primarily on OTC CFD spread capture, which faced a subdued-volatility stretch through much of mid-to-late 2025 before conditions improved sharply around year-end and into 2026.

2.2 Margin outperformers

Interactive Brokers remains the sector’s efficiency benchmark, expanding its pre-tax margin to 77% on an almost fully automated cost base. Swissquote lifted its pre-tax margin to 58.1% (52.3%), and even excluding ≈CHF 50m of one-offs the underlying margin held above 51%. Schwab posted the largest margin improvement, with the reported pre-tax margin rising roughly eight percentage points to 47.9% as high-cost supplemental bank funding was paid down. IG sustained a 47.3% EBITDA margin despite deliberately reinvesting (marketing +31%), while Plus500 held a 43.9% EBITDA margin with minimal variance — notable given its top line grew only 3%. The margin losers were the growth spenders: XTB’s operating margin compressed from 52.7% to 38.9% and NAGA’s EBITDA margin from 14.2% to 5.9%, in both cases a deliberate trade of current profitability for client acquisition.

2.3 Operational drivers behind the variances

Trading volumes and market volatility

Client activity was strong across exchange-traded products: Schwab’s daily average trades rose 31% to 7.7m, IBKR’s Q4 DARTs rose 30% to 4.04m with options volumes up 26–27% for the year, and XTB’s CFD volume rose 41% in lots. The binding constraint for CFD specialists was revenue capture per unit of volume rather than volume itself: XTB’s profitability per lot fell to PLN 215 from PLN 275 (and to PLN 152 in the becalmed third quarter), which is why record turnover still produced a 25% profit decline. Conversely, CMC’s FY2026 — whose March year-end captured the tariff-driven turbulence, precious-metals surge and commodity speculation of late 2025/early 2026 — saw net trading revenue rise 16%. IG improved OTC client-income retention by more than four percentage points to over 83% through revised spread alignment and cheaper passive hedging, converting flat market conditions into 8% OTC revenue growth.

Net interest income on uninvested cash vs trading-fee income

Rate cuts made 2025 the year the sector’s post-2022 interest windfall began to fade — but the effect diverged by balance-sheet model. Brokers earning interest on client cash floats saw the line decline: IG’s net interest income fell 16% to £118.8m (from 14% to 11% of total revenue) even as customer cash balances grew to £5.0bn. Balance-sheet banks and margin lenders offset rate pressure with volume: Schwab’s net interest revenue rose 28% to $11.8bn as expensive supplemental funding was retired and margin/bank lending grew, and IBKR’s net interest income reached $3.6bn on record margin loans, customer credit balances and securities lending. Swissquote’s interest line was roughly stable, with deposit growth offsetting a full CHF rate cycle to zero. eToro’s interest-earning assets ($7.7bn in January 2026, +17%) and Plus500’s interest on its own $0.8bn-plus cash pile and rising customer deposits (average deposit per active user roughly doubled to ≈$26,900) cushioned both firms’ trading-income cyclicality. The net effect: interest-related income is now a maturity dividend for asset-rich platforms and a fading tailwind for pure-flow CFD houses.

Client acquisition economics

The peer set split into three acquisition postures. Aggressive expansion: XTB (864k new clients, +73%, on marketing of PLN 585m), IG (organic first trades +54%; marketing +31%; plus the Freetrade acquisition adding ≈460k active customers) and NAGA (new funded accounts +37.5% on marketing +15.6%, with CAC down 16.5%). Quality over quantity: Plus500 deliberately shrank intake (new customers −11%) while cutting acquisition cost 13% to $1,267 and lifting ARPU 8% to $3,268 — half its OTC revenue now comes from customers tenured five-plus years. Organic magnetism: IBKR added over one million net new accounts (+32%) and Schwab opened 4.7m new brokerage accounts with comparatively modest promotional intensity, monetising brand and platform breadth rather than paid acquisition.

3.Geographic & Regulatory Footprint

UK & Europe

The FCA/ESMA leverage-cap regime continues to cap organic growth in mature retail CFD markets, pushing the UK incumbents toward adjacency: IG’s UK&I division grew net trading revenue 18% (11% organic) on zero-commission share dealing (UK volumes +52% YoY in early 2026), Freetrade’s funds/SIPP build-out, and new FCA cryptoasset and EU MiCA licences; CMC entered Germany’s certificates-and-warrants market and shifted its centre of gravity toward institutional/B2B infrastructure, which now supplies the majority of income. XTB used its Polish KNF home base and CySEC/FCA passporting to compound across Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, adding long-term investment wrappers (e.g. French PEA accounts) to soften its CFD regulatory concentration. Swissquote — supervised by FINMA as a bank — drew roughly 40% of CHF 8.5bn net new money from Europe and secured full ownership of neo-bank Yuh, while NAGA obtained MiCA authorisation for EU crypto activities. eToro, regulated across the FCA, CySEC and ASIC among others, leaned on European localisation for funded-account growth.

United States

US exposure was the single strongest geographic driver in the peer set. Schwab and IBKR harvested record domestic engagement; IG’s tastytrade grew net trading revenue 23% in USD and benefited from higher payment-for-order-flow rates; and the CFTC-regulated futures/prediction-markets niche became the preferred US entry route for European CFD brokers barred from offering CFDs onshore: Plus500’s US futures franchise passed $100m of revenue (with CME prediction-market clearing and the Topstep partnership), while IG announced the Underdog acquisition to build a US prediction-markets leader and StoneX absorbed R.J. O’Brien, reinforcing futures clearing scale. The one US retail soft spot was StoneX’s own Self-Directed/Retail segment (including FOREX.com), where revenue fell 35% against an exceptional FY2024 comparative — evidence that US retail FX remains volatility-dependent even as the group’s institutional franchise grew 67%.

APAC & rest of world

APAC delivered client growth but uneven monetisation. IG’s APAC & Middle East revenue was broadly flat (+1%) with Japanese attrition offset elsewhere, and the group exited South Africa while acquiring Australia’s Independent Reserve crypto exchange (completed January 2026) to anchor spot-crypto expansion into Singapore and the UAE. CMC’s record Australian stockbroking year (A$140.3m, +32%) and the pending Westpac and ASB white-label mandates (≈A$39bn AuA) make Australasia its clearest structural growth engine; the ASIC class action over pre-2023 OTC distribution remains a live legacy risk for IG. Plus500 broadened licensing into Japan, the UAE, Canada, Colombia and India, and Swissquote continued building out South Africa and the Gulf. Across jurisdictions, the regulatory direction of travel — leverage caps, marketing restrictions, and MiCA-style crypto authorisation — consistently favours multi-licence incumbents over lightly regulated challengers.

4.Strategic Takeaways & Sector Outlook

Profitability resilience

The year demonstrated that resilience now correlates with revenue architecture more than with trading conditions. Firms with three or more material income engines — trading fees, interest-related income and asset-based/recurring fees — (Schwab, IBKR, Swissquote, increasingly IG and CMC) grew profits through a falling-rate, mixed-volatility year. Single-engine models were rate-takers on market conditions: Plus500’s discipline preserved margins at low growth, XTB accepted a 25% profit reset to buy future scale, and NAGA’s wafer-thin EBITDA illustrates sub-scale exposure. Notably, every diversified incumbent guided constructively into 2026 (CMC: net operating income £460–480m; IG: EBITDA ≈£538m consensus; NAGA: EBITDA €10–15m), with the early-2026 volatility spike already validating those assumptions in first-quarter trading updates.

Diversification strategies

Three diversification vectors dominated capital allocation. Multi-asset investing: IG’s Freetrade purchase and AuA-led model (£18.2bn, +47%), CMC’s investing revenue (+30%) and platform “Super App”, XTB’s pivot toward passive products, and Swissquote/Yuh’s banking ecosystem all shift value from transaction capture to balance gathering. Options, futures and prediction markets: tastytrade, Plus500 Futures/CME event contracts, IG–Underdog and StoneX–R.J. O’Brien mark a decisive sector bet that US exchange-traded and event-based products are the next retail growth S-curve. Crypto integration: MiCA and FCA cryptoasset licences (IG, NAGA), spot-crypto acquisitions (Independent Reserve), Swissquote’s established crypto franchise (≈12% of H1 2025 revenue) and IBKR’s planned European rollout re-embed digital assets inside regulated brokerage rather than standalone exchanges.

Cost-efficiency trends

Cost curves are bifurcating. Automation leaders keep converting scale into margin: IBKR’s 77% pre-tax margin, Schwab’s expense growth of low single digits against 22% revenue growth, and IG’s 8% reduction in organic fixed cost-to-serve per customer (−13% since 2023, with AI deployed in onboarding, compliance screening and servicing) set the efficiency frontier. Growth spenders are betting that today’s marketing-heavy cost bases normalise: XTB guides to further opex growth of up to 30% in 2026 before scale benefits, and NAGA’s post-merger cost base reset delivered its first profitable quarter in Q1 2026. The strategic implication is symmetrical: acquisition-led client growth is replicable, but the automated low-cost-to-serve platform remains the harder moat — and the differential compounds every year rates and volatility fail to bail out high-cost operators.

Sector outlook

Entering the 2026 fiscal cycle, the sector’s setup is unusually favourable: elevated cross-asset volatility (tariffs, precious metals, geopolitics), record client asset bases, and a maturing US prediction-markets/futures opportunity. The principal risks are equally identifiable — further rate cuts eroding interest income, regulatory tightening around event contracts and CFD marketing, and the sustainability of client-acquisition costs in an increasingly crowded neo-broker field. Consolidation momentum (IG’s strategic review, including domicile and listing options; StoneX’s serial M&A; Swissquote–Yuh) suggests the current ten-firm peer set may look materially different by the FY2027 comparison.

Sources & Data Provenance

All figures are drawn from the following company disclosures (accessed August 2026). The companion Excel workbook reproduces every metric with cell-level source IDs, FX inputs and live YoY formulas.

1. IG Group Holdings plc — Results for the financial year ended 31 December 2025 (RNS, 19 March 2026).
2. CMC Markets plc — Preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2026 (4 June 2026).
3. Plus500 Ltd — Preliminary unaudited results for the year ended 31 December 2025 (February 2026).
4. XTB S.A. — Current Report 2/2026: preliminary financial and operating results for 2025 (29 January 2026).
5. Swissquote Group Holding Ltd — Report to the Shareholders 2025 / full-year 2025 results (March 2026).
6. eToro Group Ltd — Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results (17 February 2026).
7. The NAGA Group AG — Preliminary FY2025 results (12 February 2026) and audited FY2025 confirmation (26 June 2026).
8. StoneX Group Inc. — Fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter and full-year results (24 November 2025); Form 10-K FY2025.
9. Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. — 4Q2025 results and FY2025 earnings call (20 January 2026).
10. The Charles Schwab Corporation — 4Q and Full Year 2025 results (21 January 2026); Form 10-K FY2025.