How We Review IG Markets

One standard-lot NAS100 round-turn at IG Markets costs roughly $6 in spread at the advertised 0.6 pip floor, and that single number is where our review starts, not where it ends. Because the same ticket at a CMA-licensed Kenyan broker often prices wider, while a Bermuda-served account prices similar but sits outside local recourse. We built this page to show exactly which benchmarks we apply, so you can judge whether what IG offers a Kenyan resident is good, average, or below par.

The Benchmarks We Apply

Every broker we cover is scored against the same five checks, in the same order, and the order matters. Regulation gets weighed first because it decides what happens when something goes wrong, not how cheap your entry is.

Most brokers chasing Kenyan clients compete hard on the last two rows. They denominate in KES and accept M-Pesa because that is how money moves here. IG does neither, and that gap is a design choice, not an oversight.

Answering the Main Question

The question we get most often is whether IG Markets is properly regulated for a Kenyan trader, and the honest answer is that it is regulated, just not locally. IG International Ltd operates from Bermuda under a BMA Class F licence, and that entity serves Kenya as part of its rest-of-world book.

What that means in practice: you are dealing with a long-established, LSE-listed group, not a shell. What it does not mean: you have any standing with the Capital Markets Authority if a dispute arises. Offshore supervision is real supervision, but it is not the same as a CMA licence.

What the Numbers Say

Costs are where IG earns its reputation and where the offshore setup shows its teeth. The spread floor is genuinely competitive against the Kenyan field. The funding mechanics are not.

That $300 card floor is the line most Kenyan readers hit first. A bank transfer at roughly $0 looks friendlier until you factor in conversion from KES to a USD-only account, and that conversion cost lands on every deposit and withdrawal, not once. Conversion cost applies wherever the account is USD-denominated, and mobile-money rails frequently clear deposits at zero fee, a saving IG cannot currently match here.

What 1:200 Actually Changes

Leverage is capped at roughly 1:200 under the Bermuda entity, which sits below the ~1:400 that CMA-licensed brokers may offer on major FX pairs. Read that as a positive first: lower leverage means slower account destruction, and 1:200 is still generous by the standards of FCA or CySEC oversight.

The practical effect is margin. A single standard lot of NAS100 requires about $550 in margin at 1:200 instead of roughly $275 at 1:400. Traders running tight strategies will feel that difference in how much free margin sits behind each position. The finer point is that offshore entities advertising 1:1000 and above are not CMA-regulated and offer no local recourse, per the CMA register, so IG's restraint here is closer to the industry norm than the local ceiling.

Where the Review Gets Uncomfortable

Three things frustrate us about scoring IG for Kenya, and none of them are dealbreakers on their own.

• M-Pesa is not verified as a funding route, so the channel most Kenyan traders use daily is missing.
• No KES denomination means every movement in and out carries conversion, and that cost is invisible until you calculate it.
• The $300 card minimum is high by local standards, where minimum deposits as low as ~KES 500 are common.

Add the swap-free question: an Islamic account is not verified for Kenya, though the country's Muslim population is ~10-11% and most brokers active here offer a swap-free option. If overnight financing matters to your strategy or your faith, confirm it directly before funding. On tax, treat forex and CFD profit as ordinary income through KRA rather than capital gains, filed between 1 January and 30 June, with deductible platform and internet costs, though we would verify bands with KRA directly since the top marginal rate reaches 35%.

Which Conditions Decide It

Whichever broker you end up comparing IG against, four conditions tend to settle the decision, and they settle it before spreads do.

A Kenyan trader who funds in KES through M-Pesa at a CMA-licensed firm pays a different total cost than one wiring USD to Bermuda, even if the quoted spread is half a pip tighter. Neither path is wrong. But the winner is decided by whether the licence, the funding rail, the segregation policy and the support desk line up with how you actually trade, not by which homepage looks more polished.

Platforms and Instruments

Seventeen thousand plus markets across FX, indices, shares, commodities and ETFs is well above what most Kenyan-accessible brokers list, and the platform stack covers IG web and app, ProRealTime, L2 Dealer, MT4 and TradingView, with no MT5. That omission matters if your workflow is built on MT5, and it is one of the rare cases where the platform choice is thinner than the instrument count suggests.

Liquidity for Kenyan traders peaks in the London-New York overlap, roughly 16:00-19:00 EAT. Spreads quoted at the 0.6 pip floor are most achievable in that window, which is worth remembering when you evaluate whether the headline number is real for your session.