CityIndex Broker Review

Is City Index Safe?

City Index was founded in 1983 in London and started offering CFD trading in 2001. In 2014 City Index was purchased by GAIN Capital, a large US multinational which has been listed on the NYSE since 2010 and posted revenues of 328 million USD in 2018.

City Index and it’s subsidiaries have oversight from no less than eight regulators, including the UK’s FCA (Licence Number: 113942) since 2001 and Australia’s ASIC (ASFL 345646) since 2010. All customer funds are fully segregated from City Index capital and are held by secure tier 1 banks. Additionally, City Index is a co-founder of the Australian CFD and FX Forum, which works to continuously raise industry standards to fully protect all clients’ funds.

City Index has certainly received its share of industry recognition, with recent highlights being the Best Trading Platform and Best Mobile Application Awards (OPWA Awards 2019) and the Best CFD Provider Award at the 2019 ADVFN Awards.

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Trading Conditions

City Index offers over 84 currency pairs to trade and spreads are competitive with similar brokers.  

Account Types

Like other large market maker brokers, City Index only has one live account and one demo account. 

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Demo Account

Unfortunately, the demo account at City Index has a 12-week limit –  an unusual choice for a large broker –  and only comes with 20,000 AUD/10,000 GBP of virtual money, though we imagine the customer support team would increase this limit if asked. 

Otherwise, City Index’ demo account has all of the features and platform choices of the live account and is a good way to learn more about City Index as a broker.

Live Account

The live account has no minimum deposit and spreads are better than most market makers – from 0.5 pips on major pairs; both fixed and variable spreads are available. If you keep an account balance of more than 10,000 USD you can unlock the Premium Trader tier, which will grant you access to hospitality events and on-one-one customer service. 

The maximum leverage currently offered is 500:1, though in the UK and EU expect maximum leverage of 30:1.

Cryptocurrency CFDs

City Index offers crypto CFD trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Bitcoin Cash.  This set of cryptocurrencies will keep beginner traders happy but is relatively limited compared to other large brokers. That said, City Index does have the lowest Cryptocurrency trading fees amongst their immediate competitors.

Spreads on Crypto vary and will be much wider than for Forex – due to the extreme volatility of the Crypto market. Leverage for these products is set at 4:1.

Deposit Withdrawal Fees

CityIndex accepts deposits and withdrawals via:

• Credit Card
• Debit Card
• EFT
• BPAY
• PayID

No fees are charged for deposits or withdrawals. Withdrawals are processed within three working days and card withdrawals can take up to 10 working days to reach the customer.

City Index for Beginners

City Index has a large, dedicated training section for new traders, but as it is a multi-asset broker, the focus isn’t always on Forex trading. Similarly, the Market News & Analysis area is comprehensive and useful, but again, the focus is distributed across all the asset classes available at City Index.

Education Material

The educational material offered at City Index is good but only adequate for a broker of its size and type. Under the Training tab on the website, you will find links to short, detailed courses on Technical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis, Trading Strategy and Risk Management – there is also a small video library covering common Forex topics.

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Broker

Beginner Course

Advanced Course

Well Structured Education

Education Quality

Webinars

CityIndex

Yes

Yes

Yes

Medium

Yes

CM Trading

No

No

No

Medium

Yes

IQ Option

No

No

No

Medium

No

A more in-depth multimedia course called Introduction to Trading will be useful for beginners who want to get up to speed as quickly as possible.

Analytical Material

Under the Market News & Analysis tab, you will find a section devoted to daily research and fundamental analysis of news events. This is updated frequently by a small team of City Index analysts and covers all the asset classes tradeable at City Index. Articles can be filtered by topic, author and asset class so finding relevant Forex news and analysis is not difficult. Also in this section is a fairly basic Economic Calendar covering all the known economic events.

City Index also hosts webinars, though not frequently and you will need to be an active customer in order to register for them. Overall, a fairly underwhelming analytical section, especially when compared to other large brokers such as CMC Markets or Plus500.

Customer Support

Customer support is open 24/5, via live chat, email or phone. This is complemented by an extensive FAQ section covering account management, platform tutorials, funding and withdrawals, financial terms and the costs of trading. 

Trading Platforms

City Index offers a variety of platforms to traders: Two downloadable platforms – AT Pro and MetaTrader 4 – and the browser-based Web Trader. In addition, City Index also offers mobile applications (Advantage iOS and Advantage Android),  All of these platforms have different advantages:

• Web Trader:  This web platform offers great charting tools and other trading features, but it is limited compared to the downloadable platforms.  The research portal is a nice touch, and something other platforms that are more execution-focused don’t offer.
• MetaTrader 4:  This is the first choice of platform for CFD traders.  The interface does look dated and it does not offer as much customisation as some advanced traders might like.  That said, it is an excellent all-rounder.
• AT Pro:  AT Pro is aimed at experienced traders who want to take advantage of automated trading, it allows users to create their own trading templates in C#, .NET and Visual Basic. A powerful back-testing tool is also built-in as well as dozens of pre-made templates.

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Broker

Platform Choice

Copy Trading

Platforms

CityIndex

4.5/ 5

Yes

MT4

WebTrader

CM Trading

4/ 5

Yes

MT4

WebTrader

IQ Option

4/ 5

No

IQ option

Evaluation Method

We value transparency and openness in the way we review the partners. To bring transparency to the forefront, we have published our review process that includes a detailed breakdown of the City Index offering. Central to that process is the evaluation of the reliability of the broker, the platform offering of the broker and the trading conditions offered to clients, which are summarised in this review. Each one of these is graded, and an overall score is calculated and assigned to the broker.

City Index Risk Statement

Trading Forex is risky, and each broker is required to detail how risky the trading of Forex CFDs is to clients. City Index would like you to know that: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 72% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with City Index. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Conclusion

Large, established and well-regulated – City Index is not dissimilar to their market maker peers, CMC Markets and Plus500. Tight spreads (for a market maker) and great platform choice help City Index stand out, though its education and analysis sections are underwhelming.  We would also like to see one or two more account options, but overall City Index is a good choice if you are looking for a large and established market maker.