UK spreadbetting brokers look to expand into traditional retail Forex trading.

Just two weeks after we reported that IG Group — with its newly-branded and launched website IG.com — had announced plans to launch MT4 trading for its clients later this summer, comes news that its UK spreadbetting rival City Index has beaten IG to the punch by getting its MT4 offering up and live.

After years of relying mainly on UK spreadbetting traders — IG Group, despite its ranking among the world’s top 10 Forex brokers, still does more than half of its revenues from UK traders — UK brokers are suddenly aggressively courting ‘traditional’ retail Forex traders, as well as looking to rely less on the home market.

City Index is is a unit of privately help IPGL. IPGL is also a major shareholder of derivatives broker ICAP, which in turn is a major player in the Forex ECN and institutional brokerage business, via its EBS unit. City Index has over 400 employees worldwide, and offices in the UK, Poland, Singapore, China, Israel and Australia.

More on City Index’s MT4 offering can be viewed here.

For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.