CMC Markets

CMC Markets is a UK-based financial services company that offers online trading in shares, spread betting, contracts for difference (CFDs) and foreign exchange across world markets. CMC is headquartered in London, with hubs in Sydney and Singapore. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The company was founded in 1989 by Peter Cruddas as a Foreign Exchange market maker under the name Currency Management Corporation. The name was later abbreviated to CMC and then changed to CMC Markets in September 2005. In 1992, CMC Markets became authorised and regulated in the UK by the AFBD which later became the Financial Services Authority (FSA). In 1996, the company launched a real-time FX trading platform and has made claims to have done the first FX deal on-line over the internet. Although not verifiable, CMC Markets was certainly one of the first companies to offer on-line trading over the internet. The company pioneered internet trading technology with its MarketMaker software platform. From 1996 to 2000, Information Internet Limited, as well as supplying CMC Markets, sold the software to a small number of banks. In 2000, Peter Cruddas bought out the other owners, made the software exclusive to CMC Markets and the remaining parts of Information Internet Limited became the internal IT function of CMC Markets. In 2000, CMC Markets began to offer contracts for difference (CFDs) and the following year it introduced online spread betting on financial markets. These two products would become the bulk of the business for CMC Markets. In 2002, the company began embarking on a major global expansion drive. It expanded quickly between 2002 and 2007 and opened offices in a large number of countries, as well as growing the spread betting business in the UK and the CFD business internationally. This began with its first overseas office in Sydney, Australia headed by Goran Drapac and David Trew. The first North American office was opened in 2003 in New York headed by Josh Levy.