Currency pairs made up 13.7% of the volume retail brokers reported in the second quarter, down from 26.8% a year earlier, FM Intelligence said today (Monday). Monthly FX volume across the brokers it tracks fell to $4.2 trillion from $6.4 trillion.
Volume in index, commodity, equity and crypto CFDs rose over the same year to $26.3 trillion from $17.4 trillion, according to the full FM Intelligence analysis. The industry total grew because the second number outran the first.
The five largest brokers now hold 41.8% of the volume FM Intelligence attributes to named firms, and they generate 4% of theirs in currencies.
Five Brokers Hold 41.8% of Named Volume
In April, FM Intelligence reported that the five largest brokers' share of tracked volume had barely moved between the end of 2021 and the end of 2025, at 38.4% and 38.2%. The new figures show the share rising in each of the three quarters since, on the same set of 51 to 52 named brokers.
The five at the top, EC Markets, TMGM, IC Markets, IG Group and JustMarkets, have one thing in common beyond size. FX was 4.0% of their combined volume in the quarter, against 10.9% a year earlier. Three of them route all of their reported volume through MetaTrader.
The share did not rise because the top five grew in the quarter. FM Intelligence's July ranking put the industry's decline at 9.3% between Q1 and Q2. Broken down by rank tier, the drop most brokers experienced was larger than that, and two firms explain the difference.
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"Part of it is the trade itself," Arkadiusz Jóźwiak, the Editor-in-Chief at Comparic.pl, told FinanceMagnates.com, "because the moves that pull retail money in over the past year have been in metals, equities and crypto, not in currency pairs."
The Median Broker Lost 12.6% in the Quarter
The share did not rise because the top five grew in the quarter. FM Intelligence's July ranking put the industry's decline at 9.3% between Q1 and Q2. The median named broker lost 12.6%, and 47 of the 51 brokers present in both quarters reported lower monthly volume.
Two firms explain the gap between the two figures. EC Markets added 23.6% and TMGM held its volume, while the other 49 named brokers fell 12.3% together. Within the top five, IC Markets, IG Group and JustMarkets each lost between 11% and 13%.
The August study of volume per active account found trading activity per account falling at 45 of 51 brokers in the same quarter. A broker that reported a double-digit decline in Q2 sat in the middle of its peer group on both measures.
Part of the FX Decline Is a Change in the Model
The finding comes with one limitation. FM Intelligence estimates the FX split for many smaller brokers, and it changed those estimates in the fourth quarter of 2025. Eighteen brokers show their published FX share stepping from 65-70% to 27-30% in one quarter.
The decline holds when those firms are removed. Among the 32 brokers whose shares moved gradually, the FX share fell to 11.7% from 20.5%, and 30 of the 32 reported a lower share. IC Markets went from 19% to 10% and Saxo Bank from 22% to 16%.
The FX figures come from the published quarterly tables, which mix broker submissions with FM Intelligence estimates. FM Intelligence expanded its coverage to 265 brokers in June, with 20% of the Q1 2026 figures classed as verified and 78% as estimated.
The breakdown by rank tier, the per-broker table and three paths for the top-five share in the third quarter are in the full FM Intelligence analysis
