A sharp split is emerging in retail FX and CFDs just as a new wave of convergence with institutional markets gathers pace, senior executives warned during the “All-Star Panel: Next Industry Trends” at FMLS:25 in London.

Moderated by Melissa Stringer, the Fractional CPO and Product Strategy Consultant, the discussion brought together Simon Maisey, LMAX Group’s Managing Director of Strategic Partnerships, Andrew Ralich, oneZero CEO and Co-Founder, Hugh Whelan, President at ACI UK, Financial Markets Association, Drew Niv, the Chief Strategy Officer at ATFX, and Martin St‑Hilaire, the CEO of Titan FX.

The panelists delved in a wide‑ranging debate on market structure, risk and the impact of new entrants.​​

Retail–Institutional Reconvergence

Niv argued that the last decade has seen retail and institutional FX pull apart, as retail brokers leaned harder into internalisation and B‑book models while expanding into emerging markets.

“In traditional FX CFDs, it's kind of diverging, but in the multi-asset is converging. And I think what's interesting is that we are, and I've said this in other panels before, we are like on the verge of some pretty significant changes in the industry in terms of new entrants coming in.”

Maisey stressed that access to data and wholesale liquidity has levelled dramatically across the spectrum from retail brokers to banks and buy‑side firms.

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“There's no longer a market that people can't see. If you're prepared to pay, you can get that data, you can get that information. And also like the liquidity is largely the same as well.”

Execution, Expectations and Regulation

Asked what “good execution” means in 2025, St‑Hilaire described a clash between marketing claims and economic reality in emerging markets.

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“If the spread is really, really tiny and tight, tight, tight, there's a good chance that you might not get the execution actually that you deserve. If the spread is maybe a bit wider, you will get probably more chance to be actually feel your order will be filled at the price that was advertised to you initially.”

According to Whelan, retail expectations are often misaligned with the demands of institutional liquidity, particularly on depth, low latency and multi‑regional infrastructure. Moving up the ladder requires significant investment in technology, operational resilience and regulatory engagement that many retail firms underestimate, he warned.

In Asia, he pointed to Korea, India and Taiwan as examples of markets opening to foreign institutions but only in return for “multi‑year investments” in local partnerships, reporting and on‑the‑ground presence, with Singapore’s MAS providing the template for higher standards.​

Blind Spots: Risk, Volatility and Big Tech

When the discussion turned to blind spots, Niv argued that the industry remains too focused on a “pocket of gambling‑leveraged traders”, leaving execution quality and risk management as secondary concerns so long as most clients lose money.

He predicted that the entry of “big supermarkets” such as large crypto platforms and app‑based brokers with tens of millions of accounts will reset standards, especially if firms like Binance or Robinhood were to acquire established FX brokers.

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“And I think they're going to make the standards very different. And I think there's always going to be a niche in this business, but I think the landscape is going to shift. There's a lot of big...Super apps are kind of a trivializing word.”

Ralich pushed back on the idea that today’s retail conditions are inherently unrealistic, likening tight spreads to free drinks in a casino – “it is what it is” given how the market works.

He sees the real blind spot in risk: brokers managing ever larger, bank‑sized B‑book positions without enough hedging, particularly beyond simple spot, leaving the industry exposed to book blow‑ups and insolvencies reminiscent of the pre‑CFTC era in the US.

Product Shifts, Tokenisation and AI

Maisey highlighted how client demand is already reshaping product mixes, with some brokers seeing gold volumes surpass FX in recent months.

“And people are going to start trading things they're interested in rather than just products they can change. We're already seeing from our broker partners now, we're seeing like in the last month, gold was more popular than FX.”

He also noted a shift in how retail traders are influenced, away from linear broadcast news and toward self‑selected online sources, which in turn shapes what they choose to trade.​

Ralich argued that convergence with crypto and digital assets may allow the OTC industry to “hopscotch” over a traditional exchange‑driven model, pointing to perpetual futures as a crypto invention that looks, in his words, like “just a CFD that has been given a prettier name.”

He and Maisey both floated the idea that stablecoins and tokenized assets could underpin more transparent brokerage balance sheets, with regulators eventually mandating on‑chain visibility of firms’ positions and collateral to prevent blow‑ups.​

2026 Priorities: Infrastructure, Localization and Concentration Risk

Looking ahead to what brokers will need in 2026, Maisey listed three non‑negotiables: being “digital‑ready” for tokenized and crypto‑style products; upgrading connectivity and prime‑broker workflows to handle institutional flows; and securing the right regulatory jurisdictions for institutional business.

The implementation burden for institutional connectivity, he said, remains very different from retail plug‑and‑play models.​ St‑Hilaire made the case for deep localization as the only viable way mid‑sized brokers can compete with global “super apps.”

“And if we break out from these regulations and this legislation and coming from emerging market where the legislation are much lower, we could imagine like that it's quite easy to have an AI that actually do your website. You have your front end for your trading platform.”

Niv warned that the industry is now “long gold volatility,” with many brokers deriving more than half their exposure from gold and facing a dangerous concentration risk if volatility dries up.

“And the biggest risk in this industry, people have to think like January to August of 2023, there was like a gold volatility drought. And just from my experience, I would say half the industry was probably four to five months away from bankruptcy. And big names.”

Whelan echoed that the lesson from institutional markets is diversification – across client segments and asset classes – suggesting retail brokers may likewise need to look beyond FX and metals into broader multi‑asset offerings to smooth earnings.​

For all the talk of tokenization, AI and app wars, the panelists returned to a simple conclusion: firms that thrive in the next cycle will be those that combine institutional‑grade risk management and transparency with sharper product design, richer client experiences and a more honest conversation with retail traders about what “good execution” really means.