Europe's cross-border retail investment market picked up about five million reported clients in 2025, and CFDs missed out on almost all of it.
ESMA's latest annual report shows the overall total rising from 10.5 million to 15.5 million, while CFD client numbers dipped to 1.3 million, falling behind even the tokenised assets offered by traditional banks.
CFDs' share of reported product holdings dropped from 11% in the previous report to 6.7%. ESMA rounds its product figures, so the implied loss of around 100,000 CFD clients is an estimate.
Shares and Funds Lead the Growth
Shares are still the most widely held product. Cross-border clients rose to 7.3 million in 2025 from 4.6 million a year earlier, and their share of reported holdings went up from about 36% to 38.9%.
UCITS funds came second, growing from 3.9 million to six million clients. They now make up 32% of reported holdings, compared with 30% in 2024.
MiCA-regulated crypto-assets also moved ahead of CFDs within ESMA's reporting scope, with nearly 1.6 million clients and an 8.4% share. That number only covers crypto products offered by traditional investment firms and credit institutions.
Standalone crypto-asset service providers are left out, so it reflects just part of the European market.
According to the report, execution services were provided to 87% of active clients, making it a primary cross-border business model. Portfolio management was offered to 11% of active clients, while only 0.8% received investment advice.
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What the Data Covers
The report tracks services provided across EU and EEA borders under the freedom-to-provide-services regime, and leaves out firms' domestic clients and business done through local branches. Firms only had to report if they served more than 50 retail clients in a host country.
The totals don't necessarily count unique individuals. One person might use several foreign firms or show up in more than one product category, for example by holding both shares and funds.
So the figures show where reported cross-border client numbers grew, but they don't show whether individual customers actually moved from CFDs into other products.
