The FCA’s CFD warning is about the overnight fee, and it starts in the advert
The FCA still has concerns about CFD overnight funding charges, and the fix starts with what promotions leave out.
On 15 October 2026 the FCA published a short update on contracts for difference that every CFD marketing team should read. FCA, Contracts for difference firms: good and poor practice.
It follows the FCA’s November 2025 multi-firm review of how CFD providers were meeting the Consumer Duty’s price and value outcome. In May 2026 the FCA asked 81 CFD firms what they had changed since. The answer, in short, is not enough, and one charge stands out.
What the FCA said
The FCA still has concerns “particularly about firms’ charges for a client holding a CFD position overnight”. It sets out three:
- The level of the charges, and how firms apply them, may not be consistent with the firm’s price and value obligations under the Duty.
- Firms may not be telling clients enough about these charges to meet their consumer understanding obligations.
- Hedged positions. The concerns extend to clients holding matched-off open buy and sell trades on the same asset.
The FCA says it will keep monitoring how firms apply and communicate CFD trading charges and will follow up with individual firms where it needs to.
The November 2025 findings set the background. Firms applied varying overnight funding charges without clear justification. Some charged overnight funding separately on matched long and short positions, an ongoing cost with little benefit to the client. Fair value assessments often looked narrowly at spreads and execution speed. FCA bulletin, November 2025; A&O Shearman summary.
The rules behind it
Two Consumer Duty outcomes do the work:
| Rule | What it requires | Why overnight funding matters |
|---|---|---|
| PRIN 2A.4.8R | The value assessment must consider the expected total price the retail customer pays | For a position held for weeks, overnight funding can be most of that price |
| PRIN 2A.5.3R | Communications must meet clients’ information needs and equip them to make properly informed decisions | A client who does not know about the charge cannot weigh it |
| PRIN 2A.7.2G | Non-standard charging structures may need greater care to support understanding | Funding that accrues daily, at a rate set by the firm, on both legs of a hedge, is non-standard for most retail clients |
The FCA’s update is about pricing and disclosure. But clients usually meet a CFD firm’s pricing for the first time in a promotion, and that is where we see the gap.
Our angle: the overnight fee goes missing in the advert
CFD promotions tend to compete on the price of opening a trade. “Spreads from 0.6 pips.” “Zero commission on indices.” “The tightest gold spreads in the UK.” These are claims about the cost of getting in. The cost of staying in, overnight funding, rarely appears, and for a client who holds a position for days or weeks it can be the larger number.
Marketing for CFDs, as for other MiFID investments, has to be accurate and give a fair and prominent indication of relevant risks when it references a potential benefit (COBS 4.5A.3R), and a low price is a benefit. A cost claim that is true but leaves out how most clients actually pay can still give the wrong impression. Whether it does depends on the claim, the product and the audience, and that judgement belongs to the firm.
Here is what that looks like on a typical advert:
| The advert says | The question a reviewer should ask |
|---|---|
| “Zero commission on US indices” | Is the client’s cost taken through the spread and overnight funding instead? Does the advert, or the page it leads to, say so? |
| “Spreads from 0.6 pips” | Is “from” the typical spread? Is the overnight rate on the same page as the spread, or three clicks away? |
| “Hedge your exposure without closing your position” | Will the client pay overnight funding on both legs? Is that explained before they place the second trade? |
| The standardised risk warning, with the firm’s percentage of losing accounts | Present and prominent, as COBS 22.5.6R requires? |
What to do this quarter
A suggested sequence for a CFD firm, after reading the FCA’s update:
- List every live cost claim. Paid social, search ads, affiliate pages, app store listings, pricing pages. Note which mention overnight funding and which do not.
- Follow each claim to where the client acts. If the advert leads to an account opening page, is overnight funding explained before the first trade, in plain language, with a worked example?
- Treat hedging features as their own journey. If the platform lets a client hold both sides, show the overnight cost of doing so at the point they open the second leg.
- Bring the adverts into the fair value assessment. The FCA’s concern is the charge and how it is communicated; a value assessment that never looks at how the firm sells the product misses half of that.
- Keep the evidence. Which claims were changed, when, and why.
This is a suggested approach, not legal advice. Each firm needs its own assessment of its charges and communications.
How Connor helps
Connor Financial Promotions checks CFD promotions against the rules that apply to the firm and its markets, including the FCA’s CFD rules on the standardised risk warning and the ban on incentives. Its cost-claim check separates “zero commission” on a named service from “no costs of any kind”. Where a claim depends on the firm’s fee schedule, Connor asks for it rather than guessing: a finding that a cost claim is misleading has to rest on the actual charges.
For the rules in full, with each provision quoted and linked, see CFD risk warning wording.
Frequently asked questions
What did the FCA publish about CFD firms in October 2026?
A good and poor practice page dated 15 October 2026. It follows the FCA’s November 2025 multi-firm review of CFD providers under the Consumer Duty. In May 2026 the FCA asked 81 CFD firms what they had changed. It still has concerns about overnight funding charges and says it will follow up with individual firms where needed.
Which Consumer Duty rules are involved?
The price and value outcome (PRIN 2A.4), which requires a fair value assessment that considers the expected total price a client pays, and the consumer understanding outcome (PRIN 2A.5), which requires communications that equip clients to make properly informed decisions.
Can a CFD advert say “zero commission”?
It can, if it is true for the service it describes and the advert is not misleading as a whole. Where most of the client’s cost comes from spreads and overnight funding, a firm should consider whether a cost claim that mentions neither gives a fair picture. That is a judgement for the firm on the facts.
James Zhao
Co-founder, ConnorJames is a co-founder of Connor. After a corporate career at Barclays and KPMG as a software engineer, he built and exited his own software company. He has spent the last three years at the forefront of AI, and the most recent of them building AI-native products and the agent platform behind Connor.
Kashif Rafiq
Co-founder, ConnorKashif is a co-founder of Connor. He spent his career inside two of the most heavily monitored industries there are, investment banking at Goldman Sachs and energy at BP, working on the security and technology systems that keep regulated communications and data under control. He now builds Connor, which checks financial promotions against the rules that apply to them.
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