Who Owns FOREX.com?

FOREX.com launched in 2001 as the flagship retail platform of GAIN Capital, a company founded in 1999 in Bedminster, New Jersey, to open interbank currency trading to individual investors. The timing was early: retail forex was still a niche, and FOREX.com became one of the first brands to package leveraged currency trading in a consumer product.

Through the 2000s GAIN Capital expanded the brand internationally, winning regulatory licenses in the UK, Japan, Australia and elsewhere, and adding CFDs, spread betting and futures. The company listed on the NYSE in 2010 under ticker GCAP and bought rival City Index in 2014 for $118 million, a deal that made it one of the largest retail derivatives groups in the world.

The business hit turbulence in January 2015, when the Swiss franc's unpegging from the euro caused violent moves that bankrupted several rival brokers. GAIN survived, though the episode reshaped the industry's capital rules. Shares slid through the late 2010s as volatility and margins compressed.

In February 2020 StoneX Group, then known as INTL FCStone, agreed to buy GAIN Capital for about $236 million, completing the acquisition that July. GAIN's retail brands, FOREX.com and City Index, became StoneX's window onto the self-directed trading market. The corporate name change to StoneX Group Inc. followed in July 2020.

Under StoneX the brand has been kept and promoted as the retail face of the group. It absorbed StoneX's earlier retail offerings, launched a redesigned web platform and mobile apps, added TradingView integration, and expanded into futures and options trading in the US. In 2025 StoneX closed its $900 million-plus acquisition of R.J. O'Brien, the Chicago futures brokerage, deepening the exchange-traded derivatives infrastructure behind the retail brands.

GAIN Capital was founded in 1999 in Bedminster, New Jersey, by Mark Galant, launching FOREX.com as one of the first online platforms giving retail traders access to foreign exchange markets that had previously been the preserve of institutions. The timing captured the early-2000s wave of retail electronic trading.

The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010 and used the listing to consolidate: its largest deal was the 2014 acquisition of City Index, the established UK spread-betting and CFD provider, which gave it a second consumer brand and deeper European reach. GAIN also built futures business and institutional services around the retail core.

In February 2020 INTL FCStone agreed to acquire GAIN Capital for approximately $236 million in an all-cash transaction, completing the deal in July 2020. The parent renamed itself StoneX Group that same year. Under StoneX, FOREX.com kept its brand and regulatory footprint: in the United States it is registered with the CFTC and is a member of the NFA, while its UK entity holds FCA authorization and other jurisdictions are covered through StoneX's licensing structure.

Product range broadened steadily. Alongside spot forex the platform offers CFDs, spread betting in the UK, futures through affiliated entities, and access to MetaTrader 4 and 5 alongside proprietary web and mobile platforms. A TradingView integration positioned the brand for chart-driven retail traders migrating from community platforms.