Cyprus's securities regulator has withdrawn the investment licence of BrightPool Ltd, closing the books on a six-year-old trading subsidiary once tied to London-listed IG Group.
In a notice published Friday, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) said its board voted on Oct. 13 to cancel BrightPool's Cyprus Investment Firm authorisation (No. 378/19) after the company formally renounced it. The decision, issued under Cyprus's Investment Services and Regulated Markets Law of 2017 and Directive DI87-05, carries no allegation of wrongdoing.
"The authorisation was withdrawn due to the company's decision to expressly renounce it," CySEC wrote in its statement.
BrightPool was set up in 2016 as IG Group's Cyprus-based market-making and liquidity provider, operating under the domain brightpool-markets.com. Its purpose was largely to make markets for Spectrum Markets, IG's Frankfurt-registered multilateral trading facility for listed derivatives.
When Spectrum struggled to attract volume, BrightPool's relevance waned. IG's filings for FY 2024 and FY 2025 show impairments of £3.2 million related to Spectrum and £4.1 million tied to the Small Exchange in Chicago -- both now shuttered. In August 2025, industry reports suggested that IG was handing back BrightPool's licence as part of a wider exit from "legacy and sandbox" projects.
A voluntary wind-down
BrightPool itself told clients in May that it would wind down its operations and surrender its CySEC licence within six months. By June, the firm had stopped dealing in securities, according to trade-press accounts. Friday's decision formalises that process. There is no evidence of unresolved client claims or enforcement proceedings.
The move fits IG Group's ongoing consolidation drive. The group has been slimming non-core units to focus on higher-margin derivatives and institutional prime services. FY 2025 results showed net trading revenue up 12 % to £942.8 million and net profit up 24 % to £380.4 million, buoyed by strong performance in its core CFD and options business.
The BrightPool withdrawal also lands as CySEC intensifies scrutiny of the island's investment-services sector. The regulator recently named 11 unlicensed brokers operating online without authorisation and, earlier this month, accepted a licence renunciation from VPR Safe Financial Group, operator of the Alvexo brand.
CySEC's firmer stance reflects pressure from European counterparts to keep Cyprus's retail-FX hub clean after years of lax enforcement. Still, BrightPool's case stands apart as a voluntary exit by an established player, not a disciplinary action.
BrightPool Ltd remains registered in Cyprus under company number HE 364491 and retains a valid Legal Entity Identifier (2138007MC4C34J892J46), but without a CIF it can no longer offer investment services in the European Economic Area.