[ad_1]
Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Investments myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
Online trading platform IG Group is under fire from clients who have seen funds incorrectly removed from their accounts and not refunded more than a week later.
The FTSE 250 company, which offers investing and spread betting services, is currently manually refunding clients after an IT glitch resulted in money being mistakenly removed from a number of Isa accounts.
The errors, and the time taken by the company to resolve the issue, highlight the importance of resilient IT systems for online trading platforms with hundreds of thousands of clients.
Two IG clients told the FT they were incorrectly paid double the amount they should have been for a trade placed this month. While the error was corrected on the day, a few days later the amount was withdrawn from both their accounts a second time.
IG Group said it is aware of a technical issue with the settlement of a number of share trades that resulted in duplicate credit and debit of funds. It said it believes around 50 clients have been affected.
“The resolution is currently being worked through and we have been in contact with the affected clients. We will contact them again to keep them updated on the resolution,” the company said.
One impacted investor, Robbie Burns, told the FT he sold a holding in his Isa account on April 11, for which he was credited twice. IG removed the duplicated funds on the same day. However, five days later the same amount was taken from his account again.
Burns highlighted this issue to IG, which acknowledged the problem, but it took more than a week to pay him back.
“I wonder how can I trust them in the future not to make mistakes,” Burns said.
Another client, Fiona Whiston, made a trade on April 12 that settled the same day, for which she was also credited twice — a mistake which was corrected that day. However, the same amount was then taken from her account on April 16. IG Group has said it will refund her the £2,300 she is owed, however this has not yet happened, she said.
“It has taken such a long time to resolve, which is more of an issue [than the original error],” she told the FT. “What state are their systems in?”
IG Group has 358,000 active clients worldwide, and posted a 21 per cent drop year-on-year in statutory pre-tax profit to £176mn in the six months to November last year.
Last October, the company cut 300 jobs as part of an efficiency push after struggling with lower trading volumes following a pandemic-fuelled boom.
[ad_2]
Source link
