Funding your account

This course is designed to help you place your first trade. It’s a practical step-by-step guide that includes how to fund your account, navigate your IG live account, select markets, choose your direction (buy or sell), explore the tools available for fundamental and technical analysis, populate your deal ticket or order, monitor and manage your open positions, and manage your risk. We’ve included lots of screenshots and videos, as well as links to other resources you might find helpful as you begin to trade.

If you have a specific question, head over to the IG support portal for additional information or to get in touch with our team directly.

Getting started: setting up your account

To trade with IG (whether in a live account, demo account or both), you need to create an account with us.

Once you’ve created a live account with IG, log in and you will arrive on your My IG page. This is the landing page you’ll see whenever you log in – a simple dashboard that shows your trading accounts (including live and demo accounts), as well as top news and analysis, live currency prices, and links to your profile settings, IG Academy, our support portal and your IG inbox (where we will deliver any correspondence relating to your trades).

You can navigate back to this page at any time by clicking the drop-down arrow in the top right corner of the screen and selecting My IG. You can also log out here and quickly access your live accounts on the web trading platform.

To trade with a live account, you’ll need to meet our eligibility criteria and provide proof of identity. You have various options available to you, depending on the type of trading you’re interested in.

You can also set up a free demo account if you’d like.

Once your trading account is live, the first step towards placing your trade is to fund your account.

How do I fund my account?

Navigate to your account by clicking on the Live accounts tab. Click on the option in the left pane labelled Deposit funds.

You will be able to choose your payment method, such as credit card, bank deposit, PayID or BPAY. If making a credit card deposit, there’s a minimum deposit of $100 required. There is no minimum for bank, PayID or BPAY deposits.

Please note that while you are not required to submit your bank account details to begin trading, no funds can be transferred to your bank account from your trades unless you have completed this step.

You can also fund your account from the IG web trading platform. To access this platform, click on the button that says Open platform on the My IG page, or select the live account you wish to trade on from the top-right drop-down list, then click Add funds.

Navigating the web trading platform

Once you’re in the IG web trading platform the default view will include a chart, navigation options along the top and left of the screen and a deal / order tab on the right side.
Along the top of the screen, you’ll see a summary of your account balance and a button to add or manage funds.

In the left navigation pane, there’s a search button so you can quickly find a specific market. If you have a share trading account, you will see shares, ETFs and investment trusts. If you have a CFD account, you will see forex, indices, cryptocurrency, shares, commodities, bonds and rates, ETFs and options.

We also display the most popular markets here, for quick access, as well as a range of tools for traders. These include watchlists, access to your positions, orders, history and alerts. There’s a section for news, market signals, economic calendars and other handy resources to help inform your trading. You can also customise your settings, such as whether to save your deal sizes, stops and limits per market (more on that later) and even whether you want to view the platform in light or dark mode.

By default, the chart sits in your workspace. Add a market to your workspace by opening it on the left navigation pane and clicking Add to workspace.

For example, you can click on the FX option and a list of currency pairs will open.

Select the one you want to trade, and its chart will open on the right side of your screen. Click Add to workspace and this will open it in full view.

You can change what you’re viewing in your workspace using the My Workspace tab. You can clear the space, rename it, delete it, or open a market in a new window.

Useful IG features

Once you have opened a market, you’ll see specific options providing you with more information on the market, including the price chart for your chosen financial instrument. From the chart, you can also access aggregated news relating to your market, as well as an overview of IG client sentiment.

You can click on any of the news headlines to access a pop-up that displays the news piece, the source of the information, and an option to view it in a new window.

The Client Sentiment tab gives you a summary of the percentage of IG clients holding long or short positions, as well as IG client trading activity in the market.

IG also produces a daily live trading show called Trade Live with IG, available for viewing on our trading platform, that offers trading insights and market analysis to kickstart your trading day.

You can access this from the News option on the left navigation tab, or by clicking the notifications menu button next to your profile on the top right of your screen, which will give you another navigation pane that includes Notifications and Posts. This will include notifications on your trades that have been closed, orders that have been filled, and social media posts related to your market.

What if I get stuck?

Learning your way around a new platform can be daunting, but we’re here to help. If you get lost or need help while working on the IG web trading platform, you can click on the Help option (top right corner) at any point.

Here, you’ll find our searchable support database, top articles answering common questions, links to course material on IG Academy, contact details, as well as information on any system updates.

We’ve also produced several video tutorials to guide you through using the platform, which can be accessed by clicking the blue button in the bottom right corner of the screen at any time.

Topics include how to select a market, how to place a trade, how to fund your account, how to use charts, and how to use positions.

Tutorials are available in both demo and live accounts.

In the next lesson, we’ll look at major markets, selecting your market and finding market information to inform your trade strategy.

Practise while you learn - open a free IG demo account and get hands-on trading experience.