What is DMA?

DMA pricing technology

• Offers the best possible prices aggregated from multiple exchanges
• Allows better execution thanks to increased liquidity
• Provides smart order routing technology that optimises the execution price across multiple venues
• Gives users free live price feeds from MTFs
• It is used only for CFDs and share dealing

How does it work?

When you are trading shares, either physical or a CFD and you click on one of the prices in our DMA platforms, smart order routing technology immediately routes your order to the optimal venue(s). By routing your order across multiple order books it's more likely that your order will be filled, but you will only ever be charged one commission per order.

Find out more about shares DMA

MTF lit books

Multilateral Trading Facilities (MTFs) provide visible order books in the same way primary exchanges do, so you can see the price and size of all orders and judge where you want to place yours. We combine these MTF lit books and the primary exchange order book to display a single, aggregated order book.

If you are using our L2 Dealer platform, you can view the individual order books for each exchange and MTF.

Dark pools

Clients can also benefit from the liquidity available in dark pools, where they may benefit from price improvements and mid-point matching. These are orders not displayed on the lit books but are available for you to trade against. Dark liquidity pools are often used by institutional investors who do not wish to reveal the price, size and origin of their orders.

This means that as well as the liquidity visible on the lit order books, trading share CFDs with IG or share dealing with IG gives you unparalleled access to the non-displayed liquidity found in the dark pools. This means you can take advantage of even greater levels of liquidity, increasing the likelihood of your orders being filled and the potential for better prices.

Better prices

Previously, MTF lit and dark liquidity was only available to large institutional investors; we enable all CFD traders and share dealing clients to access these new venues through our DMA trading solutions: shares DMA and Forex Direct.