Meet Our Customers: IG

A short interview with Ivan Gowan, Head of IT Development at IG, the world’s first financial spread betting company.

Let’s talk about your organization. What is your core business?
“Company’s core businesses are Contracts for Difference (CFDs) and Spread Betting”.

In our experience Lightstreamer have repeatedly demonstrated their in depth expertise in streaming over the web with deep knowledge of the difficulties one faces.

Ivan Gowan

— Head of IT Development at IG

Could you let us know any further information?
“IG Group (LSE:IGG), headquartered in London, began its activity in 1974 as the world’s first financial spread betting company. In the first half of 2012, IG Group recorded GBP 366.8M (+17.3% from the previous area) in trading revenues and GBP 185.7M in profit before tax. With offices in 14 countries across five continents, we execute more than five million transaction a month for over 140,000 global clients”.

Who is the typical user of your product or service?
“Our client base is focused made up of people who in the main are decision makers and lean towards people who have significant disposable income”.

What does your application or service do?
“Our dealing platforms provide retail clients with the ability to deal on tens of thousands of markets in real time”.

What functionalities are powered by Lightstreamer?
“Lightstreamer is used to provide streaming of prices and deal confirmations to the dealing platforms. It is also used to stream data to our charts applications”.

Is your main application based on HTML or other front-end technologies?
“Our Web Dealing Platform uses HTML, JavaScript, and Flex for our Charts”.

Do you provide any native apps for smartphones and tablets?
“Our native Mobile Dealing Platforms use the native libraries for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and J2ME”.

Is your product or service visible at any URL (publicly or registration based)?
“Clients can see our web site www.ig.com or find the various IG mobile apps here“.

IG Index won many accolades and awards from industry groups and financial media during the years. Could you please list some of them?
“Our recent awards include Investors Chronicle/Financial Times “Best Spread Betting Provider” and “Best CFD Provider” Awards 2012, and What Investment magazine “Spread Betting Provider of the Year” Awards 2011, 2010, 2009, among the many others. An extensive list of IG Index awards is available online here“.

Which will be the next steps IG Group will take to keep improving its online services in the near future?
“IG Group have just rolled out Price Alert push notifications on our native mobile platforms. This was a heavily requested feature from our clients and has been well received”.

Any comments on your experience integrating Lightstreamer?
“In our experience Lightstreamer have repeatedly demonstrated their in depth expertise in streaming over the web with deep knowledge of the difficulties one faces. Our experience of Lightstreamer support has been very positive, they have set a high bar for other vendors to strive to achieve. Responses to questions about our design or rollout as well as support issues have been very prompt and detailed. They are very proactive in helping to resolve issues”.