Annual Report and Notice of Annual General Meeting

RNS Number : 9084H

IG Group Holdings plc

09 August 2021

 

IG Group Holdings plc

LEI No: 2138003A5Q1M7ANOUD76

9 August 2021

Publication of Annual Report and Notice of Annual General Meeting

IG Group Holdings plc ('the Company'), a global leader in online trading, has today distributed to shareholders the following documents:

· Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 May 2021 ('Annual Report');

· Notice of the 2021 Annual General Meeting ('AGM'); and

· Form of Proxy for the AGM

In accordance with Listing Rule 9.6.1, copies of the documents listed above have been submitted to the Financial Conduct Authority via the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism

The Annual Report and Notice of the AGM are available to view on the Company's website at www.iggroup.com

The Company announces that its 2021 AGM Annual General Meeting (the 'AGM') will be held at 14:00 on Wednesday 22 September 2021 at the Company's offices located at Cannon Bridge House, 25 Dowgate Hill, London, EC4R 2YA.

In accordance with the UK Government's roadmap to ease COVID-19 restrictions across England at the time of writing it has been possible for the Company to offer an in-person meeting. The Company's priority is to safeguard the health and safety of its shareholders and employees and accordingly shareholders will need to register their intention to attend the AGM in advance of the meeting at  www.investorcentre.co.uk/eproxy (this link can also be used to vote their shares).  Given the health and safety restrictions for a COVID-19 secure meeting, shareholders are advised to consider if they are able to safely attend the meeting in person and are strongly urged to appoint the Chair of the AGM as their proxy and give voting instructions. This will ensure that votes will be counted even if attendance at the meeting in person is restricted for shareholders (or any other proxy otherwise appointed).

There is also the possibility that the AGM arrangements may need to be adapted to respond to the UK Government guidelines on short notice.  The Company will keep under review the AGM format and any changes to the AGM will be communicated to shareholders before the meeting on the Company's website at www.iggroup.com and, where appropriate, by an announcement via the Regulatory Information Service.

Additional information

The Appendix to this announcement contains information  extracted from the Annual Report for the year ended 31 May 2021 for the purposes of  compliance with the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules and should be read in conjunction with the Company's Full Year 2021 results announcement issued on 22 July 2021 which can be found at www.iggroup.com. Together these constitute the information required by DTR 6.3.5 to be communicated to the media in unedited full text through a Regulatory Information Service. This information is not a substitute for reading the Company's Annual Report in full. Page numbers and cross references in the extracted information refer to page numbers and cross references in the 2021 Annual Report.

APPENDIX

The principal risks set out below are extracted from pages 47 to 53 of the Annual Report and are repeated here solely for the purpose of complying with DTR 6.3.5.

Risk Taxonomy and Management

We have developed a Risk Taxonomy to ensure that we consider the full range of risks faced by the business, and to create a consensus for classifying all risk management activities. The taxonomy categorises the principal risks faced by IG into five areas:

1.  Regulatory environment risk

2.  Commercial risk

3.  Business model risk

4.  Operational risk

5.  Conduct risk

 

Principal risks/Taxonomy level 1	Taxonomy level 2	Overview
Regulatory environment risk The risk we face enhanced regulatory scrutiny, or the risk that the regulatory environment in any of the jurisdictions in which we currently operate, or may wish to operate, changes in a way that has an adverse effect on our business or operations, through reduction in revenue, increases in costs, or increases in capital and liquidity requirements.	· Regulatory risk · Regulatory change · Tax	We actively monitor and manage the outlook for regulatory environment risk across all countries and territories where we operate. The regulatory landscape has remained stable in the UK and Europe. In Australia, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) published final product intervention measures in FY21 that were in line with expectation. Changes were easily embedded, given the similarity with the rules in force in the UK and EU since 2019. As regulation of all forms continues to evolve, further changes are anticipated in the normal course of business. When changes occur, we will have plans in place to ensure a smooth transition to meet new requirements.
Commercial risk The risk that our performance is affected by client sensitivity to adverse market conditions, failure to adopt or implement an effective business strategy, failure to provide the expected levels of client service, new or existing competitors offering more attractive products or services or client dissatisfaction.	· Strategic delivery risk · Market conditions risk · Competitor risk · Client service risk	Sustained levels of increased market volatility, with occasional spikes, led to a strong business performance in FY21. We continue to make significant progress on our strategic initiatives, despite the ongoing circumstances related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Group continues to monitor and assess market volatility, client service level and the competitor environment, and to respond to changes.
Business model risk The risk we face arising from the nature of our business and our business model, including market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, and capital adequacy risk. Concentration risk exists and is managed within credit, market, liquidity and capital adequacy risk.	· Market risk · Credit risk · Liquidity risk · Capital adequacy risk	News surrounding the global Covid-19 pandemic and events such as the US election and positive vaccine news drove market volatility throughout the year, resulting in increased trading volumes as clients looked to benefit from all-time index highs and other opportunities. The Group's mature and embedded systems and controls enabled us to manage the increased business model risk we faced during this extraordinary year.
Operational risk The risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people, systems or external events.	· Technology risk · People risk · Process risk · External risk	Sustained client demand continues to place additional stress on systems, people and processes through unprecedented levels of trading volumes. Strengthening our control environment and ensuring the scalability of our processes continue to be key focus areas, with operational and technological resilience programmes in flight.
Conduct risk The risk that our conduct poses to the achievement of fair outcomes for consumers, or to the sound, stable, resilient and transparent operation of the financial markets. The risk arising from the Group's failure to adequately assess and manage obligations and wider stakeholder expectations regarding environmental, social and governance (ESG)-related matters.	· Our clients · The markets and financial crime · Culture	We continue to invest in systems, people and training to ensure our management of conduct risk meets the very highest standards. This includes ensuring we further embed our client-first culture, while continuing to work closely with all our regulators to protect the integrity of the financial markets. We manage our ESG profile by assessing and managing our obligations and wider stakeholder expectations regarding the Group's approach to being a responsible and sustainable business

Regulatory environment risk

Regulatory risk

The risk that IG is subject to enhanced regulatory scrutiny, and that we therefore face a higher chance of investigation, enforcement or sanction by financial services regulators, through non-compliance. This may be driven by internal factors, such as the strength of our control framework or its interpretation, awareness, understanding, or the implementation of relevant regulatory requirements. This risk can also arise from external factors, such as the current and changing priorities of both policy and supervision departments within the Group's regulators

Regulatory change

IG operates in a highly regulated environment that is continually evolving.

Governments or regulators may introduce legislation or new regulations and requirements in any of the jurisdictions in which we currently operate. We face the risk that this could result in an adverse effect on our business or operations, reducing our revenue, raising costs or increasing our capital and liquidity requirements. We operate to the highest regulatory standards and believe that we lead the industry in the way in which we deal with our clients. We maintain constructive relationships with our key regulators and actively seek to converse with them in an effort to keep abreast of emerging regulatory trends or developments

Tax

Within regulatory environment risk, we also include the risk of significant adverse changes in the way that the Group as a whole, or our individual businesses, are taxed. Examples of the tax risk we face include the risk that a financial transactions tax is imposed, which could severely impact the economics of trading, and the risk that the basis under which we're taxed, in any of the jurisdictions in which we operate, is adversely affected.

Commercial risk

We define commercial risk as the risk that our performance is affected by:

· Client sensitivity to adverse market conditions

· Failure to adopt or implement an effective business strategy

· Failure to provide the expected levels of client service

· New or existing competitors offering more attractive products or services

· Risk to third-party supply of services

· Client dissatisfaction

Strategic delivery risk

We work to mitigate our strategic delivery risk through the Board's regular and thorough review and challenge of our strategy, and the performance of current strategic initiatives. The Board holds a number of strategy sessions during the year to consider and agree the strategic priorities for the business. Planning processes are extensive, with stakeholders across our business being involved, and may include external assistance. We undertake external consultation and extensive market research before committing to any strategy, in order to test and validate a concept. Projects are managed via a phased investment process, with regular review periods, in order to assess performance and determine if further investment is justified. The Board also considers specific strategic actions and initiatives during its normal schedule of Board meetings.

Market conditions risk

IG's trading revenue reflects the transaction fees paid by clients, less the transaction costs incurred in hedging market exposures. The extent of client trading activity and the number of active clients in any period are the key determinants of revenue in that period. The ability to attract new clients, and the willingness of clients to trade, depends on the level of opportunity that clients perceive to be available in the markets. Our revenue is therefore partly dependent on market conditions.

We seek to mitigate the impact of adverse market conditions and client sensitivity towards those conditions through detailed review of daily revenue analysis, monthly financial information, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and regular reforecasts of our expected financial performance, reflecting the latest and expected market conditions. We use these forecasts to determine actions necessary to manage performance, with consideration given to changes in market conditions.

We regularly update our investors and market analysts on our revenue performance, including quarterly updates and pre-close statements, and engage with investors and market analysts to mitigate the risk that the impact of market conditions is not reflected in performance expectations

Competitor risk

IG operates in a highly competitive environment, which includes some unregulated and unethical operators. We work to mitigate competitor risk by maintaining a clear distinction in the market in terms of product, service and ethics, and by closely monitoring the activity and performance of our competitors, including detailed comparison of the terms of product offers.

We consider ourselves the leader in our market and, given our strong ethical values, we never deploy questionable practices, regardless of whether they would prove to be commercially attractive to clients. We do, however, aim to ensure that our product offering remains attractive, taking into account the other benefits that we offer our clients. These include brand, strength of technology and client service quality. This allows our business to provide a competitive offering overall and manage competitor risk without compromising our values.

Client service risk

The risk of client dissatisfaction arising from the expected service level not being met, resulting in reduced trading and account closures. This risk may stem from business stretch in times of high financial market volatility and increased client contact.

The service IG provides clients is supported by client-facing teams that interact with clients directly, and specific operational teams that support client account activity.

Business model risk

We define business model risk as the risks we face arising from the nature of our business and our business model. These include market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk and capital adequacy risk.

Market risk

We do not seek to generate returns from actively taking market risk. We don't take proprietary trading positions, and our revenue isn't dependent on the direction of market movements.

We accept some market risk to facilitate instant execution of client trades. We manage this market risk by internalising client flow - netting the exposure created through clients' trades so as to offset it - and external hedging when the residual exposures reach defined limits. Our real-time market position-monitoring system allows us to constantly manage our market exposures against our market risk limits. If exposures exceed predetermined limits, we execute hedges to bring the exposure back within the limits.

We have a Market Risk Policy which sets out how our business manages its market risk exposures. The market risk policy incorporates a methodology for setting market risk limits, consistent with our risk appetite, for each financial market in which our clients can trade, as well as for certain groups of markets or assets which we consider to be correlated. We determine these limits with reference to the expected liquidity and volatility of the underlying financial product or asset class, and represent the maximum (long or short) net exposure IG will hold without hedging.

We set our market risk limits with the objective of achieving the optimal efficiency between allowing client trades to be internalised, the cost of external hedging, and the variability of daily revenue. We work to manage market risk so that our trading revenue predominantly reflects client transaction fees net of hedging costs and is not driven by market risk gains or losses.

Residual market risk can crystallise if a market 'gaps' or fluctuates sharply, which occurs when a price changes suddenly in a single large movement - sometimes at the opening of a trading day, rather than in small incremental steps. This can mean we're unable to execute or adjust our hedging in a timely manner, resulting in potential market risk exposure. This may create a gain or a loss.

We monitor our market risk exposures through regular scenario-based stress tests which analyse the impact of potential stress and market gap events. We use the results to take appropriate action to reduce our risk exposures and those of our clients.

Credit risk

IG faces the risk that either a client or a financial counterparty fails to meet their obligations to us, resulting in a financial loss.

As a result of offering leveraged trading products, we accept that client credit losses can arise as a cost of our business model. Client credit risk principally arises when a client's total funds deposited with IG are insufficient to cover any trading losses incurred. In addition, a small number of clients are granted credit limits to cover running losses on open trades and margin requirements.

We manage client credit risk through the application of our Client Credit Risk Policy.

We set client margin requirements that reflect the market price risk for each instrument and use tiered margining so that larger positions are subject to proportionately higher margin requirements. We offer training and education to clients covering all aspects of trading and risk management, which encourages them to collateralise their accounts at an appropriate level in excess of the minimum requirement. In addition to cash funding by clients, we may also accept collateral in the form of shares from professional clients held in their IG stock trading account.

We further mitigate client credit risk by monitoring client positions in real time via the close-out monitor (COM), and by giving clients the ability to set a level at which an individual deal will be closed (the 'stop' level or 'guaranteed stop' level).

The COM automatically identifies accounts that have insufficient margin and triggers an automated process to close positions on those accounts. Where client losses are such that their total equity falls below the specified liquidation level, positions will be liquidated to bring the account back to within margin requirements, resulting in reduced credit risk exposure for IG.

In some jurisdictions, IG provides negative balance protection for retail clients, which is a guarantee that clients can't lose more than the total amount of equity held on their account. This, together with COM and client-initiated 'stops', results in the transfer of an element of the market risk from the client to IG. This market risk arises following the closure of a client position, as IG may hold a corresponding hedging position that will, assuming sufficient market liquidity, be unwound.

We have significant financial exposure to a number of financial institutions, owing to our placement of financial assets at banks and our hedging of market risk in the wholesale markets, which requires us to place margin with our hedging brokers.

We manage financial institution credit risk by applying our Financial Institution Counterparty Credit Risk Policy.

Financial institutional counterparties are subject to a credit review when we enter into a new relationship, and this is updated semi-annually (or more frequently as required, for example on changes to the financial institution's corporate structure). Proposed maximum exposure limits for these financial institutions, reflecting their credit rating and systemic position, are reviewed and approved by the Executive Risk Committee.

We actively manage our credit exposure to each of our broking counterparties, settling or recalling balances at each broker on a daily basis in line with the collateral requirements. As part of our management of concentration risk, we're also committed to maintaining multiple brokers for each asset class.

We're responsible, under various regulatory regimes, for the stewardship of client money and assets. These responsibilities include the appointment and periodic review of institutions where client money is deposited. Our general policy is that all financial institution counterparties holding client money accounts must have a minimum long-term credit rating of BBB-, with limits set depending on strength of credit rating. In a small number of operating jurisdictions where we maintain accounts to provide local banking facilities for clients, it can be problematic to find a banking counterparty satisfying these minimum rating requirements. In such cases, we may use a locally systemically important institution. These criteria also apply to IG's own bank accounts held with financial institutions.

In addition, the majority of our deposits are made on an overnight or breakable-term basis, which enables us to react immediately to any deterioration in credit quality. We only hold deposits of an unbreakable nature, or requiring notice, with a subset of counterparties that have been approved by the Executive Risk Committee.

Liquidity risk

Liquidity risk is the risk that we are unable to meet our financial obligations as they fall due. We manage this by applying our Liquidity Risk Management Policy.

Our approach to managing liquidity is to ensure that we have sufficient liquidity to meet our broker margin requirements and other financial liabilities when due, under both normal circumstances and stressed conditions. These liquidity requirements must be met from our own liquidity resources, as we do not use client money to fund our operations.

We hold liquid assets to:

1.  Enable the funding of broker margin requirements

2.  Ensure sufficient funds are held in non-UK entities

3.  lace appropriate prudent margins and buffers in segregated client money accounts

4.  Maintain a liquid assets buffer

5.  Make dividend payments to shareholders

6.  over profits and losses on client trading and hedging positions

7.  Make tax and other payments

We manage liquidity within the UK Defined Liquidity Group (UK DLG) comprising IGM and IGI. The UK DLG includes IGM, IG's primary market risk management vehicle, which internalises and hedges market risk on behalf of the other entities in the Group. Key liquidity decisions are discussed at the Executive Risk Committee and then the Executive Committee, as necessary.

The UK DLG carries out an Individual Liquidity Adequacy Assessment (ILAA) each year. This assesses the key drivers of liquidity for the UK DLG and whether it has sufficient liquidity to continue in operation, including under liquidity stress. The Contingency Funding Plan (CFP), contained within the ILAA, identifies mitigation options and steps to improve the liquidity position in a stress scenario, through the implementation of management actions.

We use a number of KRIs for managing liquidity risk, including G3 cash (GBP, EURand USD) held in UK DLG bank accounts, forecasted UK DLG available liquidity and UK DLG stressed liquidity after management actions.

We're required to fund initial margin payments to brokers on demand. Broker initial margin requirements are dependent on client trading positions, the level of internalisation IG can achieve from client trading, the product mix in our hedging positions and any natural offset in correlated products within our hedging positions.

In addition to our liquid assets, we mitigate liquidity risk through access to committed, unsecured bank facilities. We reassess annually the appropriate level of committed facilities we have available and draw down on the facility at least once during each year to test the process for accessing that liquidity.

The Group successfully managed its liquidity needs during the 2021 financial year, throughout the increased levels of client trading activity driven by the heightened and sustained levels of market volatility triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Liquidity is anticipated to remain strong.

We produce short-term liquidity forecasts and stress tests so that appropriate management actions, including facility draw-down, can be taken ahead of a period of expected liquidity demands.

IG is exposed to interest rate risk through our debt and our holdings of cash and investments. The interest costs incurred on debt, and interest income received through cash and investments, are not material in respect of our overall costs and income. We consider the liquidity risk related to these instruments in the Group Liquidity Risk Management Policy.

Capital adequacy risk

IG operates authorised and regulated businesses worldwide, supervised by the FCA in the UK and by various regulators across other jurisdictions. As a result of this supervision, we are required to hold sufficient regulatory capital at both Group and individual entity levels to cover our risk exposures, valued according to applicable rules, and any additional regulatory financial obligations imposed.

We're supervised on a consolidated basis by the FCA. In addition to our two UK FCA-regulated entities, our operations in Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Bermuda, the United States of America, Cyprus, Germany, Switzerland and United Arab Emirates (Dubai International Financial Centre) are directly authorised by the respective local regulators. Individual capital requirements in each regulated entity are taken into account, among other factors, when managing the global distribution and level of our capital resources, as part of the Group Capital Management Framework.

IG manages capital adequacy risk through our Regulatory Capital Policy, and we work to ensure that at all times we hold sufficient capital to operate our business successfully and to satisfy all regulatory requirements. We manage our capital resources with the objectives of facilitating business growth, maintaining our dividend policy, and complying with the regulatory capital resources requirements set by our regulators around the world.

We undertake an annual Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) through which we assess our capital requirements, by applying a series of stress-testing scenarios to our baseline financial projections. This assessment is reviewed and challenged by the ICAAPand ILAA Committee as well as the Board Risk Committee, which recommends the result to the Board for review and approval.

We operate a monitoring framework over our capital resources and minimum capital requirements daily, calculating the credit and market risk requirements arising on the exposures at the end of each business day. We also monitor internal warning indicators as a component of our Board Risk Dashboard. Any breaches are escalated to the Board as they occur, with a recommendation for appropriate remedial action.

Entity-level capital requirements monitoring and management is carried out locally according to each jurisdiction's requirements.

Operational risk

Operational risk is defined as the risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people activities, technology or other operations, or external events.

Operational risk is managed by applying our Operational Risk Management Framework. We continuously develop this framework to ensure visibility of risks and controls. We focus on clear accountability for controls, escalation and reporting mechanisms - through which risk events are identified and managed, and appropriate action is taken to improve controls.

We recognise that operational risk arises in the execution of all activities we undertake. We identify and manage operational risk in four categories: technology, people, process and external events. We recognise the growing risks associated with climate change and a warming planet. These include physical risks from changing weather patterns, and the transition risks arising from movement towards a less polluting, greener economy.

Our Risk and Control Self-Assessment (RCSA) methodology focuses on areas of the business identified as a priority. We use an operational risk event self-reporting process which provides increased visibility over events and control actions to be taken. These are monitored through a consolidated Control Action List.

Technology risk

Technology risk is the risk of loss caused by breakdown or other disruption to technology performance and service availability, or by information security incidents. It also includes new technology and technology that fails to meet business requirements.

We manage our technology risk through our Technology Risk Framework, which is overseen by the Technology Risk Committee. KPIs, incidents and outages are raised to this forum, comprising technology, information security, operations and risk experts. To manage cyber risk and external threats to our systems and data, we have the Information Security Forum, through which senior management is made aware of ongoing and potential threats, with policies and processes continuously being refreshed to ensure their validity within the evolving landscape. We have a 24/7 Security Operations Centre to review and triage information security incidents and employ mitigation services for threats such as denial-of-service (DOS) attacks.

We undertake regular performance and stress-testing to ensure our platforms have sufficient headroom and resilience to perform in times of heightened financial market volatility and increased demand. We also test our disaster recovery capability regularly to ensure that standby services are effective and minimise the impact to our services.

People risk

People risk is considered as the risk of a loss intentionally or unintentionally caused by an employee, such as employee error or misdeeds, or involving employees, such as in the area of employment disputes. It includes risks relating to employment law, health and safety, and HR practices. People risk includes the risk that IG is unable to attract and retain the staff it requires to operate its business successfully. In addition, we monitor for any strain on resources, ensuring sufficient staffing levels are in place for key business teams, so that processes are run effectively with controls maintained.

Process risk

Process risk relates to the design, execution and maintenance of key processes - such as client onboarding, trade execution or financial reporting - including process governance, clarity of roles, process design and execution. It also covers record-keeping, regulatory compliance failures and reporting failures.

External risk

External risk is the risk of loss due to third-party relationships and outsourcing, damage to physical and non-physical property or assets from natural or non-natural external causes, and external fraud.

The Group Business Continuity Policy, and the framework to that document, provide a clear statement of our commitment to ensure that critical IG business activities can be maintained during a disruption.

Conduct risk

IG recognises and manages the risk that our conduct may pose to the achievement of fair outcomes for clients, and to the sound, stable, resilient, and transparent operation of the financial markets. We have a Conduct Risk Framework and have implemented a Conduct Risk Strategy that aims to analyse the conduct risks that may arise and sets out how those risks are managed and mitigated. It also sets out specific controls used to manage conduct risk. We work to promote a positive, company-wide culture of good conduct as a competitive advantage and a means to differentiate our business clearly from companies conducting themselves poorly or unethically. We also aim to ensure, through training and awareness, that all employees are aware of the importance of managing conduct risk.

Our clients

We manage and monitor the risk of clients failing to understand the functionality of our products and suffering poor outcomes. We recognise that some of our products are not appropriate for certain clients and operate a process to identify potential new clients for whom the product may not be suitable. We support clients with education and training and offer account types that limit clients' risk. Client outcomes are monitored and reported to the Board.

Across the Group, IG employs a Vulnerable Client Policy. The policy places responsibility on first-line client-facing staff to monitor for signs of vulnerability in clients (eg the type of language used by clients in their communications to us). If a client is deemed vulnerable their account will be closed. The number of clients who have closed accounts due to deemed vulnerability is tracked and monitored by the compliance team as part of a product governance management information suite. Compliance monitoring helps to identify lack of policy adherence, as well as any sudden increases in closures which may point to an issue with the way our products are being designed, marketed and sold.

In addition, the compliance team monitors the funding of client accounts in tandem with information held on clients regarding their financial position. This is done with the intention of identifying scenarios where affordability of losses may be called into question.

Markets and financial crime

We recognise the risk of causing poor market outcomes if proper controls are not in place to, for example, detect instances of market abuse which must then be reported on. Clients may also attempt to use IG to commit fraud or launder money, and we've designed our systems, controls and monitoring programmes with the aim of preventing and detecting such issues.

Culture

We recognise the risk that the actions of our staff or IG's culture can result in poor outcomes for clients, or for the financial markets. We work to ensure that our staff are appropriately trained, managed and incentivised to ensure that their behaviour and activities don't inadvertently result in poor outcomes for clients or the markets. We also review remuneration policies and incentive schemes to ensure that they are appropriate and conducive to good conduct by staff. We recognise the risks arising from a failure to adequately assess and manage obligations and wider stakeholder expectations regarding the Group's approach to being a responsible and sustainable business. An environmental, social and governance strategy is in place to manage these risks.

STATEMENT OF DIRECTORS' RESPONSIBILITIES IN RESPECT OF THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

The following statement is extracted from The Statement of Directors' Responsibilities on page 117 of the Annual Report and is repeated here solely for the purpose of complying with DTR 6.3.5. The Statement relates to the full Annual Report and not the extracted information presented in this announcement of Full Year Results announcement.

The Directors are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the Financial Statements in accordance with applicable law and regulation.

Company law requires the Directors to prepare Financial Statements for each financial year. Under that law the Directors have prepared the Group and the Company Financial Statements in accordance with international accounting standards in conformity with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006. Additionally, the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules require the Directors to prepare the Group Financial Statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards adopted pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1606/2002 as it applies in the European Union.

Under company law, Directors must not approve the Financial Statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Group and Company and of the profit or loss of the Group for that period. In preparing the Financial Statements, the Directors are required to:

· Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently

· State whether, for the Group and Company, international accounting standards in conformity with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 and, for the Group, International Financial Reporting Standards adopted pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1606/2002 as it applies in the European Union have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the Financial Statements

· Make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent

· Prepare the Financial Statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Group and Company will continue in business

The Directors are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Group and Company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Directors are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the Group's and Company's transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Group and Company and enable them to ensure that the Financial Statements and the Directors' Remuneration Report comply with the Companies Act 2006.

The Directors are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the Company's website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of Financial Statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Directors' confirmations

The Directors consider that the Annual Report and Financial Statements, taken as a whole, is fair, balanced and understandable and provides the information necessary for shareholders to assess the Group's and Company's position and performance, business model and strategy.

Each of the Directors, whose names and functions are listed in the Corporate Governance section confirm that, to the best of their knowledge:

· The Group and Company Financial Statements, which have been prepared in accordance with international accounting standards in conformity with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 and, for the Group, International Financial Reporting Standards adopted pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1606/2002 as it applies in the European Union give a true and fair view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and profit of the Group and profit of the Company

· The Strategic Report includes a fair review of the development and performance of the business and the position of the Group and Company, together with a description of the principal risks and uncertainties that it faces

In the case of each Director in office at the date the Directors' Report is approved:

· So far as the Director is aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the Group's and Company's Auditors are unaware

· They have taken all the steps that they ought to have taken as a Director in order to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the Group's and Company's Auditors are aware of that information

On behalf of the Board

JUNE FELIX

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

9 AUGUST 2021

IG Group:

Business Company Secretary

Aurelia Gibbs [phone]

Investors contact

Liz Scorer, Head of Investor Relations  [phone]

[e-mail]

Press contact

Ramon Kaur, Head of Communications  [phone]

[e-mail]

FTI Consulting:

Ed Berry  [phone] / 1046

About IG

IG Group has been at the forefront of trading innovation since 1974. Since then, we've evolved into a global fintech company incorporating the IG, tastytrade, IG Prime, Spectrum, Nadex and DailyFX brands, with a presence in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

Our award-winning products and platforms empower ambitious people the world over to unlock opportunities around the clock, giving them access to over 19,000 financial markets. Today, more than 400,000 clients call IG Group home.

IG Group Holdings plc is an established member of the FTSE 250 and holds a long-term investment grade credit rating of BBB- with a stable outlook from Fitch Ratings.

 

END

 

 

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