Exclusive: LCG suffers “major IT outage”, trading platforms and back office down
FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that London-based Retail FX and CFDs broker London Capital Group (LCG) had what it termed a “major IT outage” last week, which saw LCG’s trading platform down for a number of days. We understand that the outage ran from last Tuesday (June 20), all the way to Friday.
The outage affected both LCG’s FCA-based operation serving UK clients (lcg.com/uk), as well as its offshore Bahamas domiciled operation which runs lcg.com/int.
In a note to clients (see full text below), LCG indicated that the outage affected its trading platforms, as well as the company’s back and middle office systems. The result was that LCG clients have been unable to access their accounts online, and the company has been unable to process client deposits and withdrawals.
While LCG said that its trading platforms are now back online, clients using LCG’s proprietary LCG Trader need to access their account via a special link (trader.lcg.com), and will need to reset their passwords. Clients using MT4 can log in as normal. However it appears as if the LCG website, while not actually down, is still not working properly, displaying as text only.
The problems at LCG come just days after FNG reported exclusively that LCG had made a decision to move to an introducing-broker model only, as the company will no longer hold client funds or process client trades. The changes at LCG will kick in as of July 1, assuming that they can solve their back-office issues in time.
FNG spoke to a senior management member at LCG, who shared with us:
“We suffered an extended outage this past week that impacted our trading platforms, payment systems, and equally importantly our communication systems. This was particularly painful as we were unable to keep clients informed as the situation unfolded.
The platforms are back online as of Friday. Client funds remain segregated and safe, and we will be processing deposits and withdrawals (by bank transfer) again on Monday.
The outage was not linked in any way to the new partnership arrangement with IG or the change in our business model.
Regarding the causes of the outage, management is unable to comment on the specifics of the outage whilst a full audit of what went wrong is undertaken.”
LCG is controlled by Swiss neobroker FlowBank, which is run by former LCG CEO Charles-Henri Sabet.
The note sent out to clients by LCG (and also posted now on the LCG website) reads as follows:
As you may be aware LCG has this week suffered a major IT outage, which has affected our trading platforms as well as our back and middle office systems.
The result of this is that clients have been unable to access their accounts online and we have been unable to process deposits and withdrawals.
Because the outage has impacted our internal systems, we’ve been unable to communicate with you as we would have hoped to in such a scenario. We apologise sincerely, both for the inconvenience caused by the outage and our inability relay information to you.
Our trading platforms are now back online. For clients trading on LCG Trader, you will need to access your account via the following link: https://trader.lcg.com/ – you will need to reset your password. MT4 clients can login as normal.
My LCG remains offline. Whilst we continue to work on a resolution, our UK Customer Service Team are available at customerservices.uk@lcg.com and for Bahamas clients at customerservices.bhs@lcg.com
We apologise again for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Best Regards,
Customer Services
London Capital Group
June 29, 2023 @ 5:53 pm
Hello. We have something to say regarding to LCG’s systems failure.
“We are currently experiencing a major IT outage which is impacting our trading platforms. Clients are unable to login or trade.
Work to resolve the issue is ongoing.
Currently we do not have an expected recovery time, but are doing everything in our power to resume normal operations as quickly as possible.” – stated LCG company.
We want to bring some clarity here. First, the failure in the company’s system occurred due to our activities. There will be no recovery at all. We blocked the entire internal infrastructure of the company and took a huge amount of sensitive information, which will soon be published on our blog.
At this point, we must inform all users to withdraw all funds as soon as possible, since the owners of the company hide from you an incredible amount of information about fraudulent schemes, money laundering through an offshore company and much MUCH more. The management of the company should suffer a serious punishment shortly, which they are already trying in every possible way to delay.