FX week in review: XTB fine, JFD Brokers sold, eToro buys Zengo, Kraken $200M investment (and extortion), Saxo loses money

Gerald Segal 0 Comments April 19, 2026

In what was easily the busiest news week of the year so far in the online trading sector, there was a little bit (actually, a lot!) of everything.

Acquisitions.

Investments.

Fines (big ones).

Broker results (of the good, and not-so-good variety).

CEO moves.

Some of the most read and commented-on FX/CFD industry news stories to appear over the past seven days on FNG included:

Top FX and CFDs industry news stories this week

XTB fined $5.5 million for conflict of interest issues, providing misleading information to clients. Poland based Retail FX and CFDs broker XTB SA (WSE:XTB) was hit with a PLN 20 million (USD $5.53 million) fine by Polish financial regulator Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego (KNF), for a variety of issues and problems cited by the regulator. The regulator stated that XTB, based in Warsaw, failed to meet the requirements imposed on investment firms by law, resulting in the company conducting its business in an unreliable and unprofessional manner.

GBE Brokers acquires clients of CFDs broker JFD Group. Germany focused CFDs broker GBE Brokers has announced that, as part of an asset deal, it is acquiring nearly all clients and intermediary structures of JFD Group Ltd, which operates under the brand JFD Brokers. The deal includes client funds in the eight-figure range as well as a four-digit number of accounts. Parts of the existing JFD Brokers team will also move to GBE brokers. The acquisition will expand GBE Brokers’ position in the German-speaking financial market.

eToro acquisition of Zengo Wallet: $70 million. Israel based online broker eToro (NASDAQ:ETOR) has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Zengo, a leading self-custodial crypto wallet provider, in a move that deepens eToro’s digital asset capabilities and accelerates its strategy of connecting traditional finance with on-chain infrastructure and the crypto native economy.

Deutsche Börse Group invests $200M in Kraken. Deutsche Börse Group today announced a strategic investment of $200 million in Payward, Inc., the unified infrastructure layer behind global cryptocurrency platform Kraken. The investment is made through the acquisition of shares in a secondary transaction, resulting in a 1.5% fully diluted stake in the company – meaning the transaction implies a $13.3 billion valuation for Payward.

Kraken hit with extortion demands over videos of internal systems with client data. Nick Percoco, Chief Security Officer of US based crypto exchange Kraken, put up an interesting post on X.com (formerly Twitter) summarizing the attempts of a criminal group to extort money from the company. Kraken is at a particularly sensitive time in its evolution, with parent company Payward Inc pursuing a multi-billion dollar IPO.

Saxo Bank sees 2% Revenue decline, posts loss in H2 2025. Following a fairly strong first half of 2025, Copenhagen based Retail FX and CFDs broker Saxo Bank apparently had a slower H2, in which the company also operated in the red, posting only its second semi-annual net loss in more than six years. Saxo posted a slight Net Loss of DKK 9 million ($1 million) in the second half of 2025, versus an $87 million Net Profit in the first half of the year.