XTB’s Clients Now Mostly Own Stocks, but CFDs Still Earn 90% of Its Trading Result

XTB's clients held PLN 56.2 billion (about $14.2 billion) with the broker at the end of September, according to its preliminary third-quarter report. The total has grown by two-thirds this year.

Stocks and exchange -traded funds (ETFs) made up 86% of that money, while open contracts for difference (CFDs) accounted for 1.3%.

The revenue split runs the other way. CFDs generated 90.5% of XTB's gross result on financial instruments in the quarter, according to FinanceMagnates.com's calculation from the report.

London's trading industry is coming home!

XTB shares opened 2.9% higher at PLN 142.60 in Warsaw today (Thursday), the first session after the broker said its quarterly profit quadrupled to PLN 213.7 million and beat analyst forecasts. They rose as much as 4.4% in the opening minutes and traded at PLN 142.54 by mid-morning.

That came after a 41.2% gain in the third quarter, second only to CMC Markets' 45.9% among 13 listed brokers and platforms tracked by FM Intelligence.

CFDs Earn Less of the Total Than in the First Half

The CFD share has come down since the first half, though it remains well above the level XTB's chief executive has set as a goal.

CFDs produced 96% of the gross result in the first half even as investment products brought in most new clients, while Chief Executive Omar Arnaout said in February that he wanted to cut the share of revenue from CFDs, then around 95%, to roughly 70%.

The gross result from other instruments, mainly stocks and ETFs, rose to PLN 57.3 million in the third quarter from PLN 5.8 million a year earlier. Interest earned on client cash increased 29% to PLN 28.4 million.

CFDs still brought in PLN 544.1 million, or about PLN 9.5 for every zloty from other instruments.

Where the PLN 56 Billion Sits

Client assets rose from PLN 50.3 billion at the end of June. The PLN 5.9 billion increase over the quarter compares with net client deposits of PLN 5.65 billion.

Stocks held by clients were worth PLN 25.3 billion and ETFs PLN 23.2 billion, while cash on accounts reached PLN 7.1 billion. At the end of 2019, the total was PLN 704 million.

Clients traded $9.2 billion of stocks and ETFs in the quarter, up 55% from a year earlier, as XTB rebuilt its ETF investment plans to include single stocks.

The growth has come from more clients rather than more revenue per client. XTB's profitability per client fell 76% between 2019 and 2025, FM Intelligence data show, and third-quarter revenue per active client was PLN 398, against PLN 408 a year earlier.

Tax Accounts Add a Longer Horizon

XTB ran 225,070 individual retirement accounts (IKE) and 65,018 IKZE pension accounts in Poland at the end of September, along with 11,767 ISA and Cash ISA accounts in the UK and 19,427 PEA accounts in France.

It added a Hungarian tax-advantaged account in the third quarter.

XTB, which won approval from the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) this month to manage client portfolios, plans to offer Poland's new Personal Investment Account (OKI) when the law takes effect in January 2027.

XTB plans to publish its full third-quarter report on November 20.