TIC Open Datasets
- expertise:
- CFD Trading, Forex, Derivatives, Risk Management
- credentials:
- Chartered ACII (2018) · Trading since 2012
- tested:
- 40+ forex & CFD platforms with live accounts
- expertise:
- Broker Comparison, ISA Strategy, Portfolio Management
- credentials:
- Active investor since 2013 · 11+ years experience
- tested:
- 40+ brokers with funded accounts
How We Test
Real accounts. Real money. Real trades. No demo accounts or press releases.
What we measure:
- Spreads vs advertised rates
- Execution speed and slippage
- Hidden fees (overnight, withdrawal, conversion)
- Actual withdrawal times
Scoring:
Fees (25%) · Platform (20%) · Assets (15%) · Mobile (15%) · Tools (10%) · Support (10%) · Regulation (5%)
Regulatory checks:
FCA Register verification · FSCS protection
Testing team:
Adam Woodhead (investing since 2013), Thomas Drury (Chartered ACII, 2018), Dom Farnell (investing since 2013) — 50+ platforms with funded accounts
Quarterly reviews · Corrections: in**@*******************co.uk
Disclaimer
Not financial advice. Educational content only. We're not FCA authorised. Consult a qualified advisor before investing.
Capital at risk. Investments can fall. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results.
CFD warning. 67-84% of retail accounts lose money trading CFDs. High risk due to leverage.
Contact: in**@*******************co.uk
Catalog summary
The Investors Centre publishes evergreen, methodology-backed datasets on UK retail finance products. Each dataset is built from real-money testing of FCA-regulated platforms by our named research team, refreshed quarterly, and released under CC BY 4.0 for academic, journalistic and commercial reuse with attribution. Four masters are currently published.
Browse the catalog
UK Leveraged Trading Brokers
17 leveraged-trading brokers measured for spreads, execution latency, withdrawal speed, customer support and FCA status. ~140 columns.
UK Investing Platforms
13 UK investing platforms tested with two standardised model portfolios. Covers ISA / SIPP fees, dealing fees, FX charges and total model-portfolio costs. ~95 columns.
UK Crypto Exchanges
11 crypto-trading platforms (7 FCA-registered, 4 non-FCA). Measures trading fees, custody architecture, staking yields and KYC verification time. ~80 columns.
AI Trading Tools
4 AI trading tools (TradingView, SignalStack, Kavout, TrendSpider). Measures subscription tiers, observed win rate, signal-to-execution latency and broker integrations. ~65 columns.
How we test
Every dataset above is built from live funded-account testing by The Investors Centre's named research team, not desk research or affiliate data. Each broker, platform, exchange and tool is funded with real GBP capital, sampled at consistent times, and cross-checked against the FCA Register where applicable. Our full protocol — including the standardised London-session sampling windows, withdrawal test rules, customer support sampling cadence and editorial scoring framework — is documented at how we test.
Citation guidelines
All four datasets are released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, redistribute, remix and build on the data in any format for any purpose, including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit.
For academic and journalistic use, please cite the specific dataset you used. The standard citation format is:
The Investors Centre. (2026). [Dataset name]. Retrieved from [Dataset URL]. CC BY 4.0.
Each child dataset page carries its own copy-pasteable citation. When citing measurement values, reference the dataset version and last-updated date so future readers can trace which test cycle you used.
Update cadence
Each master dataset is refreshed quarterly with a new test cycle. URLs are evergreen (no quarter suffix in the slug) — we bump the dataset version field and refresh content in place rather than minting a new URL each quarter. Subscribe to the TIC research newsletter for refresh notifications.