This is sponsored content produced in partnership with Plus500. CFDs are complex, leveraged financial instruments and carry a high risk of losing money rapidly. Trading involves risk of loss.

Contract for Difference trading has grown into one of the more accessible ways for everyday investors to speculate on price movements across global markets, without needing to own the underlying asset itself. Plus500, a publicly listed, multi-regulated trading platform, has positioned itself as one of the more user-friendly platforms for people looking to get started with CFD trading. Here’s a breakdown of how the process actually works.

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What a CFD Actually Is

A Contract for Difference is an agreement between a trader and a broker to exchange the difference in an asset’s price between when a position is opened and when it’s closed. Rather than buying a physical share, a barrel of oil, or an ounce of gold, a CFD trader is simply speculating on whether that asset’s price will rise or fall. This structure allows traders to potentially profit in both rising and falling markets, since a CFD position can be opened as either a “buy” (going long, thinking that the price will rise) or a “sell” (going short, thinking that the price will fall).

Because CFDs are leveraged products, traders can open a position by putting down only a fraction of its total value, known as margin. That leverage cuts both ways: it can amplify gains, but it can equally amplify losses up to the full balance of your trading account, which is why regulators in most markets, including Australia’s ASIC, require brokers to display prominent risk warnings and, in many cases, cap the maximum leverage available to retail clients.

Step 1: Open and Verify an Account

Getting started with Plus500 begins with creating an account through the company’s website or mobile app. New users are asked to provide standard identity verification documents, consistent with regulatory “know your customer” requirements that apply across the online trading industry. This typically includes a form of government-issued ID and proof of address, a process most platforms complete within a short window once documents are submitted.

Step 2: Explore the Free Demo Account

One feature Plus500 highlights for newcomers is its free, unlimited demo account, which allows users to practice trading with virtual funds before committing real money. This lets beginners get familiar with the platform’s interface, chart tools, and order types, including stop-loss and take-profit orders, in a risk-free environment before transitioning to live trading.

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CFD service. Your capital is at risk

Step 3: Fund the Account

Once verified, users can deposit funds into their trading account through standard payment methods, which typically include bank transfer, credit or debit card, and various e-wallet options, depending on the user’s region. Minimum deposit requirements and available payment methods can vary by country, so checking the specifics for an Australian account is a useful first step before funding.

Step 4: Choose a Market to Trade

Plus500 offers CFDs across a wide range of asset classes, including individual shares, indices, commodities such as gold and oil, currency pairs, and cryptocurrencies. Each instrument is displayed with its current price alongside a chart showing recent price movement, letting traders research an asset before deciding whether to open a position.

Step 5: Set Trade Size and Leverage

Before opening a position, traders select the size of their trade and take note of the applicable leverage mandated by regulatory requirements in their jurisdiction. In Australia, ASIC has implemented leverage caps on CFDs specifically to limit the risk exposure of retail traders, meaning the maximum leverage available will be lower than what might be offered to professional or wholesale clients.

Step 6: Set Risk Management Tools

Before or immediately after opening a position, traders can attach risk management tools such as stop-loss orders, which automatically close a position if the price moves against the trader by a set amount, and take-profit orders, which close a position once a target gain is reached. Given the leveraged nature of CFDs, using these tools is widely considered a core part of responsible trading practice rather than an optional extra.

Step 7: Open, Monitor and Close the Position

Once a position is live, traders can monitor its performance in real time through the Plus500 platform or mobile app, which displays unrealized profit or loss as the underlying asset’s price moves. A position can be closed manually at any time, or it will close automatically if a stop-loss or take-profit level is triggered.

Regulatory Standing

Plus500 operates as a publicly traded company, listed on the London Stock Exchange, and regulated across multiple jurisdictions, including Australia through the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Regulatory oversight requires brokers to segregate client funds from company funds, provide negative balance protection, and adhere to specific disclosure and leverage rules designed to protect retail traders, though the specific protections available can vary depending on the regulatory jurisdiction under which an individual account is opened.

Why the Platform Appeals to Beginners

Industry commentary on retail trading platforms has generally pointed to a few consistent factors that make a CFD provider approachable for newer traders: a clean, intuitive interface; transparent fee and spread structures; a genuinely unlimited demo account rather than a time-limited trial; and responsive customer support. Plus500 has built its platform around those same priorities, offering a single, unified interface across web, desktop and mobile that mirrors the same charting tools and order types across every device.

A Note on Risk

CFD trading is not suited to every investor. Because of the leverage involved, CFD trading is considered higher risk than traditional share investing, though regulations by ASIC ensure retail client losses cannot exceed account deposits. Regulatory bodies including ASIC have published statistics in the past showing that a majority of retail CFD accounts lose money over time, a figure that brokers operating in Australia, including Plus500, are required to disclose to prospective clients. Anyone considering CFD trading should carefully review a platform’s risk disclosure statements and consider whether the product is appropriate for their financial situation before depositing funds.

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Getting Started

For those looking to explore CFD trading, Plus500’s combination of a free demo account, straightforward account verification, and a wide range of tradable markets offers a practical way to learn the mechanics of leveraged trading before committing real capital. As with any financial product, prospective traders are encouraged to fully understand the risks involved and to only trade with funds they can afford to lose.

Plus500AU Pty Ltd (ACN 153301681), licenced by: ASIC in Australia AFSL #417727. Derivatives issuer licence (FSP No. 486026) in New Zealand for NZ clients, issued by the FMA, Authorised Financial Services Provider in South Africa FSP #47546. You do not own or have any rights to the underlying assets. Consider if you fall within Plus500’s Target Market Distribution. Please refer to the Disclosure documents available on the website.This article is sponsored content and should not be considered financial advice. Trading CFDs carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

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EXCLUSIVE: Just two weeks after the Florida Chamber of Commerce launched a viral Times Square ad crowning New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as Florida’s “Economic Developer of the Year,” corporate decision-makers are answering the call.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Florida Chamber President and CEO Mark Wilson said inquiries from executives in blue states — including a Rochester technology firm looking to escape New York’s tax burden for the “land of opportunity” — are pouring in as companies look to leave progressive governance.

“This immediately went national,” Wilson said. “We had people literally texting us saying, ‘Hey, I’m seeing this. This is amazing. Our country needs to have this discussion, of course, about free enterprise versus socialism.’”

“The response has been from all over the country. We’ve had companies from Washington, California, Illinois, of course, New York. This has really been a national reaction,” he added. “We’ve had former governors and state senators in other states. We’ve had members of Congress who saw this… contact us and say, ‘Okay, this is the conversation our country needs to have.’”

FLORIDA STOCK RISING: HOW IT BECAME WORLD’S 14TH LARGEST ECONOMY AS BLUE STATES CONTINUE A ‘DEATH SPIRAL’

After the billboard went live at the corner of Broadway and West 43rd Street, web traffic to the Chamber’s “Free Enterprise” campaign spiked by 500% to 600%, according to Wilson. He said inquiries from businesses, site selectors and public officials came at a rate of five to seven contacts per day, extending beyond New York.

The NYC mayor was named Florida’s “Economic Developer of the Year.” (FOXBusiness)

“I received a call from a company in Rochester, a technology company in Rochester, New York, who’s very interested about getting out of New York and actually moving here to what they call the land of opportunity,” Wilson said.

A City Hall spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital in response to the ad that “by any metric, New York City’s economy under Mayor Mamdani is as strong as it’s ever been,” and said working-class New Yorkers are benefiting. Wilson disputed that assessment, citing fiscal pressures and tax structures that he argued disproportionately strain middle-class workers, including welders, electricians and nurses.

“This isn’t personal, and it’s certainly not partisan. This is a conversation about which is better for the everyday American: free enterprise or bigger government and less freedom, of course, with this whole [socialist] idea,” Wilson said. “New York City’s losing people, the New York City budget is not balanced, which is why they’re looking for new taxes.”

The Florida Chamber’s digital billboard can be found at 1500 Broadway and W. 43rd St. in Times Square. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital / FOXBusiness)

New York City adopted a $125.8 billion budget for fiscal year 2027 in June, though financial watchdogs have warned of structural budget gaps in future years. Its population remains below its 2020 Census level, despite growth in the latest annual estimate.

The municipal budget exceeds Florida’s $117.6 billion state budget by more than $8 billion, despite Florida having more than 23 million residents compared with roughly 8.3 million in New York City.

“If we’re talking about nurses and electricians and welders, right, the skilled trades that are so vital to America, what’s happening in New York City is they’re actually increasing the costs and decreasing their freedom,” he continued.

Wilson also compared purchasing power, pushing back on arguments that rapid population growth in Florida strains local infrastructure and raises housing prices and that higher salaries make blue states more attractive.

“Let’s say there’s an $80,000 [salary] welder that’s working in Ocala, Florida, where the median home prices are under $300,000. That’s an incredible life. You get to live in Florida with no income tax, some of the best schools anywhere. You’re an hour from a beach, okay? That same person living in New York City might make more money, but they can’t afford to live in New York City,” he said.

“The price of making more money is housing that you can’t afford, and an economy that wants to tax you more. And nobody wants to be in that environment.”

The Florida Chamber’s chief confirmed plans for a national rollout of its “Free Enterprise” campaign, adding that part of the strategy is keeping the next billboard location “a surprise,” with “plenty [of locations] to choose from,” including New Jersey, California, and cities like Minneapolis and Seattle.

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“The whole idea is — what is tomorrow going to look like? What does the future look like? And so, that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to provide an innovation hotbed where we can see what the future of the country looks like,” Wilson said.

“And let me reiterate, we’re not looking to other states to fail. We want to learn from them if they get something right. And right now, Florida’s growing companies, we’re growing people, we’re growing taxable income. And really, that’s what we need to be competing for.”

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Fenix International, the London company behind OnlyFans, paid its owner more than $700 million in dividends in and after its most recent financial year, according to its annual accounts.

Leonid Radvinsky, who owned the business, received $535 million in dividends in the 2025 financial year and a further $174 million after the year end. He was paid $497 million the year before. The payments were first reported by the Financial Times.

The company made a pre-tax profit of $715 million last year, a 5 per cent increase on 2024. Revenue for the year to 30 November 2025 rose 10 per cent to close to $1.6 billion.

Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur who acquired OnlyFans from its British founder in 2018, died of cancer in March at the age of 43. His wife, Yekaterina Chudnovsky, took control of the company after his death.

The dividends were paid against the backdrop of a sale process that has yet to deliver a full exit. In January, Radvinsky tried to sell 60 per cent of the business for $8 billion but did not find a buyer. He was in talks with Architect Capital, an American firm, over a deal valuing the company at $3.5 billion when he died. In May, Architect agreed instead to buy a 16 per cent stake in a deal valuing the business at $3.15 billion. The revised terms and lower valuation reflected the fact that Architect would no longer take control.

The site says it is used by more than 2.5 million content creators to “connect with fans”, of whom 132 million have active accounts, and to make money from the material they upload. It is best known for its use by pornographers but is also used by musicians and comedians. The company takes a cut of the revenue generated.

Its biggest market is the United States, followed by the UK and continental Europe. The filing shows the company employed only 47 people on average, though it also works with about 1,500 outside content moderators. On those figures the business generated roughly $34 million of revenue for every employee on the payroll, a ratio that owes almost everything to a model in which the cost of making the product sits with the creators rather than the company, and the cost of policing it sits largely with contractors.

That structure has drawn regulatory attention in the UK. Ofcom, the communications regulator, opened an investigation in May 2024 into whether OnlyFans was allowing children to see pornography on its platform. The regulator closed the case in March last year without a finding on the underlying question, but fined Fenix £1.05 million for failing to provide accurate information in response to statutory requests about age checks on the platform. Fenix had told Ofcom that the challenge age on its facial age estimation technology was set at 23 when it had in fact been set at 20 since November 2021. The penalty included a 30 per cent reduction for settling and for self reporting the error.

The point for any company that answers to a regulator is that the fine was for the answer, not for the conduct being asked about. Ofcom still considers OnlyFans an adult site, despite its efforts to broaden its appeal beyond pornography to content posted by celebrities and sports stars.

There are also concerns that mainstream social media platforms are being used to funnel users towards explicit content on OnlyFans. TikTok, which is itself under Ofcom investigation over its age checks, said last month that it had taken action against accounts highlighted by The Times for violating guidelines banning certain types of body exposure or sexualised behaviour.

OnlyFans was founded by Tim Stokely in 2016 with a £10,000 loan from his father. His brother, Thomas Stokely, became chief operating officer and their father worked as head of finance. The site initially sought to attract musicians and social media influencers, then lifted its ban on pornography in 2017. Stokely stood down as chief executive in 2021.

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

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• Research live and completed projects across WA industries
• Monitor deals, appointments and market activity
• Access industry rankings and league tables

Data & Insights is updated daily by our dedicated research team, which uses the latest announcements, ASX filings and editorial coverage to keep our person, company, list and project records up to date.

Business News welcome all opportunities to make our dataset accurate, complete and current, so if you have an update request, please email the team at
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Only subscribers have full access to all content on the Business News website.

If staying informed about the WA economy is part of your job, and/or you’re looking for networking opportunities in WA, Business News is built for you.

Business News subscribers are:

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• Investors and advisers researching companies, deals and industry trends
• Consultants and professionals staying across sectors relevant to their clients
• Business owners looking for leads, context and market intelligence

Most Business News publications cover national or global markets. Business News is focused entirely on Western Australia, which means the journalism, the data and the intelligence are all built around WA companies, people and projects — not adapted from a national feed. Data & Insights, included with every subscription, combines more than 30 years of WA-specific editorial research with live business data. There’s no comparable product for the WA market.

The Morning Digest Email provides a comprehensive wrap of the major headlines, relevant to WA business, and includes with a snapshot of the overnight news covering oil, gold and ASX-listed companies.

The Afternoon Wrap Email focuses on the news covered by our team of journalists during the course of the working day, including exclusive stories and analysis, all of which relates to WA business and the local economy.

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The Newport headquartered mutual has published accounts for its 2025-26 financial year

Monmouthshire Building Society has posted steady latest year end financial results with it maintaining a pre-tax profit level of £3.7m.

For its financial year to the end of April, 2026, the Newport headquartered mutual saw total assets up marginally on a year earlier from £1.72bn to £1.73bn Its mortgage book totalled £1.36bn with a savings balance of £1.39bn.

Around 31% of its lending, just over £432m, was in Wales . The highest English region was the south west of England with 14% (just over £191m) .

Chair of the board, Marian Evans said: “We’re very pleased with the society’s performance this year – we have continued to demonstrate resilience during a period of significant change and investment.

“The past year has been a pivotal period in the delivery of our strategy. Good progress has been made in implementing new core systems, which are already delivering tangible benefits to our intermediary partners, customers and colleagues.

“Thanks to the loyalty and trust of our customers and the commitment of our colleagues, the society has delivered a stable financial performance during a critical period of business transformation, ensuring we deliver on our vision of being a trusted financial partner, exceeding expectations.”

It was announced at the mutual’ recent AGM that Will Carroll has left his position as chief executive.

Mr Carroll, who joined the Newport-based society in 2004, has been replaced by Dawn Gunter as interim CEO until a permanent replacement is found.

Ms Gunter said: “Our 2025-26 financial results show a strong performance and disciplined progress as we moved from a period of growth to the early stages of our significant transformation and modernisation.

“This transformation programme is laying down the foundations that are pivotal for the next stage of our growth strategy. We have modernised our lending and digital capability, improved our customer service and security and strengthened our operational capability. All of this has been achieved while also delivering great customer service, controlling our risk and maintaining business as usual – which I am extremely proud of.

“This is a very exciting time for the society, as we build on everything we have already achieved and delivered in this financial year and move confidently into the next phase of our strategy.”

Monmouthshire Building Society employs around 220 people across its operating area in south Wales and the south west of England.

In its last financial year it donated £53,000 to 51 charities and community initiatives across south Wales, including supporting businesses, community groups and local people following the floods in Monmouth in November 2025. It has also supported financial education in schools through the 2B enterprise programme.

Customer satisfaction remained stable at 88% for the majority of the year.

“Ironing board” seats on some commuter trains will get extra cushioning, the transport secretary has said, more than a decade after the government spent £1.6bn of public money building the fleet.

Heidi Alexander announced that more than 60,000 seats on all 115 Thameslink trains would get new cushions and backrests, replacing much-criticised thin and hard seats.

She said the work, set to begin in 2027 and last two years, was “public ownership of our railways in action” as part of the new Great British Railways programme.

However, some have criticised how the Department for Transport (DfT) awarded a £1.6bn contract for the trains despite being warned of the seat discomfort at the time.

The seat upgrades are part of wider improvements planned for the Thameslink network after Greater Thameslink Railway came into public ownership in May 2026.

Other measures included an increase in Gatwick Express services from December and a programme to refurbish train toilets and remove graffiti across the fleet.

Alexander said: “We’ll start getting rid of the dreaded ‘ironing board seats’ so passengers can enjoy comfier, more pleasant journeys on some of Britain’s busiest commuter routes.”

She said wider rail reforms would continue under the planned Great British Railways organisation, which is intended to oversee rail services across England.

The class-700 Thameslink trains were heralded by the DfT as “state-of-the-art” and “a fantastic deal” for taxpayers when they were rolled out between 2016 and 2019.

That followed the DfT spending £1.6bn of taxpayers’ money for German manufacturer Siemens to build the trains in 2013, following a bidding process which began in 2008.

DfT’s own procurement guidance document for the fleet, seen by the BBC, stressed that they should be “high capacity” and “reduced weight”.

It said the new electric fleet would have a design that “must cater for [about] 1,000 people to board or alight at one time” and a “2+2 seat layout to ease flow and provide standing space”.

Some have claimed that this aim to maximise capacity and standing space for commuters led to the seats being so thinly cushioned.

Responding to Alexander’s post on X praising the new re-cushioning project, Graeme Pickering, senior correspondent at Railway Magazine, wrote: “Might have been wise not to frame this as ‘public ownership fixes private sector mess’ when it was the DfT which procured said trains.”

Two years before the Thameslink trains were rolled out to the public, a prototype was unveiled at London’s Excel centre in 2014.