MoneyAm has just released another edition of its annual awards that aim to recognise the high quality service and innovative products from companies in the online world of finance. Sixteen companies over the same number of categories were awarded a prize, in an event that was able to cast over 7,000 online votes.

This year CMC Markets was able to get the Best Online Spread Betting Service prize, being rewarded for its innovative service. The company beat Capital Spreads, IG Index, GFT UK and City Index (last year’s winner), elevating itself to the top spot. CMC offers a unique platform that is simple to use and fully featured at the same time that certainly seduced traders. CMC was also chosen as the Best Online Education provider, as traders judged its offer of seminars, webinars and online documentations as being the best available. In fact that was also their opinion last year.

In terms of the sister product of spread betting, CFD’s, IG Markets got the edge winning the Best Online CFD Provider award. For all those trading forex products, Alpari UK was the choice. The company won the Best Online FX Provider award.

In terms of charts, this year ETC Capital beat the past winner Spreadex and won the Best Online Charts prize. Capital Spreads got the two awards for the software, collecting both Best Online Trading Platform, and Best Mobile Trading Platform prizes. In this field the competition was huge since online providers have been investing a large part of their funds into the development of platforms instead of betting in a spread war. More and more traders are looking for features and not only for the lowest spreads.

The most important award was given to Hargreaves Lansdown that this year was considered as the Best Overall Online Finance Provider dethroning Barclays Stock Brokers, the past winner.

IG Index, the largest spread betting provider was not able to directly get any award, although IG Markets, a sister company, has won the Best CFD prize. While IG consolidates its dominance in the UK, its peers have been busy trying to catch traders’ attention by providing them with enriched charts, webinars, and many other tools in a desperate attempt to get some extra market share.