In the late 1990s, CFDs were introduced to retail traders. They were popularized by a number of UK companies, characterized by innovative online trading platforms that made it easy to see live prices and trade in real time. The first company to do this was GNI (originally known as Gerrard & National Intercommodities); GNI and its CFD trading service GNI Touch was later acquired by MF Global. They were soon followed by IG Markets and CMC Markets who started to popularize the service in 2000.