The emergence of CFD for contracts for differences, to a large extent, originated from retail traders, who hoped to get the privileges that only institutional investors could enjoy before. Since 1970s, contracts for differences have appeared in the institutional market and are familiar to institutional participants as stock swaps. A swap is a transaction between two institutions. Paying for one or both sides of the transaction is related to the performance of stocks and stock indexes. Sometimes you can avoid withholding income tax through swap transactions, get leveraged financing, or enjoy the owner's return without really owning the stock. The most common type of transaction is interest rate swap, in which one party agrees to pay a fixed interest rate to the other party in exchange for the floating interest rate of the other party. Other inter-agency day trading swaps include asset swap, bond swap, debt swap, stock swap, debt-to-equity swap, rollover swap and interest rate swap. Traditionally, due to the limitation of high initial transaction scale in the institutional market, retail investors cannot enter the swap market. Contracts for differences enable retail investors to benefit from participating in the swap market.

The contract for differences originated in Britain and became a relatively mainstream trading product in 2000. As soon as the Contract for Difference appeared, it spread quickly and was welcomed all over the world. At present, London still maintains the position of the most mature contract for differences market in the world. We can see the development of contracts for differences through the volume of transactions. In 2000, the volume of products traded through contracts for differences was $2.5 billion, which increased rapidly to $52.5 billion in 2004. It is estimated that more than 25% of all transactions of retail customers in the London Stock Exchange are based on contracts for differences. Other contracts for difference markets are also experiencing similar rapid development.

People's interest in the contract for difference market is mainly due to the fact that contracts for difference can be widely traded in different markets around the world. The demand for contracts for differences has expanded from margin foreign exchange and stocks to precious metals, commodity futures and government bonds.