It is a case of out with the old and in with the new at Dublin-based financial spread trading firm Marketspreads.

The group is gearing up to rebrand itself as Shelbourne Markets from this weekend.

The company, whose biggest shareholders are former Merrion Capital stockbroker Enrique Curran and his father Ray, is also planning to launch a number of new products into the marketplace.

This is aimed at broadening its customer base beyond retail spread traders.

Marketing executive John McGlade says the company felt it needed a new brand to reflect the fact that it is moving beyond spread betting to a broader range of products.

He did not go into the specifics of what those products would be, but said that one would be a foreign exchange-related offering aimed at small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The company is more or less the last indigenous man standing in its sector in the Irish market.

It is facing competition from newly arrived heavyweight, London-listed IG Index, which has just set up shop here.

Last April, the Central Bank suspended the Marketspreads licence for three weeks, citing concerns over audit and capital adequacy.

The regulator gave Marketspreads the green light to restart trading in the last week of April.

The problems dated back to 2009, before the current owners and management took over the business from Worldspreads, and the Central Bank restored its licence once those issues were dealt with.

Accounts for the 16 months ended April 30th, 2012, show the company’s revenues reached €6.7 million, compared with €3.95 million during the previous reporting period.

Operating profits hit €917,000, up from €214,000 in 2010.

This period included the three weeks during which the company’s licence was suspended.

At the time of the accounts being made public, Curran said the business recovered from the suspension and returned to normal trade quickly.

McGlade insisted this week that its rebranding had been in the offing for some time and has nothing to do with IG’s arrival into Ireland.