FXCM's inclusion in LeapRate's Approved List under review

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The U.S. National Futures Association (or "NFA") has issued a $2,000,000 monetary sanction against FXCM. The fine was in settlement of a complaint issued by the NFA's Business Conduct Committee relating to price slippage, failing to treat all customers equally when giving price adjustments, failing to adequately investigate suspicious activity in several customer accounts, and - together with its principal Dror Niv - failing to supervise.

Gain Capital’s just-filed quarterly 10-Q report has shed some more light on its recent acquisition of dbFX. And as we speculated when the deal was announced back in April, very little money changed hands.

Specifically, Gain’s Q2 reveals that:

A number of interesting announcements over the last week in the Forex world. Specifically:

1) IG Group 2011 Year-End Results. First, note that IG Group has a May 31 year end. While IG Group gave us a summary of Q4 and year-end results back at the beginning of June, the company yesterday put out more details on the year. Interesting to note:

LeapRate Exclusive! M&A Deal Report – LeapRate has learned that Finotec Group Inc. subsidiary Finotec Trading UK Limited has agreed to sell certain retail clients and client assets outside the EU to AvaFX. As in other such transactions, such as the recent purchase of dbFX by Gain Capital, the Finotec clients need to agree to move their accounts to AvaFX

As July 15 approaches, US Forex firms and foreign banks continue to scramble for solutions.

Saxo Bank and Citigroup announced yesterday that Saxo Bank will service all US clients through CitiFX Pro. This announcement comes amid a flurry of other similar notices, as firms doing business in the US prepare for the next phase in the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act on July 16 – although since Friday July 15 is the last “business day” before July 16, the rules are now commonly being referred to as the “July 15 rules”.

Gibraltar based brokerage firm Investors Europe announced Friday the launch of its new retail-focused Forex business. Investors Europe has been around for nearly a decade doing mainly high-net-worth and institutional brokerage, billing itself as “Europe's largest independently owned offshore stockbroker” (hard to argue with that, with all those qualifiers!).

Things must be going well at Currensee, which decided to release some operating numbers for the period since it launched about eight months ago.

Some of the numbers include:

$6 billion traded since launch (8 months), or about $750 million per month, although on a run-rate basis that number is probably closer to $1.5 billion per month. $12 million in client assets in the program, with average account size of $25,000 – meaning that on a relative basis Currensee has attracted larger, sophisticated investors that the typical “retail” client.

As reported over the weekend in Zero Hedge, Gain Capital sent a message to clients late last week that as of July 15 US clients can no longer trade over-the-counter precious metals, including Gold and Silver. All open positions for US clients need to be closed as of the July 15 date.

China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (or “SAFE”), which sets foreign currency regulations in China, announced yesterday a series of new rules to take effect August 1 which indicate further easing of general Forex controls in China.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) decided today, in a 5-0 commissioners’ vote, to propose delaying implementation of certain Dodd-Frank Act swap rules scheduled to take effect on July 16 to (at least) the end of the year. The delay will allow more time for the regulators to finalize certain rules which are still a work-in-progress, such as defining which banks, hedge funds and other firms are to be defined as swap dealers.