All Alpari FS clients to be transferred to Alpari UK.
In something of a surprise move, Alpari announced that as of February 8 it will transfer all client accounts legally situated with Alpari’s Cyprus subsidiary Alpari FS, and move them to Alpari UK.
Following February 8 Alpari FS will cease providing services to clients.
Alpari cited the main reason for the move was “to realize scalable benefits”, or in other words cost cutting, by centralizing Europe operations under one roof and with one regulator. Although several FX firms do it, being regulated by both Cyprus’ CySEC and the UK’s FSA (as Alpari is) is somewhat redundant, given that both Cyprus and the UK are EU members and are party to MiFID, allowing licensing in one jurisdiction to be passported to all other EU / EEA member countries.
The Cyprus FX scene remains crowded, with four new CySEC licenses having been handed out during the past two months alone — to ForexTime (which as we reported is owned and led by Alpari founder and shareholder Andrey Dashin), UBK Markets, Hot Forex (under the name of HF Markets Europe Ltd.), and Sloughgate Consultants Ltd. (with their retail FX brand still pending).
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