Cyprus (and other EU) Forex brokers are not just relying on MiFID, but are getting licensed separately in the UK. Two up-and-coming FX brokers, IronFX from Cyprus and Admiral Markets from Estonia, have separately announced that they have each received FCA authorization for their UK subsidiaries. (The FCA, of course, is the recently christened successor…
Read moreAston Markets, based in Bulgaria, claims to be licensed by CySEC but apparently isn't and never was. Cyprus financial regulator CySEC has sent out a release warning investors against Sofia, Bulgaria-based Aston Markets. On its website, Aston Markets claims that it is "licensed by CySEC, regulated under MiFID, as well as the FSA, BdF, CONSOB, CNMV, and BaFin. [Google translation…
Read moreOne of the first Pacific Rim FX brokerage firms to expand abroad. As a correction to our previous story regarding Monex Japan, it was actually Monex Indonesia, another (unrelated) mid-sized Forex brokerage firm, which received its CySEC 'CIF' license to begin Forex trading operations out of Cyprus. (Our apologies to our friends at the Monex…
Read moreCySEC allows FX brokers to release client names and data to banks, to allow for release of client funds. LeapRate Exclusive... We reported (exclusively) last week that segregated client fund bank accounts held by Cyprus FX brokers at Laiki Bank and Bank of Cyprus would NOT be subject to the "haircut" (or more correctly, confiscation)…
Read moreCentral Bank of Cyprus has agreed to not haircut segregated bank accounts over €100,000, where the ultimate beneficiaries are small individual investors. LeapRate Exclusive... LeapRate has learned that Cyprus' financial regulator CySEC is working on behalf of licensed Cyprus investment firms, which include many FX and Binary brokers, to prevent the dreaded "haircut" on bank accounts…
Read moreIs this ESMA's way of indicating it plans to tighten rules for CFD trading? The EU's financial markets regulator, ESMA (the European Securities and Markets Authority), has issued a somewhat strange and "plain-vanilla" sounding warning against CFD trading by retail investors. The ESMA warning on CFD trading states that ESMA is concerned that "during the current…
Read moreCySEC issues press release asserting its "authority to reach settlements". Well it seems as if we've ruffled some feathers at Cyprus' financial regulator CySEC. In an apparent response to our article Wednesday in which we claimed that CySEC is shaking down a number of FX brokers, CySEC issued a press release yesterday (full wording included below,…
Read moreCySEC threatening FX brokers if they don't settle quietly and pay large fines. LeapRate Exclusive -- Some very strange pronouncements have been coming lately from Cyprus' financial regulator CySEC relating to FX brokers. For example yesterday we see CySEC announce a €50,000 fine against eToro, with no real explanation given. (The press release mentioned a very vague…
Read moreDo regulators have to also pay fines themselves for making administrative errors? In a fairly quick and somewhat bizarre about-face to the story we broke earlier today (that CySEC and UFX Markets had "compromised on" an €100,000 fine for UFX Markets' regulated parent company Reliantco, for undisclosed actions), CySEC has now issued a new letter recalling…
Read moreAlthough the fine remains shrouded in mystery as to what UFX was actually charged with doing. Cyprus' financial regulator CySEC disclosed today it had fined UFX Markets (or more specifically, its regulated parent holding company Reliantco Investments Ltd) the sum of €100,000, The fine followed a CySEC investigation "for reasonable suspicion of committing possible violations" of Cyprus'…
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