UK, New Zealand, And US Regulators Flag Dozens Of Illegal Trading Platforms
Please note that we are not authorised to provide any investment advice. The content on this page is for information purposes only.
The UK financial market regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has expanded the warning list over the last week. The UK regulator has recently issued warnings against 44 trading and investment platforms that provide their services to UK residents by performing unauthorized activities.
Table of Contents
UK flags 44 illegal trading and investment platforms
Some of the trading and investment platforms that have been flagged by the FCA offer a wide range of financial instruments. These products include foreign exchange, contracts for difference (CFDs), shares, and cryptocurrencies.
On Monday alone, the FCA flagged five of these illegal trading platforms, including Globa Giant Asset, Fxcycletrader Financial, Octus Global Limited, and Infinite Prime. Out of the 39 unregistered platforms that have been flagged by the FCA, the regulator noted that two were clones of duly registered financial service companies.
The clone firms identified by the FCA include Capital Finance Limited, which impersonated the registered firm Capital Finance Management Limited. The other is Steban Holdings, which impersonated the duly registered Roy Persaud.
The platforms that have been flagged by the FCA recently have joined the growing list of trading and investment firms that the FCA has warned against this year. Prior to the recent addition to the warning list, the FCA had blacklisted 26 illegal trading and investment platforms that operated in the country and targeted UK citizens.
New Zealand warns against two illegal platforms
New Zealand is also actively regulating the financial market to prevent the actions of unregistered platforms. The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) of New Zealand has issued a warning against two online trading platforms that are not registered in the country. These platforms include Market Radar and Rolvi Trade.
The regulator said that Market Radar provides unregistered trading activities in cryptocurrencies, forex, and CFDs. On the other hand, Rolvi offered crypto-related products and services to users without proper authorization.
The FMA said that Rolvi Trade “is not registered on the Financial Services Providers Register or regulated to provide these services and products to New Zealand retail clients, as required by the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008 and the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013.”
US CFTC also cracks down on illegal trading platforms
The US CFTC is also taking aggressive measures to protect investors from illegal trading platforms. The regulator has added 34 new names of unregistered trading platforms to the Registration Deficient List (RED List). These platforms are not authorized to offer financial services in the country.
The flagged platforms operate by providing derivatives trading activities for cryptocurrencies, forex, and other asset classes. Some of these platforms also provide binary options trading that is supported in the US under a heavy regulatory framework but not authorized in the EU and the UK.
The CFTC said that the firms added to the RED List are those determined by the CFTC. These firms appear to act in a manner that requires registration because of the type of products they provide.
