CySEC suspends CIF licenses of several FX, binary options firms
CySEC refers to violations of legal provisions concerning the companies’ own funds and capital adequacy ratio for the licenses suspension.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has today published a raft of decisions taken by its Board concerning several FX and binary options brokers. The Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) licenses of the firms affected have been suspended, with the regulator noting the same reasons for the move – alleged violations by these brokers of the legal provisions for own funds and capital adequacy ratios.
The list of companies affected by the move include:
The company operates a number of binary options websites, such as: www.leadtradeltd.com; www.topoption.com; www.optionsclick.com; www.prestigeoption.com; www.excellenceoption.com; .www.platiniumoption.com
The company operates via binary options brands www.prooptions.com; www.nenx.com.
The company operates the following binary options websites: www.dragonoptions.com; binary.dragonoptions.com; forex.dragaonoptions.com; www.taotrade.com.
The company offers online trading services via www.traders-trust.com; www.tradingforex.com; www.ttcmpartners.com; www.ttcminvestment.com; www.alumnuscapital.com.
All of the companies in question are given ten days to rectify the legal breaches.
While their licenses are suspended, they are not allowed to enter into a business relationship with any person and take upon new clients. They cannot receive, transmit or execute any orders from clients for buying any financial instruments. Also, the affected firms cannot provide/perform any investment services in Cyprus or outside Cyprus (in member states and third countries).
The companies in question cannot advertise themselves as investment services providers and should mention on all of their websites that their CIF licence has been suspended. Regarding this, let’s say that at the moment of publication of this article, no such announcement was made on any of the websites of the companies with suspended licenses.
These firms should also, if existing clients so wish, close all open positions in relation to clients’ contracts. They should also return to existing clients all of their funds and profits earned.
The raft of license suspensions comes as CySEC is seeking to tighten the oversight of the binary options firms with licenses in Cyprus. In February this year, the Cypriot regulator published proposals for changes to the rules that govern CIFs offering binary options. The proposals cover a number of areas, ranging from trading methodology, reporting, to the nature of binary options that can be offered. For instance, some binary options types will no longer be acceptable – their Tenor must be for a period of at least 5 minutes.
