Belgium’s FSMA warns of Apex500, Infinity4x and Top Capital 24

abdelaziz Fathi

Belgium’s financial watchdog, the Financial Services and Markets Authority ‎‎(FSMA), has issued a warning against the unauthorized activities of multiple ‎ platforms that are offering investments in the country without ‎complying with Belgian financial legislation.‎

FSMA operates as a watchdog for financial trading, securities and markets in Belgium, overseeing a variety of assets and compliance issues for traders and consumers. Today’s warning is the latest initiative in its efforts to clamp down on companies engaging in fraudulent activities.

The agency also managed to catch up in the last few months, bringing standalone actions against cryptocurrency operators. This represents the FSMA‎’s latest effort to police the rampant internet-based ‎cryptocurrency schemes, which operate into a zone that the ‎watchdog regulates.

The latest additions include:

  • Agartha Asset Management (www.agarthaassetmanagement.com)
  • Antarimarkets (www.antarimarkets.com)
  • Apex500 (www.apex-500.com)
  • Brokeragea (www.brokeragea.com)
  • Calliber (www.calliber.io)
  • Capital Professional Reserve (www.cp-r.net) (cloned firm)
  • Concept Blue (www.concept-blue.com) (cloned firm)
  • Cryptosaving (www.cryptosavings.io)
  • CTmatador (www.ctmatador.com and www.platform.ctmatador-pro.com)
  • DCMGROUP (www.dcmgroup.io)
  • EJMarkets (www.ejmarkets.com)
  • Europa Trade Capital (www.europatradecapital.com)
  • Euro Trade (www.eurotrade.co)
  • FinsRoyal (www.finsroyal.com)
  • Foxane (www.foxane.com)
  • Fxpoint (www.fxpoint.co)
  • Glenrocks (www.glenrocks.com)
  • Globalxtrades (www.globalxtrades.com)
  • High Capital (www.high-capitals.com)
  • Introtrade (www.introtrade.pro)
  • Infinity4x (www.infinity4x.com)
  • Kardon Capital (www.kardoncapital.com)
  • LPLeurope (www.lpleurope.com)
  • LPL Invest (www.lplinvest.com)
  • Oriontero (www.oriontero.com)
  • Slimhandel (www.slimhandel.com)
  • Soltechx (www.soltechx.com)
  • Standpoint Finance (www.standpointfinance.com)
  • Ti-GI (www.ti-gi.com)
  • Top Capital 24 (www.topcapital24.com) (cloned firm)
  • Towards Source (www.towardssource.com)
  • Traderhouse (www.traderhouse.com)
  • Trade Horizon (www.tradehorizon.com and www.tradehorizon2.com)
  • Trends Turbo (www.trends-turbo.com)
  • Ualgo (www.ualgo.com)
  • World Markets (www.worldmarkets.com)
  • Word Wide Brokers (www.worldwidebrokers.co)
  • x-tradebrokers (www.x-tradebrokers.com)

The aforementioned companies are not authorized investment firms in Belgium. They are therefore not allowed to provide investment services in or from within the country.

Based on this, the FSMA strongly advises against responding to any offers of financial or recovery services made by the companies listed above and against transferring money to any account number they might mention.

To get the protections offered by securities laws when trading digital assets, investors should ‎use a platform or entity registered with the FSMA, the regulator said.

Cryptocurrency companies operating in Belgium have to apply for a license to the nation’s financial watchdog as the new anti-money laundering (AML) regulations come into effect.

License applicants must show to Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) that they possess sufficient capability, coherence, and solvency to run the business.

As part of their plans, the FSMA imposes a minimum capital of €50,000 ($53,000) and mandate a corporate structure on cryptoasset-related businesses to register with the country’s regulator.

Once the new regulation takes effect, that would force crypto exchanges, wallet providers and crypto custodial service providers operating in Belgium to register with a financial regulator and prove that they are meeting AML requirements if they want to continue their operations.

Read this next

Digital Assets

Crypto exchange Bittrex exits US market amid regulatory woes

Bittrex said on Friday it plans to wind down operations in the United States and voluntarily liquidate because of the uncertain regulatory environment surrounding their business.

Institutional FX

Tradeweb completes integration of Nasdaq’s US fixed income platform

Tradeweb Markets has completed the technology integration of Nasdaq’s US fixed income electronic trading platform, formerly known as eSpeed, which it acquired two years ago in a $190 million, all-cash transaction.

Digital Assets

FTX Europe to allow client withdrawals via new website

The Cypriot unit of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX has launched a new website that it says would allow customers to withdraw deposits of fiat currency and crypto assets after months of suspension.

Retail FX

Liquidators apply to cancel SVS Securities’ FCA license

An update published today by Leonard Curtis said the UK high court of justice has approve their application to bring the special administration of the failed wealth manager SVS Securities to an end.

Digital Assets

Japan forms government panel to pilot digital yen

Japan’s Finance Ministry has created an advisory panel to look at the feasibility of issuing a central bank digital currency, otherwise known as “CBDC”.

Digital Assets

USDC sees massive $10.4 billion outflows in March

Cryptocurrency traders have withdrawn more than $10 billion from the world’s second largest stablecoin, USDC, in less than three weeks even as concerns over the fallout from the Silicon Valley collapse have receded.

Interviews

OSTTRA’s Joanna Davies goes beyond 30-30-30 data standard at FIA Boca 2023

FinanceFeeds Editor-in-Chief Nikolai Isayev spoke with Joanna Davies about OSTTRA.

Interviews

CloudMargin’s Stuart Connolly on how to manage collateral amid high rates at FIA Boca 2023

FinanceFeeds Editor-in-Chief Nikolai Isayev spoke with Stuart Connolly about CloudMargin’s SaaS platform, said to be the only cloud-native collateral and margin management system in the industry, at a time of stress due to rising interest rates.

Interviews

Baton Systems’ Alex Knight on solving post-trade with DLT at FIA Boca 2023

FinanceFeeds Editor-in-Chief Nikolai Isayev spoke with Alex Knight about Baton Systems’ about rising settlement fails, collateral management, and the profile of DLT beyond cryptocurrencies.

<