Britain’s mainstream commentators continue to expose fraudulent nature of moribund binary options firms

The net has been closing in on the fraudulent binary options brands and the market makers and platform providers behind them for quite some time, and now that most European countries have joined the US and Israel in an outright ban on this back-street business that is casting a shadow over the genuine electronic trading industry in genuine jurisdictions, the British media is going for the jugular.

Just one week after FinanceFeeds succeeded in lobbying premier league British football team Southampton FC in a combined effort with the Times and the City of London Police to drop sponsorship by Banc de Binary, highlighting to the team itself and the sports sponsorship agencies of London that this is a dangerous business which could result in fans being scammed, and a litany of exposees in mainstream media by respected national commentators labeling binary options as a fraudulent business, the Sunday Times has now weighed in.

During last week, the Netherlands and Germany joined France and Belgium in banning binary options, labeling it a scam, meaning that now in most regions of the developed world, including China, Israel, the US, Britain, Belgium, France, Holland and Germany, binary options firms are not allowed to peddle their nefarious business.

The Dutch government has labelled the binary options business industry “toxic” and outlawed it completely, representing the most recent national crackdown.

The move to ban advertising for the get-rich-quick trading schemes will ramp up the pressure on British authorities. The Sunday Times reveals this weekend how a woman lost more than £640,000 in what is thought to be the biggest fraud claim yet on these shores.

British investigative journalists, however, are not going to stop there. Yesteday Helen Travis, a 57-year-old divorcee from Macclesfield, Cheshire, came forward to state that she lost her entire inheritance through trading on Option.FM.

The company responsible for this is based in St Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean and, like many of its rivals, not regulated by British authorities.

The City of London police recently labelled binary options the “fastest-growing iteration of investment fraud”. Much of the industry operates out of Israel but is regulated in Cyprus, which allows companies to offer their services throughout Europe but largely escape oversight from domestic watchdogs.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, last week pledged to introduce a law to ban advertising after the AMF financial watchdog labelled the industry “toxic”. It said: “These products are just gambling, in our opinion.”

Binary companies allow clients to place bets on movements in currencies or stocks over periods ranging from 30 seconds to several months.

The Financial Conduct Authority(FCA) does not regulate any of the operators, while the Gambling Commission oversees just seven that have “key equipment”, such as servers, on British soil. The average fraud claim against binary companies in Britain is more than £20,000. Last month the FCA, City of London police and the Gambling Commission met to devise a strategy to tackle the industry. The FCA has also made it very clear that it will never regulate binary options as a financial product, largely because of the amount of fraudulent activity that these firms commit.

Option.FM promised Travis vast returns. Her hopes were dashed when she logged on to see that most of her money had vanished. According to the Sunday Times, the company did not respond to questions.

Last month, several owners of large binary options firms convened in order to establish a back-street cabal called the European Brokers Association (EUBOA) to attempt to overturn the negative sentiment by world governments, regulators and mainstream press – however it is clear that nobody will listen to it and it is in the greater interests of the entire electronic trading industry to ensure that binary options takes its last gasp sooner rather than later in order that it does not create a difficult environment for the top quality firms in bona fide financial centers which offer proper products via proper execution methodologies.

FinanceFeeds remains committed to the support of the mainstream and high quality bona fide retail and institutional firms in bona fide jursidictions which operate a genuine electronic trading system, as well as the support of their technology partners.

Our continued research alongside these firms aims to engender and facilitate the very top level of quality possible in today’s highly sophisticated electronic trading environment, and in order to do so, stands vehemently against the lowbrow and back street nature of binary options brands, thus we consider our efforts in this matter to have made a very positive difference to protect the high quality firms in this industry, and future customers.