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Cypriot regulator withdraws authorization of Optionrally

Maria Nikolova

About two years after ESMA banned binary options offering to retail investors, CySEC finally withdraws the authorization of Optionrally.

Nearly two years have passed since the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) announced the formal adoption of a ban on the marketing and offering of binary options to retail investors. One might have thought all binary options firms are out of the picture but it turns out that the situation is somewhat different – at least in Cyprus, where the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) apparently continues to withdraw the authorizations of binary options trading services providers.

Earlier today, CySEC published a brief notice announcing that, at its meeting held on May 13, 2020, it has decided, pursuant to section 8(1)(a) of the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law of 2017, to withdraw the Cyprus Investment Firm authorisation with Number 220/13 of Optionrally Financial Services Ltd. The decision of the regulator is due to the company’s decision to expressly renounce its CIF authorization.

The withdrawal is barely surprising as the website of Optionrally has gone unresponsive since the summer of 2018.

As FinanceFeeds has reported, OptionRally used the SpotOption platform and had offices in Tel Aviv, Israel and Limassol, Cyprus. Back in 2016, the firm began a complete restructure, having made a large proportion of its sales team redundant in Cyprus, which according to sources, amounts to approximately 50 people.

OptionRally was initially founded in 2010, in the Sonol Tower, in South Tel Aviv, Israel, by a group of partners led by former SuperDerivatives software engineer Tal Fromchenko. The company started to expand in 2013, gaining a CySec license and opening an office in Limassol, Cyprus at a later stage.

In its initial form, OptionRally was one of SpotOption’s largest brands, with over 85 members of staff at its Tel Aviv offices by 2012, with organic desks selling binary options to retail customers across Europe and the Middle East, with sales staff based in Tel Aviv, speaking multiple languages.

SpotOption and Yossi Herzog are now subject to a criminal investigation in the United States.

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