Russian authorities issue instructions regarding InstaForex online ad
In the face of the claims made in the ad, Instaforex is not licensed by the Central Bank of Russia, FAS has determined.
The Moscow office of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has issued a statement regarding an advertising message by InstaForex. As FinanceFeeds has reported, the Russian authorities have launched a probe into the ads of InstaForex distributed via Yandex. The advertisement says “InstaForex- official website – broker licensed by the Central Bank”.
FAS explains that, under the Russian advertising laws, entities that lack the necessary licenses, registrations and permissions cannot advertise financial and banking services.
The probe has identified that InstaForex is operating without a Forex dealer license from the Central Bank of Russia. Hence, the regulator determined that the law was breached by Yandex and by Instaforex’s representative who signed the advertising contract with Yandex.
FAS issued instructions to both respondents to put an end to the violations and fix the breaches.
Let’s recall that, back in December 2018, shortly after the Central Bank of Russia annulled the licenses of several FX dealers, FAS said it would seek to deter the advertising of services of the Forex dealers that have had their licenses revoked. In a comment provided to Russian information agency RIA Novosti, FAS commented that:
“The advertising of services subject to licensing is not allowed when an entity is unlicensed. In case of discovery of advertisements distributed in violation of the Law on Advertising, the antimonopoly authorities will take action to stop such advertisements”.
Under the Central Bank’s decisions from December 27, 2018, the Forex dealer licenses of Alpari Forex, Forex Club, TeleTrade, Fix Trade and TrustForex are annulled. The regulator explained that the five brokers had repeatedly violated the Russian securities law. The violations range from providing false accounting statements to failures to follow the instructions issued by the Central Bank.
Russian information agency TASS has reported that the activities of the five companies that were slammed by the Central Bank of Russia were focused on aggressive advertising and referring Russian clients to foreign jurisdictions. This explanation has been provided by Larisa Selyutina, Head of the Securities Market and Commodity Market Department.
