The Chairwoman of the Cypriot regulator CySEC gave a press conference last week in which she outlined the priorities of the Commission for 2014 and pledged the regulator’s resolve to “to re-establish Cyprus as a stable, secure and more reliable investment destination.” With reference to the entities under the supervision of CySEC, the Chairwoman announced the Commission’s intention “to further strengthen market surveillance through increased inspections on all aspects of supervision” in order to ensure their full compliance with their obligations. She remarked that “this will be achieved through the completion and implementation of the risk-based supervision framework and by providing further guidance to the supervised entities based on the weaknesses and challenges identified during the inspections.”
Having gone publicly and on record about its intentions, CySEC then proceeded to issuing a number of announcements concerning the CIFs under its supervision.
On 23 January 2014, CySEC announced the list of CIFs to which it had decided to grant authorization pursuant to sections 6(6) and 22 of the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law of 2007, as in force, during the last quarter of 2013, i.e. in the period between October and December. The said list includes five investment firms.
Funnily enough, the first company mentioned on this list is Scorpid Trading Limited, accompanied by the further note that the company has already renounced its authorization and making reference to the previous announcements by CySEC to this regard. For those who have been following last year’s developments Scorpid is a familiar name as it was the parent company of iOption, the sudden closure of which was heavily discussed last year, and was termed by us here at binaryoptionswire.com as the iOption saga.
The other firms mentioned on the CySEC list of recently authorized investment firms are Tifozi Investments Ltd, which is the company behind the binary options site optionrally.com, Priorfx Ltd, which offers forex services through the site priorfxltd.com, as well as Tradernet Limited and A.A.M. & Wealth Ltd.
It is also imperative to point out that CySEC notes in its relevant announcement that “the above companies, before their activation, must establish and implement all the measures committed before the Commission, in order to comply with the requirements of the Law.”
Having talked about the new entrants on the growing list of CySEC regulated CIFs, we should also talk about an exit from the list as well. Again on 23rd January 2014, CySEC announced that as from 20 December 2013, the CIF «FX Global Markets (FXGM) Ltd» , which was providing investment services via the domains www.fxgm.com, “renounced its authorization pursuant to section 24(1)(b) of the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law of 2007, as in force (the “Law”).” Therefore, CySEC concludes, “the authorization with Νumber 074/06 lapsed as from the abovementioned date.”
However, CySEC also points out that “according to Section 25(4) of the Law, the Company remains under the supervision of the Commission until the Commission is satisfied that it has fully complied with the provisions of Article 24(3).”
This article stipulates that “the CIF must settle its obligations arising from the investment services or/and activities that lapsed, within three months from when the authorisation lapsed”.
Days after this announcement by CySEC it has emerged that this renouncement of its license by FX Global Markets (FXGM) Ltd, is the direct result of the fact that its brand name FXGM and its associated operations, where bought off by another player in the industry, namely Depaho Ltd, which added this brand to its already existing brand of gtcm.com. According to information, Depaho, as the new owner will continue to promote and support the brand of FXGM, while the former FXGM CEO is expected to be appointed as Depaho’s CEO, after his nomination was approved by the board of CySEC.
