Most of you probably remember last year’s debacle with the binary options broker iOption that collapsed suddenly leaving its clients, employees and associates in shock, only days after it had actually received a license by Cypriot regulator CySEC. It appears that the online retail binary options industry continues to operate under the terms of the “survival of the fittest” as strong competition and growing challenges in the market conditions mean that the “weakest” of players, i.e. brokers who for some reason cannot keep up with the pace of the industry will keep failing and exiting the scene.
According to persistent rumours the next “victim” of this trend appears to be MarketOptions, a UK based binary options broker which has however remained unregulated and unlicensed, despite having offered what seems to be good quality services to its clients for some time now.
According to some sources MarketOptions has shut down their trading platform and ceased their operation and customers are urged to rush to withdraw their funds from their trading accounts as soon as possible in order to avoid having the fate of the clients of iOption, another SpotOption while label, who ended up losing a lot of money.
Other sources, which are also backed by the fact that the MarketOptions website appears to still be up and running and still accepting and processing deposits, maintain that the broker has not gone defunct, but is instead opting for a cut back in its operations in order to be able to better serve a specific segment of its clientele. In other words, it has over-extended itself and needs to focus its resources on less activities in order to survive.
Whichever the base, either if the firm has failed completely or if it needs to curtail its operations, both scenarios are indicative of the current situation in the market and the fact that as the industry moves more towards strict regulation and streamlining, the small, independent and largely unregulated brokers will have a real hard time to remain competitive and survive.
Although the picture is convoluted and hazy binaryoptionswire.com will continue watching this story closely and inform you of any developments.
