The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) on Friday confirmed that it has wholly suspended the Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) License of Centralspot Trading, which operates FX broker Opteck. CySEC ordered the company to take corrective measures within a set framework; otherwise, additional measures will be taken, such as the imposition of new fines and/or even the withdrawal of their licenses. More specifically, Centralspot now has 15 days to take the necessary actions to comply with the specified provisions. During this time, they cannot provide any services or enter into a business relationship with any person and take on any new clients. In addition, the broker is not allowed to execute any orders from clients for buying financial instruments or provide any investment services in or outside of Cyprus. Furthermore, the suspended brand is not permitted to advertise itself as an investment services provider or has relating advertisements. They must also close all open positions in relation to clients’ contracts on their maturity date or at an earlier time if the client so wishes, as well as return any funds and profits earned to existing clients.
€50,000 fine in 2017
CySEC also stipulates that any firm that has its license suspended should mention on all its websites that its CIF license has been suspended, which in this case, has yet to take effect. As reported in 2017, Opteck was initially flagged for non-compliance and had its license temporarily suspended by CySEC following several allegations of multiple violations. According to the CySEC regulatory manifest, the company was fined €50,000 for outsourcing its services to third parties and at times, was misrepresenting the qualifications of its personnel to clients and prospective clients. Earlier this week, the Cypriot regulator excluded 11 trading brands from its lifeboat scheme. The list includes some now-defunct FX brokers, including UBFS Invest, Spot Capital Markets Ltd, and Alfa-Forex, which earlier this year shut down its services to retail customers in Europe.
