SpotOption Exchange and BDSwiss Get Administrative Fines as CySEC Gets Tough

The Cypriot regulator issued two small fines to SpotOption Exchange and BDSwiss in December in what seems to be an ongoing effort by the regulator to get its house in order. After a lot of criticism, the Cypriot regulator has ramped up its control mechanisms and started taking action against a number of companies in the industry.

Spotoption Exchange was fined €10,000, while BDSwiss was fined €5,000 with the CySEC CySEC The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is a financial regulatory authority of Cyprus. CySEC is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.Founded in 2001, CySEC is instrumental in providing licensing and registration for forex brokers and previously binary options providers.CySEC is responsible for a variety of different functions, which includes the supervision The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is a financial regulatory authority of Cyprus. CySEC is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.Founded in 2001, CySEC is instrumental in providing licensing and registration for forex brokers and previously binary options providers.CySEC is responsible for a variety of different functions, which includes the supervision Read this Term announcement not providing any details about the reasoning behind the move.

A spokesperson of SpotOption Exchange, said: "The fine refers to a temporary malfunction of the pricing engine of a newly introduced product in May 2014. The company took all necessary actions to rectify the price engine malfunction and to prevent such events from recurring in the future."

"The CySEC noted positively in its decision the control measures adopted by the company to prevent the recurrence of such events and the fact that the company had never previously been fined," the spokesperson elaborated.

A BDSwiss spokesperson has responded, saying that the reasoning behind the CySEC fine was related to a technical difficulty with one of the firm’s platform providers which affected the Execution Execution Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a co Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a co Read this Term rates with one of the firm’s clients.

Looking at the function of SpotOption Exchange, it is the company which is making the market for binary options for clients of the company. The fines may well be connected since BDSwiss has been using the solution which is managed by SpotOption Exchange.

From the looks of it, CySEC is going now after complaints of single clients and aiming to ascertain whether the prices which a client received were close to market levels. The approach is not consistent across the board, since the deposits of a number of clients of IronFX have been withheld for months with no specific explanation given by the company in a number of cases.

The move confirms that CySEC is continuing its effort to further scrutinize binary options companies and establish a more solid reputation as a strict financial regulator after pressure from the European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA). Brokers of binary options have been under closer inspection since last year, after a number of complaints from the French Financial Markets Authority have triggered backlash from the European peers of CySEC.