Major Shakeups in the Binary Options Industry – Best of the Week

During the passing week the top news in the international Online Trading industry all seemed to be involved with the fast changing environment that binary options brokers are operating in.

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Watchdogs bite

On Sunday we broke the news that the Israeli Securities Authority (ISA) acted against binary options peer to peer (P2P) exchange Fairtrade for operating an unauthorized exchange. The watchdog sent a letter to Fairtrade informing it that it was breaking the law, and demanding that it halt its activities. It was the first time that the ISA has0 taken this sort of action against a binary options exchange.

The following day it was reported the French financial regulator, Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), decided that all electronic advertisement of forex and binary options in France will be banned. Strangely, brokers will still be able to offer CFDs (contracts for difference) provided that they meet certain requirements.

Banc De Binary throws in the towel

On Monday we first reported about an unregulated binary firm, UK Options, which stopped taking deposits and fired all of its employees, evidently closing shop due to regulatory pressure. This was soon followed by probably the biggest bombshell story to hit the industry in a long while.

Finance Magnates exclusively revealed that Banc De Binary, one of the biggest global providers, is shutting down its operations, winding down its business and leaving the binary options industry for good.

“It’s become the wild west in the past few months,” a company official told Finance Magnates. “Its just not worth the tarnished reputation. I don’t see how we can continue operating under such scrutiny and public image.”

While many commentators were finding this very hard to accept we followed up with a story about a London-headquartered law firm which is preparing for litigation against Banc de Binary.

Tradologic FX

On Tuesday we reported that binary options technology provider Tradologic is partnering with Leverate, the FX and CFDs focused tech company. This will help binary options brands that are interested in shifting away from the segment and into providing a full range of financial products.

CEO of Leverate, Kobi Gur, stated: “Increasingly we are seeing a convergence in the market as binary option operators are looking to extend their offerings to other trading instruments. Our state-of-the-art software platforms enable them to do that, but also facilitate a competitive excellence.”

Binary Exodus

On Wednesday Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC ) revealed that Banc De Binary has renounced its license.

Finance Magnates followed this by revealing that CySEC head Ms. Demetra Kalgerou met with Prof. Shmuel Hauser, the ISA chairman. We can reasonably assume that coordinating moves against binary options firms is one of the reasons for the meeting, since many of the brokers that the ISA is dealing with are licensed by CySEC.

Another example of the bad name binary options are suffering from followed from the UK where IG Group renamed the binary options product on its website. The company now calls the contracts ‘Digital 100s’, which stands for the outcome of the trade.

Best Execution

On Thursday two binary options brokers finally delivered some good news. Over 3 months after IQ Option was fined for failing to adhere to the best execution practice when executing client orders, the board of CySEC has decided to reverse its decision.

Nadex, a regulated American binary options exchange, released its latest quarterly metrics, covering its total volumes and trading statistics – showing strong growth.

Nadex’s CEO Timothy McDermott stated: “December and the whole fourth quarter showed the unique strengths of exchange-traded binary options. Whatever market conditions our members encountered, they could take advantage of those opportunities with confidence.”

GMO Click

On Friday GMO Click Securities, one of the largest brokers in Japan, has reported its binary options statistics for December 2016, which saw a slightly lower number of traders incur financial losses.

Earlier, the Japanese brokerage also reported the most popular commodities, indices and international single stocks CFDs among its traders. Looking at the top ten single stocks CFDs, we see that Japanese traders were mostly interested in big brand American companies during December, but two major Chinese companies also made it onto the list.