Following a decision by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) to strip several local retail foreign exchange (FX) brokers of their regulatory licenses, Alpari announced on Thursday that its Russian entity would be ceasing all activity at the end of next week.
The move comes after the CBR, after several years of cracking down on the retail trading industry, released a statement in late December saying that it was revoking the licenses of five different FX brokers in Russia.
That may not sound like a lot, but it’s more than half of the nine brokers in Russia that have received a regulatory license from the CBR.
The regulator’s decision means that now only bank subsidiaries can offer Retail Trading services in Russia. Who owns those banks? I’ll leave that to your imagination, dear Finance Magnates reader.
Alpari leaves Russia
Anyway, as Alpari is not a bank subsidiary, the company cannot continue operating its Russian entity. When the CBR first announced that it would be taking away the broker’s license, Alpari responded by saying that it would appeal the decision.
“Alpari has been serving clients in various countries for over 20 years in strict accordance with the law,” a company spokesperson told Finance Magnates in December. “On numerous occasions throughout its history, the company has received licenses in different jurisdictions and has never been faced with a decision by regulators to cease activities for noncompliance with licensing requirements.”
The statement released by the broker on Thursday would, however, suggest someone at the company has been given a talking to or has realized the futility of appealing the decision.
Clients of the broker will no longer be able to make deposits or open trades after January 18th.
“We recommend,” the broker said in a statement, “that [our customers] close all positions in advance and delete all pending orders.”
This won’t, by any means, be the end of Alpari. The broker has a number of different regulatory licenses and subsidiaries operating across the globe.
