According to an announcement made by the National Bank of Hungary, the financial services licence of yet another brokerage in the country has been suspended. The latest firm to face regulatory action is the Quaestor Securities Trading and Investment Company after an audit of the firm led to discovery of irregularities in its operations.
The central bank underscores that the Financial Stability Council may appoint a supervisor of the activities of the brokerage as it becomes the third company offering financial services to be put on the radar in the span of 3 weeks, after Buda Cash in February and Hungary Securities Co last week.
Clients of the company currently cannot open new positions but should be able to close existing ones after the appointment of a supervisor.
A company spokesperson identified the issues discovered during the audit as technical, however the Hungarian state news agency, MTI, said that one of the unit's of the broker, Quaestor Financial Hrurira, filed for Bankruptcy after a number of customers decided to sell their bonds held with the brokerage leaving it out of the market for existing debt refinancing operations.
After the Hungarian central bank suspended the licence of Buda Cash, since the event last month, investors have been rapidly losing trust in the supervision mechanism of the financial services industry in Hungary, leading to substantial outflows of deposits from Hungarian brokerages and placing their bond issuance programs into question.
The Quaestor group, which includes Quaestor Financial Hrurira's parent Quaestor Pénzügyi Tanácsadó, has over 200,000 customers, currently employing about 600 people.
