Forex Club, Alpari, MasterForex, Adrenaline Forex, Teletrade and Admiral-Umis have announced that they formed their own self regulatory forex organization. To be honest, I'm a bit confused as these are exactly same brokers (excluding Akmos which was acquired by Forex Club a month ago) as those who form KROUFR - another Russian forex self regulatory organization. The press release (only in Russian for now) mentions though that this organization will be KROUFR's successor. Perhaps the intention is to dissociate itself with KROUFR hoping to onboard more brokers who aren't too happy with this organization.
The Center for the Regulation of Non-Exchange Financial Instruments and Technology will work with the Russian Finance Ministry and Economy Ministry on adapting international best practices governing the forex industry to the peculiarities of the Russian financial sector, according to the release and a spokesman for the Forex Club.
As typical for the very competitive and disperse Russian market - this is not the first, and probably not the last, self regulatory organization. In my latest overview of the Russian market, back in April, I mentioned KROUFR - at the time the only self regulatory organization (with its own pros and cons) - which had only 7 broker members. The reason for this dispersion is that Russian brokers are less than fond of their colleagues and tend to rival each other more aggressively than their western counterparts. Furthermore KROUFR wasn't sanctioned by any official governmental body such as the the NFA and CFTC relationship in the US thus distancing some brokers from membership. As I mentioned earlier it's possible that this is a re-branding effort in order to tackle exactly this issue.
Will this bring more transparency and stability to the Russian market? Time will tell but I doubt that anything will be effective until a centralized governmental body will assume control over this financial market niche.
The press release also uncovers some interesting data - in 2010 it is estimated that 400,000 Russians trade forex with a total annual deposit of $500 million. That's a $1250 average yearly deposit right there... Much higher than previous estimates, including my own guesses. The full press release, in Russian, is embedded below.
It is also an opportunity to update that Israeli brokers are trying to form an alliance of their own to try and counter the new (and much welcomed) regulatory steps to be taken to regulate the Israel forex market. There are literally dozens of brokers operating in Israel with absolutely no control over their actions, until now. Knowing this market quite a bit I doubt they'll actually unite and even if they do their efforts will be completely futile as the ISA's decision has already been made.
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