On Thursday, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) announced that it has withdrawn the Investors Compensation Fund membership of four companies: MPS Marketplace Securities, Sharelink Securities & Financial Services, Finteractive and Woodbrook Group.
The Cyprus Investor Fund (CIF) licenses of all four companies were withdrawn earlier this year. The withdrawal of ICF membership comes after the CIF withdrawal.
Earlier this year, the Cypriot regulator revoked the ICF membership of several other companies, including iTrader, Daweda Exchange and London Capital Group (Cyprus), all of which have lost their CIF licenses.
“The loss of ICF membership status does not mean loss of rights of covered clients to receive compensation in relation to investment operations carried out until the loss of membership status, if the conditions for compensation are fulfilled pursuant to the Directive, nor does it obstruct the initiation of the compensation procedure for covered clients,” the regulator stated.
Brokers Exiting Europe
Finteractive offers FX and CFDs trading services under the brand FXVC. The broker earlier passported its Cypriot license to offer services to clients within the European Union. The brand is still operational with a license from Seychelles.
MPS (previously SpotOption) provided many services like reception and transmission of orders in relation to one or more financial instruments, execution of orders on behalf of clients, ancillary services, custody of assets, foreign exchange services and many more.
Under ICF, the deposit of each client of regulated Cypriot financial services companies is protected up to €20,000. It is used if financial service providers become bankrupt or unable to return customer deposits due to financial constraints.
Recently, CySEC initiated the compensation process for the clients of Maxigrid, the license of which was withdrawn last February. The clients have been asked to submit their claims online or offline before April 2023.
