In the latest case of license withdrawal in Cyprus, forex and CFDs brokerage firm, Trilt, has “expressly renounced” its license, causing the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) to withdraw its Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) authorization. The Cypriot watchdog announced the withdrawal on Friday, noting that it reached the decision earlier on March 20th.
Trilt Jumps on License Withdrawal Train
Trilt received its licensing from CySEC in October 2014 and operated as an electronic communication network and straight-through processing brokerage. The firm offered forex and CFDs trading on MetaTrader and included mobile and web-based trading in its services.
However, the new development means that the brokerage will no longer be able to offer its services in Cyprus. Trilt will also no longer be able to offer its services across other European Union markets.
Since the start of the year, CySEC has announced the withdrawal of at least five CIF licenses, with four of them precipitated by the companies’ voluntarily renunciation. The four companies that willingly gave up their licenses include one investment services provider Inveza Capital and three brokerage operators: Magnum FX, F1Markets, and Smart Trades Investment Services Limited. Smart Trades operated FX/CFDs brands, TradoCenter and Toro Invest.
In February, the Cypriot financial markets supervisor withdrew three firms from the Investor Compensation Fund (ICF), which is a pool that provides protection to clients of member CIFs when claims arise against the companies.
On the contrary, CySEC withdrew the license of forex broker Maxiflex for allegedly violating a number of its licensing conditions, including one relating to the prevention of the use of client’s funds for its own account.
CySEC Crackdown on Illegal FX Platforms
Beyond license withdrawal, CySEC in recent months has been active in blacklisting various forex/CFDs trading platforms operating in the country without authorization. Earlier this week, Finance Magnates reported that the Cypriot watchdog issued a warning against eight unregistered forex trading platforms.
CySEC listed the websites as world-trade-center.io, financista.com, swiftpuprime.com, ocdfinances.net and ocdfinances.org. The other three are: inverbid.net, inverbid.com and inverbid.co.
Earlier in January, the regulator warned investors against five illegal trading platforms, and again in March, it warned against a further six illegal trading platforms. In addition, CySEC recently issued a €1 million fine against Itrade Global (Cy) Limited, an operator of several forex/CFDs brands, for multiple violations of Cyprus’ market laws allegedly committed by its tied agent in Spain.
