Any "salesmen, brokers, dealers or agents" promoting eToro in the Philippines will risk a monetary penalty of 5 million pesos (about US$88,500) or an imprisonment of up to 21 years, or both. This came as, according to the local regulator, is “not authorized to sell or offer securities to the public in The Phillippines.”

A Regulatory Advisory against eToro

The Securities and Exchange Commission of The Philippines issued an advisory against the broker on March 14 but was published in the public domain yesterday (Thursday).

According to the regulator of the South East Asian country, platforms offering securities and investment products in the country must ensure that the offered securities are locally registered, and issued by a locally registered corporation or dealer. Furthermore, the issuer must have a secondary license to sell or offer securities to the public.

“Based on the Commission’s database, the operator of the platform eToro is not registered as a corporation in the Philippines and operates without the necessary license and/or authority to sell or offer any form of securities,” the advisory by the local regulator highlighted.

“The public is hereby advised to exercise caution before investing in these kinds of unregistered online investment platforms and their representatives.”

A Global Broker

eToro is headquartered in Israel and is regulated and registered in some form or the other in the United Kingdom, Cyprus, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Malta, the UAE, Australia, Seychelles, the United States, and Gibraltar. The offerings of the platform ranges from equities to cryptocurrencies, and even contract for differences, along with other popular popular asset classes.

The Filipino regulator pointed out that the broker does not have a license in the country, but was marketing its offerings to Fillipinos and even allowed them to open accounts.

“eToro’s operations allow Filipinos to create user accounts on their platform for the purpose of investing and trading unregistered investment products,” the regulator added.

However, eToro denied “actively promoting” its services in The Philippines.

“eToro is regulated by financial regulatory authorities in multiple jurisdictions around the world and we take our legal and regulatory obligations very seriously. eToro has no local presence in the Philippines and we do not actively promote or market our services in the Philippines," a eToro spokesperson told Finance Magnates.

Meanwhile, eToro is considering an initial public offering in the United States after a failed attempt for a reverse merger with a bank-check company. Although details of the supposed public listing is yet to be uncovered, its CEO, Yoni Assia, revealed that the company will aim for a valuation of over $3.5 billion.