Last week, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a warning against 26 trading and investment platforms operating in the country illegally. The platforms, which were mainly online forex trading and trading-related platforms, included three clones of firms authorized and supervised by the British watchdog.

FCA Slams Illegal Platforms

According to the FCA’s warning list, the clone platforms are Signaturefunding.org, GLG Partners PL and Robo-investor. These sites impersonated authorized and genuine firms: Signature Funding Solutions Limited, GLG Partners LP and Activtrdes PLC, respectively.

The other illegal platforms that the FCA said are targeting UK residents with financial products and services include Tresorfx, Trezo Capital, Greenloancl.com, Caplita, Bforexpro and Trader Minds as well as XIP Capital Groups, Prime Markets (primemarkets.com), Growfundsfx and Fundstradefx.

In addition, the FCA flagged Global Access FX, Ultimosfx, BankersGate, CT Matador, GTSEnergyMarkets FX and FX Global Td. Limited Private Group, PixPal Pro, Dolphin Movers, Acefinancesystem Ltd, Arrow Solution (arrowsolution.co.uk), Unity Global Bank/Unity Global Banking Group (UGB) and Setupsfxtrading, were added to the list.

“Some firms may give incorrect contact details including postal addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses. They may change these contact details over time,” the FCA expressed on one of its warning pages. “They may also give you details that belong to another business or individual, so the information looks genuine.”

The British watchdog’s latest action shows the continued popularity of illegal online trading platforms in the UK.

FCA and CFDs Providers

Meanwhile, the FCA recently found ‘gaps in surveillance’ among contracts for difference (CFDs) providers in the country. The regulator noted that these types of firms were not paying enough attention to market abuse risks in non-equity asset classes.

On top of that, it found that the firms fell short of capturing ‘narrowing the spread’, which is a market manipulation practice. This occurs when traders seek to influence the prices of spread bets or CFDs by placing a buy or sell order of a security with a direct market access (DMA) brokerage in order to 'narrow' the spread of the security and influence the execution price of a CFD or spread bet based on them.

To redress the shortcomings in retail financial markets, the FCA is ramping up its market supervision efforts with Consumer Duty, which is a new set of rules that aim to improve consumer protection. The rule entered its third milestone on April 30 and is expected to start applying to new and existing open products or services starting July 31, 2023.

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