The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has issued an official warning against several websites offering Forex and CFDs trading falsely claiming to be regulated in Australia. The entities who have ownership of www.fxabs.com.au and www.fxabs.com have used a regulated company’s information to mislead the public about their regulatory status.
The .com website which is mentioned above is exclusively in Chinese, which attests to the target residents of China. At the time of publication the website under an Australian domain was taken down.
Both entities have used the publicly available information of Australia ABS Group Pty Ltd (Australia ABS Group), which is regulated by ASIC. The management of Australia ABS Group has confirmed to ASIC that the entities in question are in no way affiliated with the company.
If a prospective client of the two entities falsely claiming to be regulated looks the registration of Australia ABS Group, another detail comes to light. The company has never been authorized to provide CFD and margin forex services by ASIC.
This case again highlights the need for investors to be vigilant and do their research before signing up to trade financial products
Commenting on the case, ASIC Commissioner Cathie Armour said, “This case again highlights the need for investors to be vigilant and do their research before signing up to trade financial products via a website. A simple check of ASIC’s registers would have shown that the entity being promoted on the websites is not adequately licensed to provide the products on offer.”
ASIC urges all prospective and current clients of margin forex and CFDs trading brokers to closely examine the permissions of their brokers and to avoid dealing with unregulated entities.
Chinese customers have been particularly vulnerable to online forex and CFDs trading schemes, due to the relatively uneducated client base and the lack of appropriate Regulation of similar services in the country.
At the same time, ASIC has recently been cracking down on companies using their Australian financial services license in order to target clients in Southeast Asia. The regulator has urged a number of companies to stop advertising to clients outside of Australia whose interests are protected by ASIC.
