In a long-term drive to stamp out unregulated firms that target Japanese investors, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (JFSA) today added another two firms to its growing ‘blacklist’. The two retail FX brokers, TradeForex and ApuroFX, have been sanctioned for offering a variety of currency trading services to Japanese investors without the requisite authorisation.
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TradeForex and ApuroFX have been sanctioned for offering a variety of currency trading services to Japanese investors without the requisite authorisation
Both ApuroFX, a brand of Apuro Holdings Limited, and TradeForex, a brand of NZ FINANCIAL CAPITAL LIMITED, have been offering financial products via Japanese versions of their websites despite their lack of regulatory credentials. Regardless of the New Zealand connotation of the latter, the firms’ physical locations are unknown.
Keeping an Eye on the Market
The denouncements follow a suite of similar blacklistings over the last few years on the back of more stringent guidelines. Under the guidelines, companies offering trading in derivatives to Japanese investors require licensing and oversight from the JFSA. Accordingly, Japan’s financial watchdog has been cracking down on unregulated and unauthorised firms, surveilling the trading environment to ensure such firms are not soliciting or Marketing products to its residents.
Japan’s financial watchdog has been cracking down on unregulated and unauthorised firms
Overseeing the largest retail FX market on the planet, Japanese authorities claim that such guidelines are necessary to protect domestic investors from shady operations at home and abroad. In a previous statement to Finance Magnates, the FSA expressed their determination to “continue working to protect investors through such activities.”
Despite this stance to protect retail investors, a number of commentators have argued that such guidelines instead marginalise overseas firms wishing to attract Japanese clients, themselves seeking alternative solutions offshore.
This is yet another instance of a global trend which has seen regulatory authorities and central banks increasingly assert their influence over markets.
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