The Danish financial markets regulator has ordered Saxo Bank A/S to ensure the submission of complete and accurate information on transaction reporting as the company had many ‘deficiencies’ in previous reports.
“Since the beginning of 2018, Saxo Bank A / S's reports of transactions have been associated with a number of deficiencies,” the Financial Supervisory Authority, known as FSA, stated in Friday’s announcement.
The regulator detailed that the shortcomings in reporting include errors in the information.
Founded in 1992, Saxo operates as a brokerage and an investment bank with a presence in many countries. Being a licensed bank in Denmark, it is obliged to submit complete and accurate transaction reports of each day by the end of the following day with the market regulator.
The reporting allows the Danish and other European regulators to carry out market surveillance and correctly identify any violations on the part of the capital market participants.
“Significant deficiencies in the transaction reports may, therefore, mean that market abuses are not detected by the relevant authorities, which risks weakening confidence in the markets,” the regulator added.
Saxo told Finance Magnates that the bank flagged the initial inaccuracies and informed the Danish regulator.
"We found some inaccuracies in several of the transaction reports that we as a bank make on a daily basis to relevant authorities every time our clients trade in financial instruments," Steen Blaafalk, Saxo's financial and risk officer, told Finance Magnates.
"We informed the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority and initiated an investigation of our reporting systems and procedures to clarify the reasons behind the erroneous reporting."
Growth Skyrocketed
Saxo’s business boomed last year due to the hyped activities in trading with extreme market Volatility . The group reported a net profit of DKK 750 million for 2020, which is up from the previous year’s DKK 40 million. It added a total of 238,000 accounts last year, which took the client assets to more than DKK 500 billion.
Additionally, the group’s expansion into China is seen as another factor behind its stellar year. It established an office in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone in September 2015 and signed several Fintech partnerships as a part of its local strategy.
Meanwhile, Saxo is expanding the range of its products and recently added cryptocurrency derivatives as a part of its offerings in selected jurisdictions.
Note: This article has been updated with the comments from Saxo.
