Turkey’s financial regulator has announced that it has investigated the operations of Teletrade Turkey and will be putting a criminal case against the firm. In a statement on its website, the financial authority outlines the fact that Teletrade was operating and conducting financial services activities without approval from the regulator.
The investigation comes on the back of SPK’s recent proposal to make changes to capital requirements for brokerage firms in the world’s 18th largest economy. In a document on the regulators website the SPK explains that its Capital Markets Unit carried out a thorough investigation into the workings of Teletrade and highlights two individuals; Hüsnü YILDIZ and Hakan KAPLANLI as perpetrators.
The SPK officially regulated Leveraged Foreign Exchange in August 2011 after much discussion, research and red tape. The regulator gave broker dealers strict parameters to operate in; including high capital requirement, reasonable margin and Leverage (100 to 1) offerings and limited products (FX only). In addition, introducers and Affiliates were also required to seek regulation and hold a set amount of capital.
The SPK has been known for its enforcement and action against unregulated firms. In October 2011 the regulator made an announcement that it had sanctioned 32 websites from providing content about foreign exchange, the list included firms such as; finexo, migbank, etoro, instaforex and several other firms.
Teletrade has been active in financial markets for over 15 years, on the firm’s website they state that they have been in the market since 1994. Their Turkish office has been active since the mid 2000’s.
