Switzerland-headquartered forex and CFDs broker, Swissquote (SWX: SQN), has gained a new operational license from the financial market regulator in Cyprus, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.
As revealed on Wednesday by Muamar Behnam, the Head of Sales at Swissquote, the license was awarded to a locally established subsidiary, Swissquote Capital Markets Ltd (CY). The operations under the new entity will start next year. However, no specific timeline has been provided.
"Very happy to share this new milestone in Swissquote's young history. We received our license from CySec (Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission) and are ready to start operations in the New Year. Swissquote Capital Markets will be the name of this new entity of the Group," Behnam wrote in a Linkedin post.
Swissquote Group Holding SA, the ultimate holding company of all Swissquote entities, is one of the few public-listed brokers. The trading brand is regulated in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Malta, Dubai, Hong Kong, Malta, Singapore and Luxembourg.
With the latest Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) license, the Swiss broker can expand its operations in Europe. It can passport its CySEC license to offer trading services in other European Economic Area (EEA) member states too.
Swissquote looks as if it has been preparing to launch its Cyprus operations for a while now. It has already built a team of more than half-a-dozen staff to its Limassol-based team. Moreover, it added Zoltan Nemeth as the Chief Operating Officer of Cyprus.
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Enhancing Services
On top of that, it is diversifying offerings, launching a cryptocurrency exchange, dubbed SQX, last October and a payment solution for its clients. Moreover, it gained access to the Dubai Financial Market (DFM), a stock exchange in the United Arab Emirates.
The broker's operating revenue for the first half of 2022 dipped to CHF 204.8 million, which is a decline of 23.1 percent from the same period of the previous year. Furthermore, its net revenue dropped by 24.4 percent, while the net trading income dropped by 28 percent to CHF 30.7 million.
