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Four websites rendering financial services have been blacklisted by Italy's financial market regulator, The Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB), for operating in Italy without a license. The inclusion of these four websites on CONSOB's blacklist has brought the number on this list to a total of 805 platforms.
Details of CONSOB's Recent Blacklist
According to the statement released by CONSOB on Friday, 25th of January, 2023, Alltradingeu, MFCapitalFX, FinanceCapital FX Cyprus, and Ethereal Group are the most recent names added to the blacklist. The statement explained that no regulatory body licenses the blacklisted platforms in Italy or the EU.
The statement further revealed that all four blacklisted platforms provide high-risk financial products. These include contracts for differences (CFDs) and foreign exchange products from various asset types. This affords retail traders access to bitcoin CFDs without learning the tactics of trading cryptocurrency on the forex market.
What You Need to Know About Recent Financial Market Crimes
According to financial market trade organization UK Finance data, Britons lost more than £1.3 billion to online market fraud in 2022. The statistic also reveals that the primary victims of these fraudulent platforms are naïve retail traders. Their motivation to invest is often high incentives and unrealistic investment returns.
These platforms operate by making registration and investment seamless so that unsuspecting investors easily transfer their money to secure supposed assets. Problems, however, arise when investors intend to withdraw their funds. Unfortunately, regulatory bodies are only alerted when there are several complaints from investors.
In addressing this issue, via its official statement, CONSOB stated that "investors should exercise utmost caution to make informed investment decisions, adopting common sense behaviors, essential to safeguard their savings." The regulator also emphasized that investors should do a thorough background check of every platform before investing.
About CONSOB
The Italian Ministry of Treasury's powers and competencies were merged into CONSOB in 1974 to oversee the stock markets. The legislation passed in 1983 expanded CONSOB's purview to include safeguarding public savings. The regulator was also authorized in 1991 to audit securities brokerage firms and monitor insider trading.
CONSOB was granted the statutory right to order internet service providers to prevent investors from accessing bogus websites within its jurisdiction in July 2019. The watchdog ensures the accuracy of details in prospectuses relating to providing transferable securities, transparency, proper conduct by financial market participants, and compliance of CONSOB-regulated brokers.
