In his final address to clients, the President of the ill-fated FX broker FOREX MMCIS has announced that the company is forced to terminate all operations due to lack of funds.
Earlier today, the website of troubled FX broker appeared with much lighter content than during its period of operation, containing solely an announcement by said company President, Roman Komysa. The announcement stated that FOREX MMCIS has gone out of business due to its insolvency, citing that the funds have been stolen by third parties, Dengi Online in particular.
The closure of MMCIS marks the end of a painful two-month process, which saw the company instigate various anti-crisis measures. The demise started at the beginning of October 2014, when Mr. Komysa admitted for the first time that the broker had been experiencing financial troubles. This led to the introduction of the first round of anti-crisis measures, including the imposition of limits on withdrawals.
Less than a fortnight later, the broker conceded that withdrawals had to be frozen as there was no money left, with Mr. Komysa placing the blame firmly at the door of online payment operator Dengi Online. The payments processor later admitted that it did indeed have a partnership with FOREX MMCIS but that this was brought to an end after the news of an investigation by the General Prosecutor’s Office into the activities of the broker.
During the past month all clients of FOREX MMCIS were busy filing applications for withdrawals and attempting to conduct credit card chargebacks. The number of investors affected only in Russia is estimated to be 50,000. Despite the magnitude of the failure, the Bank of Russia has admitted that it is powerless in this situation and cannot provide any protection to the clients of the broker, as there is no law in Russia to regulate the Forex industry.
FOREX MMCIS has been featuring in numerous blacklists for quite some time, including the blacklist of CRFIN, Russia’s FX self-regulatory organization. The company does not have any license or registration in Russia, although it had a certificate of compliance issued by another non-government Forex body – CROFR. This certificate, however, expired on November 1, 2014. LeapRate has made attempts to contact CROFR on the matter but so far has received no response.
At this moment the website of FOREX MMCIS is still live, including an open forum which has various testimonials regarding the management of the brokerage.
The legal complaint that FOREX MMCIS has filed with the General Prosecutor’s office can be viewed here, however, LeapRate cannot guarantee the truthfulness of the content of the complaint, nor the fact that it was indeed submitted to the authorities.