Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the French regulator responsible for the country’s financial services industry, has earlier today updated its “Black list” of Forex companies that provide their services to French investors without having the required licenses.
The latest update has five new entries, which takes the total number of Forex brokers blacklisted by the French watchdog to 70. This compares with 65 blacklisted companies in the previous such update.
And here are the new additions to the list of unauthorized FX companies targeting French investors:
- www.bancdeoptionsteam.com / Bancde Options
- www.gainsy.com/fr / Gainsy Forex broker Company
- www.gfssecurities.com / GFS Securities Ltd
- www.lambergkapital.com / Original Markets Ltd
- www.versaillesfinances.com / Globstate Assets Holdings Limited
Obviously, the French regulators are getting increasingly concerned about fraudulent firms targeting French investors, with many such firms located overseas and benefiting from the fact that Forex trading can be offered online. In particular, many of the companies sparking the concerns of AMF are located outside of the European Union, but have French-speaking customer support desks and try to lure French-speaking clientele.
The French financial authorities have issued numerous warnings regarding unauthorized Forex businesses over the past four years. They have also published information letters about risks related to Forex trading. In addition, the watchdog recently conducted a Forex mystery shopping campaign that showed stunning results – clients of some Forex companies could open accounts and trade without providing an identification document, whereas withdrawing funds turned out to be rather troublesome.
To view the full list of unauthorized FX brokers in France, click here.