After months of drafting and warnings, it appears as if the Israel Binary Options bill will finally become law next week.
Israel business news source TheMarker.com is reporting that the bill, which was jointly drafted between the Israel Securities Authority (ISA) and Finance Ministry, will be brought for a vote next week in Israel’s Knesset. Coalition member Moshe Kahlon, head of the Kulanu Party and Israel’s Finance Minister for the past two years, will apparently bring the bill for Government approval and a formal Knesset vote as early as Sunday.
Shmuel Hauser, ISA chairman
The bill was instigated mainly by the regulator ISA and its Chairman Shmuel Hauser. Mr. Hauser has come under a lot of pressure to “deal with” the many Binary Options scams emanating from Israel. However he has stated that the current law only gave him the authority to stop Binary Options brokers from taking Israel-based clients, not marketing abroad or even taking clients from abroad.
There have been a number of outright Binary Options fraud cases which Israeli authorities have been able to pursue involving clients from abroad. However fraud is a lot harder to catch and proven than just a pure ban on marketing to or taking clients.
The new legislation will formally ban Israel-based Binary Options brokers from taking foreign clients, or marketing or providing other Binary Options related services to foreign clients.
In the build-up to the law’s passing, quite a number of Israel-based Binary Options brokers have either shut down, the most visible being Banc de Binary, or moved their operations physically out of the country. Popular landing spots for these companies have included Cyprus, for those handful of brokers which are CySEC regulated, as well as Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Latvia.
The ISA has also taken steps to tighten its grip on the Forex brokers in the country. The ISA introduced last year a required Forex Dealer license for brokers which take Israeli clients, and has handed out six of the licenses to date.