First “pure play” Binary Options provider to get licensed in Cyprus.
Quite a number of the Binary Options brokers which set up shop in Cyprus over the past two years were somewhat disappointed when the national financial regulator CySEC decided last year that Binaries were indeed a financial instrument — making them subject to regulation, and requiring any broker offering them to receive and maintain a CIF (Cyprus Investment Firm) license.
Some of those Binary brokers have left, some have closed, but the ones doing well and/or having enough capital quickly applied for their CIF license. And the first of those licenses has now been granted, to Banc de Binary, a Binary Options broker running SpotOption’s software platform. Note that SpotOption itself is CySEC licensed, allowing it to provide services to white label clients such as holding client money, and taking trading risk (essentially, filling the role of market maker).
We expect more such licenses to be granted over the coming months, as Binaries become more popular with traders — we estimate that about 10% of new client money deposited with online brokers today heads toward Binaries trading, up from less than 5% a year ago.
For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.