Cyprus financial regulator CySEC has announced that binary options operator Airfinance Pro Ltd has renounced its CIF license, and is no longer regulated by CySEC.
Airfinance manages several binary options brokerage brands, including BuzzTrade (at buzztrade.com) and Investing Area (at investing-area.com).
BuzzTrade is a sponsor of Portuguese Primeira Liga football club FC Porto.
Airfinance may have had no choice in abandoning its CySEC license, as CySEC had temporarily suspended Airfinance’s license back in June. At the time, CySEC stated that alleged violations by Airfinance may possibly endanger their clients’ interests or the investor interests or generally the regular operation of the capital market, as the company has not been compliant with its reporting and filing obligation towards CySEC. The license had remained in suspension until now, requiring BuzzTrade (among other things) to place a warning on its own website that its CIF license has been suspended. Not very good for business.
The full CySEC statement regarding Airfinance follows:
ANNOUNCEMENT
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (‘CySEC’) announces that, on 09 November 2016, the CIF Airfinance Pro Ltd (the ‘Company’), renounced its authorization pursuant to section 24(1)(b) of the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law of 2007, as in force (the ‘Law’). Therefore, the CIF authorization with Νumber 206/13 lapsed as from the abovementioned date.
The Company is obliged to settle within a period of three (3) months, pursuant to section 24(3) of the Law, its obligations arising from the investment services that lapsed.
It is noted that, in accordance with section 25(4) of the Law, the Company remains under the supervision of the CySEC until it settles its obligations arising from the investment services that lapsed.
Nicosia, 09 December 2016