The list of fraudulent investment companies blacklisted by Italy’s financial regulator Consob got two new entries today, as the watchdog published a warning regarding binary options brokers City Equities and LiveTrader (aka NTD Invest Corp Ltd).
The regulator says both companies are offering their services to Italian investors but do not possess the necessary licenses to do so.
City Equities provides its services via www.cteqs.com. It claims to be registered in the UK but LeapRate’s check has shown the broker has no license from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Moreover, the company is known to the UK watchdog as a clone of an FCA-authorized business.
LiveTrader (operating under the helm of NTD Invest Corp) offers its services via www.livetrader.eu. It also provides an address in the UK, but has no registration with the FCA.
Italy’s Consob is one of the most stringent financial regulators in the world when it comes to binary options. Whereas other regulators’ efforts to curb the activities of unauthorized binary options brokers are limited to issuing warnings to the public, Consob has taken particular steps in the past against such unlicensed companies. For that matter we may recall that in the spring of 2013, Consob turned to court to block access to multiple websites of binary options brokers.
To view the official text of the warning by Consob regarding City Equities and LiveTrader, click here.