This company runs the Kraken crypto exchange in Australia. ASIC indicated that Bit Trade’s “margin extension” product has been available since October 2021 without a “target market determination” as legally required. According to the financial watchdog, this oversight meant a contravention of the Corporations Act every time this product was offered to a customer on…
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In its latest market cleanliness report, the financial watchdog emphasised that sound – or clean – financial markets are essential to the economy and empower companies to raise funds, navigate risks and boost investor confidence. The regulator’s chairperson, Joe Longo, stated: Protecting and enhancing the integrity of Australia’s equity markets continues to be a priority…
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In its media release, ASIC said some issues related to qualifications and training courses where an 'approved' box was wrongly ticked. Errors included qualifications not lining up with the course descriptions, some marked as qualifications were professional designations, and others were bridging courses and not qualifications per se. Don’t miss out the latest news, subscribe…
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Active Super professed that it does not invest in organisations that notably threaten the environment. Based on the ASIC’s press release, Active Super had investments in gambling, oil tar sands, and coal mining companies at the time it made such marketing statements. The firms included SkyCity Entertainment Group Ltd (SKC.AX) and Pointsbet Holdings Ltd, ConocoPhillips…
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These fraudsters reportedly zoom in on providers with no digital footprint. According to ASIC, they clone the disclosures, addresses, International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs) and other official registration information of a targeted financial company. ASIC further indicated that the scams involve mirrored investment maturity dates, coupons and credit ratings. Apart from lesser-known organisations, these confidence…
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A recent targeted review, which examined the DDO practices of sample financial issuers, found most retail clients lost money when trading CFDs. The ASIC deputy chair, Karen Chester, said: ASIC is disappointed that some high-risk retail product issuers have changed little in response to their design and distribution obligations (DDO). DDO requires companies to design…
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The financial watchdog questions the suitability of eToro’s contract-for-differences (CFD) target market. A CFD is a leveraged derivative contract that allows a trader to invest in the value changes of underlying assets. ASIC alleges that eToro’s CFD market is too wide considering the high-risk and volatile nature of this trading niche, where most lose their…
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Additionally, the cancellation of the company’s AFS license does not affect requirements stemming from its membership with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, and to have arrangements for compensating retail clients. The official announcement also detailed that John Mouawad, Scott Langdon and Rahul Goyal of KordaMentha were appointed as voluntary administrators of FTX Australia and its…
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On 2,011 instances, this Openmarkets client executed bid-and-ask orders simultaneously for the same security at the same price. The ASIC stated that the broker should possess a suitable system to detect the possibility of these orders being placed with the intention of manipulating trading prices or creating a deceptive impression of active trading. Curiously, the…
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ASIC's concerns were raised by a retail investor questionnaire that Mitrade used as a key step for compliance with its obligations. The questionnaire gave prompts to a prospective retail investor to review any "unacceptable answer" that would indicate that the investor was not likely to be in the target market for the products. They said…
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