A former senior corporate lawyer at CFD broker FxPro has joined the board of the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), which licenses the firm's Cypriot unit. CySEC announced the appointment of Andrea Moundi Savvides yesterday (Wednesday), with a new chairman and vice chairman.
The board runs a regulator whose licensed firms serve about 3.6 million of the 10.5 million retail clients trading across EU borders, as FinanceMagnates.com reported when CySEC announced conflict-of-interest inspections at CFD brokers in March.
CySEC's release carried biographies of the chairman and vice chairman but not of Moundi Savvides. According to her LinkedIn profile, she worked at FxPro from November 2014 to May 2018.
She then spent eight years at law firm Harneys, first as head of compliance for Europe and from December 2023 as global director of risk and compliance, a role that ended in April 2026.
FxPro, whose Cypriot unit has held its license since 2007, said in February that the EU accounts for less than 3% of its business.
Karatzias Returns as Chairman
George Karatzias took over as chairman on Tuesday, after FinanceMagnates.com reported on September 9 that he would get the job. He was CySEC's vice chairman from September 2021 to April 2024 and then served as an executive board member at the Central Bank of Cyprus.
He said his priorities would be "effective and modern supervision" and stronger investor protection.
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Karatzias succeeds George Theocharides, who became chairman in September 2021. Theocharides oversaw more than 4,000 inspections in that period, according to Cyprus Mail.
Loukas Lagoudis, a non-executive board member since October 2024, moves up to vice chairman. He replaces Panikkos Vakkou, who took the post in May 2024 when Karatzias left for the central bank.
The Council of Ministers appoints the board on the finance minister's proposal, for renewable five-year terms.
Compliance Association Loses Its Chair
Moundi Savvides has chaired the Cyprus Compliance Association since co-founding it in April 2024. The association said on LinkedIn that she stepped down with immediate effect after the appointment.
In July, CySEC published a guide for employees of supervised firms that listed 22 categories of breaches employees can report to the regulator.
In a March interview with Cypriot outlet CBN, she said: "Compliance today is not about stopping business."
The association's two vice chairs, Antonis Hadjicostas and George Konstantinou, will share the chair's duties until its annual general meeting on September 29.
