Forex Regulation Law in Russia Close to Another Debate in Parliament

According to information published on the website of Russian foreign exchange industry self-regulatory body, CRFIN, citing the Russian “Vedomosti” newspaper, the Russian duma is preparing for the second round of discussions about the regulation of the foreign exchange market.

Lawmakers have expressed that their responsibility lies with protecting the interests of the population against brokers who use unfair practices against their clients. The recent MMCIS debacle is the most likely reason for the reawakening of discussions surrounding malpractices by companies imposting as proper forex brokers.

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The Russian Duma’s Head of Financial Markets committee, Natalya Burikyna, was cited by the newspaper saying that the regulatory environment will be tough. The amended bill will be borrowing some rules from forex regulation in the U.S. and some from the industry self-regulatory body CRFIN.

While the proposed amendment to the bill is likely to lack any mention of trade repositories, Mrs. Burikyna mentions in her statement to the Vedomosti newspaper that trading will have to be registered in a trade repository in a future point in time.

The new version of the bill will include a requirement of brokers to keep a close account of all contracts and trading operations, forbidding the companies to offer select clients better trading conditions than others nor to change the contract’s conditions singlehandedly, and most interestingly doesn’t allow brokers to change the bid price without changing the ask price quotes.

At this point in time there is no clarity as to which version of the law the Russian newspaper Vedomosti obtained, so all of the information above should not be treated as a final version of the document. It is also important to note that a second reading of the forex regulation law in Russian parliament has been mentioned numerous times without any results.

Forex Magnates also reported about leaks related to discussions of the forex regulation bill, which took place last summer, with this autumn being mentioned as the time when a vote could happen.