The Russian Centre for Regulation in Over-The-Counter Financial Instruments and Technologies (CRFIN SRO), Russia’s self-regulatory body for the forex industry, announced that it had received a request to withdraw from membership of the international broker IronFX, or rather from its Russian branch IronFX (Ru). CRFIN confirmed that it granted the application for the termination of the company’s membership.

IronFX: We have UCRFIN and an office in Kiev, this is sufficient to cover the region

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At the end of 2013, Arkady Krasnikhin joined the board of CRFIN as a representative of the company IronFX (Ru). Presently, there are indications that the broker’s exit from CRFIN was no accident, but is part of a process of folding the business in non-core regions such as Russia and Eastern Europe.

At the recent iFX Expo International in Cyprus, Finance Magnates learned that fifty IronFX non-front office employees were dismissed, including service representatives, representing approximately 10% of the total staff of the international broker. A company representative explained at the time that the layoffs were the result of the restructuring taking place at IronFX, against the background of the complicated market conditions in 2015.

Furthermore, several industry sources noted that recently there has been a considerable rise in the number of ex-IronFX employees sending out resumes for open positions, especially in the aforementioned regions. Our Russian editors searched the industry HR market, confirming the indications from the sources. For example, online job sites are filled with CVs of former and current employees of the Russian and Ukrainian offices of IronFX. Among them are the CEO of IronFX Global Ukraine, heads of sales teams, Sales Manager for IronFX (Ru), and many others.

Speaking with Finance Magnates on the withdrawal from CRFIN, an IronFX representative said that the Ukrainian equivalent of the Self-Regulatory Organization is enough for the broker: “We have UCRFIN and an office in Kiev, this is sufficient to cover the region – no need to have two regulations and two offices in the same region. And we are still the most regulated broker and have more presence than the others.”

Update:

The company has also removed its registrations with Italian CONSOB and the German BaFin regulators from its website. The firm has also delisted its New Zealand FSP registrar number, which is technically not a regulatory body. Fraudulent brokers like Ukrainian Forex Trend have also been listed within the New Zealand authority which is merely a technicality, instead of a regulatory license.