Swissquote/ACM too announces that it will no longer be able to accept retail forex traders come July 15th
As you probably already know all foreign banks (including Swiss brokers Dukascopy, MIG and now Swissquote/ACM) are now closing down
As you probably already know all foreign banks (including Swiss brokers Dukascopy, MIG and now Swissquote/ACM) are now closing down accounts of US traders. These traders will need to close down their positions before July 15th. This is the official announcement ACM sent to its US clients:
Dear Customer,
As you probably know, the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) entered into force on July 15th 2010 in the USA. The DFA imposes many obligations to American banks as well as to foreign banks. As a Swiss bank we are therefore also impacted especially in the field of forex and precious metals.
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Indeed the DFA sets out that a financial intermediary, no matter its location, is not authorized to execute forex transactions with retail US residents without a proper license. The deadline for foreign banks and institutions to be granted such a license has been set to July 15th 2011.
We had hoped to be granted an extension of the compliance deadline as there were some discussions in the US Congress regarding a possible postponement of the entry into force of the DFA (possibly end of year 2011) but it is now highly unlikely that these discussions will come to a positive conclusion.
As Swissquote Bank Ltd will not be granted the proper license before the deadline, Swissquote will be deemed a “prohibited counterparty” after July 15th 2011. Our database indicates that you are resident in the USA. Therefore we regret to inform you that if you are not an eligible contract participant as defined in section 1a of the US Commodity Exchange Act (text available under:
http://www.cftc.gov/LawRegulation/CommodityExchangeAct/index.htm
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Swissquote will have to stop providing you with forex and precious metal services as per July 15th 2011 18:00 GMT.
Please inform us immediately if you are not resident in the USA or if you are an eligible contract participant. US citizens not residing in the USA are not concerned and can continue trading with our bank after July 15th 2011. US residents who are eligible contract participants (e.g. clients with more than USD 10 million assets) can also continuing trading with us after July 15th 2011.
Please note that all positions open with Swissquote (on FXBook, Advanced Trader, MT4 or any other platform) for a concerned client (US resident, not eligible contract participant) must be closed by July 14th, 2011 at 18:00 GMT. Non compliance with this deadline will result in an automatic closing of all the remaining positions for which you would take full responsibility. We further inform you that as of July 12th 2011 at 18:00 GMT the concerned clients will be forbidden to open new positions.
We ask you to take all the necessary measures to avoid any possible bad consequences this above-mentioned decision could have for you. We strongly advise you to open a forex account with another bank, if needed.
We regret this decision and thank you for your understanding.
Yours sincerely,
Swissquote Bank Ltd
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I am very much in agreement Jeff. If we break it down into regions, though, it is my opinion that European tobin tax is more concerning than anything put in place by China. In China, it doesnt matter if it is implemented or not, nobody trades there and the FX traders in China are retail traders who take their money out and trade with foreign companies, so they are subject to the rules of those jurisdictions rather than China. Theoretically it is not legal for Chinese traders to move their funds abroad, but once deposited with a foreign company, there… Read more »
Europe never dabbled with the Tobin tax – even in the draft from the European Commission(that is off the table now anyways) spot FX was always exempt from the transaction tax.