UFXMarkets Slapped with OSC Warning, Splits Its Regulation
The broker who has recently rebranded to the valuable UFX.com domain was added to the Warning List by the Ontario
Recently rebranding from UFXMarkets to a valuable three letter domain, UFX.com, the broker was added to the Warning List by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) yesterday. The list includes individuals and companies that the OSC believes “appear to be engaging in activities that may pose a risk to investors.” Included in the warning is UFX’s broker and affiliates brands.
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Interestingly, the warning from the OSC took place as UFX began to decrease its regulatory profile. In the past, UFXMarkets marketed itself as a Cyprus regulated broker, under a CySEC license for its holding company, Reliantco Investments LTD. Currently though, UFX has begun to split mentioning of its regulation between EU and non-EU jurisdictions. Depending on where viewers of their website originate, UFX will show it to be regulated under Cyprus as Reliantco, or as an offshore regulated firm with licensing from Belize.
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When reaching out to UFX about the removal of Reliantco, support staff didn’t comment about the change. A representative however clarified to Forex Magnates regarding the regulation split saying: “We are onboarding non-EU clients through our Belize regulated entity UFXTrade, EU clients are onboarded by Reliantco Investments in Cyprus which is regulated by CySEC.”
The regulatory change occurs as Reliantco continues to be listed by CySEC as a registered licensee. Additionally, sources confirmed to Forex Magnates that the list is current, with no change in Reliantco’s status. The changes appear to relate that going forward, UFX has decided that it prefers to operate under less intensive regulatory scrutiny for customers that fall beyond CySEC’s jurisdiction. The firm has been the target of customer complaints on many trader forums, as well as being fined by CySEC in the past, which may have led to their decision to decrease their regulatory profile. It will be interesting to see how such a decision will affect their business, as over the past twelve months, UFX was noted around the industry for being one of the fastest growing Forex firms.
(Update: Earlier versions of this article incorrectly reported that UFX had begun to stop marketing its CySEC regulation in favor of it Belize license to all viewers, when in fact they have split which customers see which regulation)
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When I took at look at the UFX.com website they were still proudly displaying their CySEC regulation on the About Me page. It appears to me that they are using JavaScript to display different regulatory credentials to different users depending on geographic location. So they are on-boarding customers outside the European Union with the Belize based firm.
Take a look at the page source of the About Us page and you can see mentions of Belize’s ISFC embedded in Arabic/Russian text, which presumably appears when accessed from those countries.
I would be interested to know what you find out about the legality of this.
I think this is a insightful way to do things. Regulation should be more region specific and they are doing the right thing. Also, i am not sure that CySEC is able to address non EU client protection in a up to date and efficient way. CySEC has repeatedly shown it has limited capabilities understanding internet and online brokers , imposing illogical requirements.
There are more and more companies that do regional regulation.