In line with the flurry of regulatory moves made by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), Cyprus - the “Kingdom of Forex Brokerages” in the eastern Mediterranean, is following suit with its own much-anticipated financial legislation.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission ( CySEC
CySEC
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is a financial regulatory authority of Cyprus. CySEC is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.Founded in 2001, CySEC is instrumental in providing licensing and registration for forex brokers and previously binary options providers.CySEC is responsible for a variety of different functions, which includes the supervision and control of the Cyprus Stock Exchange as well as transactions executed in the Stock Exchange, its listed companies, brokers and brokerage firms.Furthermore, the regulator also supervises and monitors Licensed Investment Services Companies, Collective Investment funds, investment consultants. and mutual fund management companies.CySEC’s Role in Combatting Market AbuseOne of CySEC’s most important functions is the granting of operation licenses to investment firms, including investment consultants, brokerage firms and brokers. This includes provisions for Cyprus Investment Firms (CIF), who provide and perform investment services and activities either within Cyprus or abroad on a professional basis on certain financial instruments.Finally, CySEC oversees the imposition of administrative sanctions and disciplinary penalties to brokers, brokerage firms, and investment consultants, among others. The group has been a key force in policing the forex and binary options space, which has included several legal actions and curb market abuse. Since 2016, CySEC has sought to take a more aggressive stance against illicit behavior, while also strengthening its handling of investor complaints against entities. CySEC is currently chaired by Demetra Kalogerou, who has held the role since 2011.The CySEC is administered by a seven-member Board, which consist of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman, each of whom provide their services on a full and exclusive employment basis, and five additional non-executive members.All individuals on CySEC’s Board are appointed by the Council of Ministers following a proposal of the Minister of Finance. Their service reflects a five-year term.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is a financial regulatory authority of Cyprus. CySEC is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.Founded in 2001, CySEC is instrumental in providing licensing and registration for forex brokers and previously binary options providers.CySEC is responsible for a variety of different functions, which includes the supervision and control of the Cyprus Stock Exchange as well as transactions executed in the Stock Exchange, its listed companies, brokers and brokerage firms.Furthermore, the regulator also supervises and monitors Licensed Investment Services Companies, Collective Investment funds, investment consultants. and mutual fund management companies.CySEC’s Role in Combatting Market AbuseOne of CySEC’s most important functions is the granting of operation licenses to investment firms, including investment consultants, brokerage firms and brokers. This includes provisions for Cyprus Investment Firms (CIF), who provide and perform investment services and activities either within Cyprus or abroad on a professional basis on certain financial instruments.Finally, CySEC oversees the imposition of administrative sanctions and disciplinary penalties to brokers, brokerage firms, and investment consultants, among others. The group has been a key force in policing the forex and binary options space, which has included several legal actions and curb market abuse. Since 2016, CySEC has sought to take a more aggressive stance against illicit behavior, while also strengthening its handling of investor complaints against entities. CySEC is currently chaired by Demetra Kalogerou, who has held the role since 2011.The CySEC is administered by a seven-member Board, which consist of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman, each of whom provide their services on a full and exclusive employment basis, and five additional non-executive members.All individuals on CySEC’s Board are appointed by the Council of Ministers following a proposal of the Minister of Finance. Their service reflects a five-year term.
Read this Term), has proposed a range of innovative leverage measures to protect retail clients and brokers who trade with Cypriot financial institutions.
As a Forex broker, or retail client, you can become punch-drunk trying to follow all of the financial regulatory news that have been coming in the last three to five years.
Naturally, all of these initiatives have been well-intentioned with the primary aim of protecting investors and member firms from bankruptcy.
However, more and more regulatory pressure can sometime lead to the opposite result, with markets becoming less liquid and hurting retail trade.
For this reason, policymakers in Cyprus decided to try a little more flexible approach to their leverage system. This move is aimed directly at the amount of leverage that member firms can offer to their retail clients.
ESMA has set a slew of regulations to this effect, but while the regulators at CySEC had to abide by the European regulations, they also wanted to add a layer of flexibility to encourage more retail business.
CySEC proposed a risk-based approach to the leverage of trading in multiple financial instruments. Clients would initially be assessed on a range of criteria, after which they would be assigned to specific leverage tiers.
These criteria include risk appetite, experience, knowledge, market volatility history, and their annual income or net worth.
Tiers were defined for different segments of retail clients, and according to those tiers they will be qualified for different leverage measures in various financial asset groups.
Those tiers would be labeled as ‘Positive’ or ‘Negative ‘, in general. There will also be clients who fall between the two stools, and will be categorized as ‘Grey’.
The last thing regulators wanted to do was to provide the top leverage terms to clients who were unsuited to high-risk trading activity. For that reason, upper tier clients are required to earn a minimum of 40,000 euros per year or have net liquid assets in excess of 200,000 euros.
Upper tier clients would receive leverage of 50:1 on major currency pairs as opposed to the 30:1 proposed by ESMA.
Clients who fell in the “grey” tier would only be able to leverage 20:1 for those same major currency pairs in accordance with ESMA’s leverage instructions.
Segmentation is clearly an area that would be strongly supervised by Cypriot regulatory bodies, knowing that other European countries would be watching this experiment with the intention of following suit if CySEC’s plans were successful.
CySEC proposed further regulatory measures such as the curtailment of all binary option business, as well as restricting trade in high-risk assets such as Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies
By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the networks which are used to authenticate blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be thought of as systems that accept online payments which are denoted as “tokens.” Tokens are represented as internal ledger entries in blockchain technology while the term crypto is used to depict cryptographic methods and encryption algorithms such as public-private key pairs, various hashing functions, and an elliptical curve. Every cryptocurrency transaction that occurs is logged in a web-based ledger with blockchain technology.These then must be approved by a disparate network of individual nodes (computers that maintain a copy of the ledger). For every new block generated, the block must first be authenticated and confirmed ‘approved’ by each node, which makes forging the transactional history of cryptocurrencies nearly impossible. The World’s First CryptoBitcoin became the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and to this day is still the most demanded cryptocurrency and the most valued. Bitcoin still contributes the majority of the overall cryptocurrency market volume, though several other cryptos have grown in popularity in recent years.Indeed, out of the wake of Bitcoin, iterations of Bitcoin became prevalent which resulted in a multitude of newly created or cloned cryptocurrencies. Contending cryptocurrencies that emerged after Bitcoin’s success is referred to as ‘altcoins’ and they refer to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, and Dash. Cryptocurrencies promise a wide range of technological innovations that have yet to be structured into being. Simplified payments between two parties without the need for a middle man is one aspect while leveraging blockchain technology to minimize transaction and processing fees for banks is another. Of course, cryptocurrencies have their disadvantages too. This includes issues of tax evasion, money laundering, and other illicit online activities where anonymity is a dire ingredient in solicitous and fraudulent activities.
By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the networks which are used to authenticate blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be thought of as systems that accept online payments which are denoted as “tokens.” Tokens are represented as internal ledger entries in blockchain technology while the term crypto is used to depict cryptographic methods and encryption algorithms such as public-private key pairs, various hashing functions, and an elliptical curve. Every cryptocurrency transaction that occurs is logged in a web-based ledger with blockchain technology.These then must be approved by a disparate network of individual nodes (computers that maintain a copy of the ledger). For every new block generated, the block must first be authenticated and confirmed ‘approved’ by each node, which makes forging the transactional history of cryptocurrencies nearly impossible. The World’s First CryptoBitcoin became the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and to this day is still the most demanded cryptocurrency and the most valued. Bitcoin still contributes the majority of the overall cryptocurrency market volume, though several other cryptos have grown in popularity in recent years.Indeed, out of the wake of Bitcoin, iterations of Bitcoin became prevalent which resulted in a multitude of newly created or cloned cryptocurrencies. Contending cryptocurrencies that emerged after Bitcoin’s success is referred to as ‘altcoins’ and they refer to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, and Dash. Cryptocurrencies promise a wide range of technological innovations that have yet to be structured into being. Simplified payments between two parties without the need for a middle man is one aspect while leveraging blockchain technology to minimize transaction and processing fees for banks is another. Of course, cryptocurrencies have their disadvantages too. This includes issues of tax evasion, money laundering, and other illicit online activities where anonymity is a dire ingredient in solicitous and fraudulent activities.
Read this Term, to those who qualified for the upper levels of the positive tier.
How to stay ahead of the curve?
In addition to these original measures, CySEC will also hold its member firms to regulations such as closing out positions beyond 50% margin calls, protecting clients from negative balances, and the banning of all financial market incentives.
Risk warnings would be mandatory, as would the clear presentation of the percentages of successes and losses of company clients.
With all these new changes on the near horizon, it seems that what most brokers are looking for is a trusted provider who can manage their compliance needs wherever these turn up.
A good option would be to combine regulatory coverage with other technological and peripheral needs brokers have, such as incorporation and PSP integration.
“Forex regulation requirements keep changing across Europe, and Cyprus is no exception”, says Alkis Hilton, an expert on CySEC regulation and Executive Director of Leverate Financial Services, the Cypriot regulatory branch of tech provider Leverate.
“It is extremely important to be aware of the changes, and to prepare correctly to the new regulatory environment.
As part of the LXLite package that Leverate offers, we provide a full CySEC license, regulatory preparation and ongoing coverage, so that our brokers can always be sure that they comply with the most recent demands”.
Praiseworthy as CySEC’s initiatives may be, there will have to be a period of testing to see if their flexible risk-based leverage trading will work.
This is where the Cypriot Forex industry as a whole can speak its mind about the planned changes.
Traders, brokers, and retail clients have until June 14 to make their feelings known before final proposals are published. All of that in preparation for the implementation date of ESMA’s intervention measures all over the EU, on July 30.
Disclaimer: The content of this article is sponsored and does not represent the opinions of Finance Magnates.
In line with the flurry of regulatory moves made by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), Cyprus - the “Kingdom of Forex Brokerages” in the eastern Mediterranean, is following suit with its own much-anticipated financial legislation.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission ( CySEC
CySEC
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is a financial regulatory authority of Cyprus. CySEC is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.Founded in 2001, CySEC is instrumental in providing licensing and registration for forex brokers and previously binary options providers.CySEC is responsible for a variety of different functions, which includes the supervision and control of the Cyprus Stock Exchange as well as transactions executed in the Stock Exchange, its listed companies, brokers and brokerage firms.Furthermore, the regulator also supervises and monitors Licensed Investment Services Companies, Collective Investment funds, investment consultants. and mutual fund management companies.CySEC’s Role in Combatting Market AbuseOne of CySEC’s most important functions is the granting of operation licenses to investment firms, including investment consultants, brokerage firms and brokers. This includes provisions for Cyprus Investment Firms (CIF), who provide and perform investment services and activities either within Cyprus or abroad on a professional basis on certain financial instruments.Finally, CySEC oversees the imposition of administrative sanctions and disciplinary penalties to brokers, brokerage firms, and investment consultants, among others. The group has been a key force in policing the forex and binary options space, which has included several legal actions and curb market abuse. Since 2016, CySEC has sought to take a more aggressive stance against illicit behavior, while also strengthening its handling of investor complaints against entities. CySEC is currently chaired by Demetra Kalogerou, who has held the role since 2011.The CySEC is administered by a seven-member Board, which consist of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman, each of whom provide their services on a full and exclusive employment basis, and five additional non-executive members.All individuals on CySEC’s Board are appointed by the Council of Ministers following a proposal of the Minister of Finance. Their service reflects a five-year term.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is a financial regulatory authority of Cyprus. CySEC is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.Founded in 2001, CySEC is instrumental in providing licensing and registration for forex brokers and previously binary options providers.CySEC is responsible for a variety of different functions, which includes the supervision and control of the Cyprus Stock Exchange as well as transactions executed in the Stock Exchange, its listed companies, brokers and brokerage firms.Furthermore, the regulator also supervises and monitors Licensed Investment Services Companies, Collective Investment funds, investment consultants. and mutual fund management companies.CySEC’s Role in Combatting Market AbuseOne of CySEC’s most important functions is the granting of operation licenses to investment firms, including investment consultants, brokerage firms and brokers. This includes provisions for Cyprus Investment Firms (CIF), who provide and perform investment services and activities either within Cyprus or abroad on a professional basis on certain financial instruments.Finally, CySEC oversees the imposition of administrative sanctions and disciplinary penalties to brokers, brokerage firms, and investment consultants, among others. The group has been a key force in policing the forex and binary options space, which has included several legal actions and curb market abuse. Since 2016, CySEC has sought to take a more aggressive stance against illicit behavior, while also strengthening its handling of investor complaints against entities. CySEC is currently chaired by Demetra Kalogerou, who has held the role since 2011.The CySEC is administered by a seven-member Board, which consist of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman, each of whom provide their services on a full and exclusive employment basis, and five additional non-executive members.All individuals on CySEC’s Board are appointed by the Council of Ministers following a proposal of the Minister of Finance. Their service reflects a five-year term.
Read this Term), has proposed a range of innovative leverage measures to protect retail clients and brokers who trade with Cypriot financial institutions.
As a Forex broker, or retail client, you can become punch-drunk trying to follow all of the financial regulatory news that have been coming in the last three to five years.
Naturally, all of these initiatives have been well-intentioned with the primary aim of protecting investors and member firms from bankruptcy.
However, more and more regulatory pressure can sometime lead to the opposite result, with markets becoming less liquid and hurting retail trade.
For this reason, policymakers in Cyprus decided to try a little more flexible approach to their leverage system. This move is aimed directly at the amount of leverage that member firms can offer to their retail clients.
ESMA has set a slew of regulations to this effect, but while the regulators at CySEC had to abide by the European regulations, they also wanted to add a layer of flexibility to encourage more retail business.
CySEC proposed a risk-based approach to the leverage of trading in multiple financial instruments. Clients would initially be assessed on a range of criteria, after which they would be assigned to specific leverage tiers.
These criteria include risk appetite, experience, knowledge, market volatility history, and their annual income or net worth.
Tiers were defined for different segments of retail clients, and according to those tiers they will be qualified for different leverage measures in various financial asset groups.
Those tiers would be labeled as ‘Positive’ or ‘Negative ‘, in general. There will also be clients who fall between the two stools, and will be categorized as ‘Grey’.
The last thing regulators wanted to do was to provide the top leverage terms to clients who were unsuited to high-risk trading activity. For that reason, upper tier clients are required to earn a minimum of 40,000 euros per year or have net liquid assets in excess of 200,000 euros.
Upper tier clients would receive leverage of 50:1 on major currency pairs as opposed to the 30:1 proposed by ESMA.
Clients who fell in the “grey” tier would only be able to leverage 20:1 for those same major currency pairs in accordance with ESMA’s leverage instructions.
Segmentation is clearly an area that would be strongly supervised by Cypriot regulatory bodies, knowing that other European countries would be watching this experiment with the intention of following suit if CySEC’s plans were successful.
CySEC proposed further regulatory measures such as the curtailment of all binary option business, as well as restricting trade in high-risk assets such as Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies
By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the networks which are used to authenticate blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be thought of as systems that accept online payments which are denoted as “tokens.” Tokens are represented as internal ledger entries in blockchain technology while the term crypto is used to depict cryptographic methods and encryption algorithms such as public-private key pairs, various hashing functions, and an elliptical curve. Every cryptocurrency transaction that occurs is logged in a web-based ledger with blockchain technology.These then must be approved by a disparate network of individual nodes (computers that maintain a copy of the ledger). For every new block generated, the block must first be authenticated and confirmed ‘approved’ by each node, which makes forging the transactional history of cryptocurrencies nearly impossible. The World’s First CryptoBitcoin became the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and to this day is still the most demanded cryptocurrency and the most valued. Bitcoin still contributes the majority of the overall cryptocurrency market volume, though several other cryptos have grown in popularity in recent years.Indeed, out of the wake of Bitcoin, iterations of Bitcoin became prevalent which resulted in a multitude of newly created or cloned cryptocurrencies. Contending cryptocurrencies that emerged after Bitcoin’s success is referred to as ‘altcoins’ and they refer to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, and Dash. Cryptocurrencies promise a wide range of technological innovations that have yet to be structured into being. Simplified payments between two parties without the need for a middle man is one aspect while leveraging blockchain technology to minimize transaction and processing fees for banks is another. Of course, cryptocurrencies have their disadvantages too. This includes issues of tax evasion, money laundering, and other illicit online activities where anonymity is a dire ingredient in solicitous and fraudulent activities.
By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the networks which are used to authenticate blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be thought of as systems that accept online payments which are denoted as “tokens.” Tokens are represented as internal ledger entries in blockchain technology while the term crypto is used to depict cryptographic methods and encryption algorithms such as public-private key pairs, various hashing functions, and an elliptical curve. Every cryptocurrency transaction that occurs is logged in a web-based ledger with blockchain technology.These then must be approved by a disparate network of individual nodes (computers that maintain a copy of the ledger). For every new block generated, the block must first be authenticated and confirmed ‘approved’ by each node, which makes forging the transactional history of cryptocurrencies nearly impossible. The World’s First CryptoBitcoin became the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and to this day is still the most demanded cryptocurrency and the most valued. Bitcoin still contributes the majority of the overall cryptocurrency market volume, though several other cryptos have grown in popularity in recent years.Indeed, out of the wake of Bitcoin, iterations of Bitcoin became prevalent which resulted in a multitude of newly created or cloned cryptocurrencies. Contending cryptocurrencies that emerged after Bitcoin’s success is referred to as ‘altcoins’ and they refer to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, and Dash. Cryptocurrencies promise a wide range of technological innovations that have yet to be structured into being. Simplified payments between two parties without the need for a middle man is one aspect while leveraging blockchain technology to minimize transaction and processing fees for banks is another. Of course, cryptocurrencies have their disadvantages too. This includes issues of tax evasion, money laundering, and other illicit online activities where anonymity is a dire ingredient in solicitous and fraudulent activities.
Read this Term, to those who qualified for the upper levels of the positive tier.
How to stay ahead of the curve?
In addition to these original measures, CySEC will also hold its member firms to regulations such as closing out positions beyond 50% margin calls, protecting clients from negative balances, and the banning of all financial market incentives.
Risk warnings would be mandatory, as would the clear presentation of the percentages of successes and losses of company clients.
With all these new changes on the near horizon, it seems that what most brokers are looking for is a trusted provider who can manage their compliance needs wherever these turn up.
A good option would be to combine regulatory coverage with other technological and peripheral needs brokers have, such as incorporation and PSP integration.
“Forex regulation requirements keep changing across Europe, and Cyprus is no exception”, says Alkis Hilton, an expert on CySEC regulation and Executive Director of Leverate Financial Services, the Cypriot regulatory branch of tech provider Leverate.
“It is extremely important to be aware of the changes, and to prepare correctly to the new regulatory environment.
As part of the LXLite package that Leverate offers, we provide a full CySEC license, regulatory preparation and ongoing coverage, so that our brokers can always be sure that they comply with the most recent demands”.
Praiseworthy as CySEC’s initiatives may be, there will have to be a period of testing to see if their flexible risk-based leverage trading will work.
This is where the Cypriot Forex industry as a whole can speak its mind about the planned changes.
Traders, brokers, and retail clients have until June 14 to make their feelings known before final proposals are published. All of that in preparation for the implementation date of ESMA’s intervention measures all over the EU, on July 30.
Disclaimer: The content of this article is sponsored and does not represent the opinions of Finance Magnates.