CBR Looking At FX Trading Loopholes By Payment Providers

The Bank of Russia continues its crusade against forex trading and is now taking a shot at payment providers. The central bank has identified 140 companies that it says illegally offer forex trading to Russian consumers. This continues the war that the financial regulator is waging against any form of forex trading in the Russian market. 

This lists of companies was released in a statement made by Valery Lyakh who is the director of the department for countering unfair practices of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. He points out that many of these companies are registered in foreign locations and are used by illegal FX brokers to cover their tracks, making it difficult for the authorities to collect evidence of their illegal fx activities. 

This move against payment provides could mean that the Russian government is going to take the battle against forex trading to another level. This time, it will target platforms that allow the nation’s investors to make payments overseas. This could cut off the remaining access that Russian citizens to the forex markets.

Lyakh pointed out that FX brokers make promises offering Russians an easy route to financial freedom but in the end Russian consumers end up losing their money. 

In a statement, Lyakh said,

Often potential clients are invited to allegedly receive training. But in fact, training centers receive commissions for supplying customers. There is no question of real training. The problem is that it’s difficult to hold employees of such pseudo-consulting centers accountable that their relationship with customers is framed under civil law contracts.

Lyakh says that though some of these companies claim to be based in Russia, they were actually using dummy addresses to fake their presence in the country. If they really were in the country, the Russian authorities would be able to take steps against them.

Good News for Russian Exchanges

The Russian central bank is happy that there are fewer Russian companies involved in illegal trading. This is reflected by an uptick in more people in opening trading accounts with legal providers. 

This is to be expected since the Bank of Russia has eliminated competition from the entire forex market in the country. 

This was done by stripping several brokerage firms of their license to trade in forex. This resulted in many of the major exchange dealers getting kicked out of the country. The main reason for the revoking of licenses was due to a laundry list of accusations that included providing false accounting data and moving clients’ money offshore.

However, the results were clear to see as local big banks took over their business and dominate the retail market now.