Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Forex and contracts for difference (CFDs) online broker AvaTrade has established a new subsidiary to take charge of its business and clients in Israel, online finance media LeapRate reported on Wednesday, citing a notice the broker sent out to clients earlier this week. The company will continue to use the ATrade brand in the country.
The move is motivated by the expected new regulatory requirements in the country regarding online trading set by the Israel Securities Authority (ISA). The amendments are to come into effect in July 2016.
The new Israeli-based unit will offer lower maximum leverage rates in line with the new local regulations. For forex and gold the offered maximum leverage will be 100:1, while for indices and all other instruments it will be 40:1 and 20:1, respectively. The broker will not be allowed to give out gifts and bonuses to traders.
Clients will be required to sign a confirmation for their transfer to the new company and approve its customer agreement and conflict of interest policy, as required by the ISA.
In addition, the approved payment methods the Israeli broker will be allowed to support will be limited to bank transfers and credit cards, but will exclude debit cards.
In February, AvaTrade set up another subsidiary, Ava Capital Markets Pty Ltd., which is in charge of the group’s operations in South Africa and is regulated by the local financial regulator, the Financial Services Board (FSB).
The group is headquartered in Ireland’s Dublin and has offices globally, including in France, Italy, China, Mongolia, Australia, and Japan. It consists of Ireland-licensed Ava Trade EU, Australia-licensed Ava Capital Markets Australia, Ava Trade Ltd., which is licensed in the British Virgin Islands, and Japan-regulated Ava Trade Japan K.K., and South Africa-licensed Ava Capital Markets Pty.
AvaTrade, formerly known as AvaFX, was set up in 2006. It offers online trading in more than 200 CFD financial instruments, including on forex, indices, stocks, and commodities. It supports the industry leading MetaTrader 4 (MT4) trading platform, as well as its two proprietary platforms – AvaTrader for trading in forex, commodities, indices, equities and bonds, and AvaOptions for binary options trading. Its Israeli unit will only support the MT4.
In Israel, the group has been known as ATrade since 2010. Prior to that, it offered services to Israeli citizens under the Clal brand, which it borrowed via a partnership from the Clal Group, on of the country’s leading insurance and non-banking financial service providers.
Source: LeapRate
