Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Russian forex brokerage TeleTrade Group was accepted on Tuesday as a member of the Association of Forex Dealers (AFD), a self-regulatory organization (SRO), the broker said on Tuesday.
The broker received earlier this month a forex broker license from the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), becoming one of three entities to obtain such a license. Under the laws, licensees are required to join a SRO in their industry within 180 days after the organization has been granted status of a financial institution.
Since 1 January this year, Russia-based forex brokers are not allowed to target local citizens, unless they have a CBR license. However, foreign forex brokers can still target Russian citizens even without a local license and most market participant continue to operate in the country through their foreign units.
In mid-March this year, the CBR established a register of SROs and has already included several such organizations. It said at the time that organizations that have been active as self-regulatory bodies for at least a year will receive a registered SRO status within a two-month period, but some well-known SROs are still missing from the register as of this day. One reason for this are the contradictory rules under which a SRO can only be registered if at least one of its members is a licensed forex broker, while forex brokers can obtain a CBR license only if they partake in a SRO with at least 10 members.
The AFD has also applied to be included into the register and is awaiting the CBR’s decision, which would allow it to legally launch operations as a SRO. The AFD was established in March this year by forex brokerage house Finam Forex, the first broker to receive a Russian forex broker license, and the Institute of Stock Market and Management (ISMM). In addition to Finam Forex, brokerage TrustForex is also a member of the AFD.
TeleTrade is also a member of another Russian SRO – Centre for regulation in OTC Financial Instruments and Technologies (CRFIN), which has not received a registered status yet.
The broker has said its Russian operations account for about half of its business. It is currently negotiating with some of the largest Russian banks to open nominal accounts with them.
TeleTrade is present in 26 countries worldwide. The brokerage offers trading in forex and contracts for difference (CFDs) on commodities, stocks, futures and currencies.
In addition to the Russian license, TeleTrade Group is also regulated in a couple other places. One of the group companies, Teletrade-DJ International Consulting Ltd., is regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC) and registered with the relevant authorities in the UK, Bulgaria, Romania, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the UAE. TeleTradeBel, another group unit, was recently included as a forex broker into the register of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB), which is the equivalent to acquiring an authorization or a license in other countries.
TeleTrade is the third largest retail forex service provider in Russia in terms of trading volume, outperformed only by Alpari and Forex Club, according to a report by Interfax-Center for Economic Analysis (Interfax-CEA). In 2015, its average monthly trading volume stood at $45 billion, according to the report.
Source: TeleTrade
