Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
The Belgian regulator FSMA has updated its list of unauthorized binary options brokers with five more: Invest-Option, CentralOption, PWRTrade, Proinvest and SC-Options.
Invest-Option
According to the FSMA, Invest-Option, a brand owned by Broker Financial Ltd is offering very risky investment instruments in Belgium without complying with Belgian financial legislation – in this case, binary options brokers. The company has not published a prospectus approved by the FSMA, as is required for offering investment instruments to the public in Belgium. Furthermore, the regulator presumes Broker Financial is linked to Arian Financial and NG-Bank who are also offering binary options and against which the FSMA has already warned in April.
This is why the regulator strongly advises the public against responding to any investment offers made by Broker Financial and transferring any money to its accounts.
CentralOption
CentralOption is owned by Central Provider, claiming to have offices in London and Hong Kong. According to the FSMA, the company is not authorized to provide investment and banking services in Belgium, including binary options, which are deemed a very risky instrument. Hence, the FSMA advises the public to avoid investing with CentralOption and send it any money.
CentralOption is a binary options broker that is rather “popular” with the national regulators. Since the beginning of the year warnings against it were published by Hong Kong’s SFC, the Manitoba Securities Commission and the British Columbia Securities Commission.
PWRTrade
PWRTrade is the brand of GN Capital – a company with a business address on the Marshall Islands. According to the Belgian regulator, the company is not authorized to provide financial services in the country and is not complying with the Belgian financial legislation. Like with the other brokers, FSMA warns the Belgians against doing business with this binary options broker.
PWRTrade’s website has versions in English, German and Arabic. The broker offers an exclusive bonus of up to 100% bonus and promises “the world’s most secure platform”. According to a note at the bottom, PWRTrade’s payment service provider is GN Management is based in Bulgaria. There is no regulatory information.
Proinvest
Proinvest is a brand of Graham International Ltd / Binat Ltd. The company claims to be based in London but does not appear in the Financial Conduct Authority’s register of financial providers. It is not an authorized investment firm or credit institution in Belgium either and cannot offer trading in financial instruments, binary options included. That’s why the FSMA strongly advises against responding to offers made by the broker and transferring money to its accounts.
SC-Options
According to the FSMA, Sterling Consultancy Options Ltd, the owner of SC-Options, is a cloned firm. It has assumed the identity of a company with the same name – Sterling Consultancy Options Ltd., registered and authorized in the UK that has addresses in Glasgow and Hamilton.
The Belgian regulator notes that the clone has an address in London and different contact information. “Identity theft is typical of “cloned firm” fraud: fraudsters steal the identity of persons or firms that do in fact exist (such as a lawyer, an authorized company, etc.) in order to gain credibility or even legitimacy, and thus to convince investors,” the FSMA notes.
