Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Hong Kong’s financial watchdog, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has added to its warning list the forex broker XTrade for targeting Hong Kong residents, without having a license.
Reports in other media, however, inform that XTrade is denying any wrongdoing and hopes the SFC will get in touch with them to clarify the matter. “XTrade is not targeting investors in Hong Kong. We adhere to regional licensing laws and have never attempted to target investors outside of the jurisdictions in which we are licensed and regulated,” Mark Leigh, Chief Operation Officer of XTrade told the site Finance Magnates.
XTrade holds licenses from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) as Xtrade Europe, the Belize International Financial Services Commission (IFSC) as Xtrade.BLZ and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) as Xtrade.AU. In July the broker joined Russia’s self-regulatory organization NAFD (former CRFIN) and said it will apply for a Russian license.
Xtrade offers trading in forex, commodities, indices, shares and CFDs on its proprietary platform Xtrader Pro. Its European head office is in Cyprus, but the contact numbers are from the UK. It is active in some of the EU countries, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
XTrade is one of the forex brokers that advertise through sport, namely has a contract with the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo who also has contracts with Coca-Cola, internet betting sites, Nike, Emirates, etc.
Not long ago Xtrade got in the trouble with the ASIC over suspicions of improper handling of client money and with the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) for accepting as clients British Columbia residents, without having the proper license to do so.
