Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
The Israeli forex broker and social trading platform developer eToro has withdrawn its application for an Israeli Security Authority (ISA) Trading Arena license, reports the site Finance Magnates, quoting the watchdog.
According to Joe Hall, eToro’s UK MD Business, the decision was taken after a continuous dialogue with the ISA: “Despite a mutual willingness, we have decided to withdraw our trading platform application as the company’s offering can’t reside in the current regulatory environment in Israel yet,” Hall told the site.
In his words, in spite of this decision, for the time being eToro will keep its focus in other regions, but has not entirely given up on an Israeli license: “We are happy to revisit our decision and continue the discussion with the ISA on how we can launch social trading in Israel.”
eToro is the sixth forex brokerage to withdraw its license application with the ISA, along with FCIG Capital, Agm Markets Limited, Easy Trade, Iforex Israel and General Trade.
The applications of other eight forex brokers are still in process: Protrade, Atrade, FXCM Israel, iTrader, Real Forex, Colmex, Trade Capital Markets, First Index and Plus500. Imarkets, Etrader, Trade Marker and Prime Broker had their applications rejected.
Only recently eToro got a license from Belize’s IFSC. The broker is also is regulated by UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).
eToro was launched in 2008 and offers a social platform for investors to communicate, share strategies and trade in forex, CFDs, commodities, indices, stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). It has more than 4.5 million registered users from 170 countries across the world.
In the past several months eToro launched its Popular Investor dashboard and tightened the requirements for the program.
