Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC), a Canadian provincial regulator, issued a warning on Thursday against binary options broker BinaryBook, owned and operated by Tech SB Ltd. The broker is not authorized to provide financial services in British Columbia and investors should be cautious when engaging with it.
The entity is not registered to trade in, or advise on, securities or exchange contracts in the province, but has been targeting local residents, the regulatory body noted.
The company offers an online trading platform for binary options available as desktop and mobile applications. Its product portfolio includes currencies, commodities, indices and stocks. The broker promises payout of up to 78% on their investment. It offers several types of trading account with a minimum deposit requirement starting from $250.
According to the BCSC, BinaryBook claims to be based in Bulgaria, but on its website www.binarybook.com it provides a contract phone in the UK. No information on licensing and authorization is available. In fact, Bulgaria’s Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) issued earlier in 2016 a notice, saying that BinaryBook, among other brokers, is not authorized in the country.
Quebec’s financial regulatory body, the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), has also included BinaryBook in its warning list.
Just these days, the BCSC also warned against other binary options brokers – BSDOption and BinaryOnline, the last one of which is also based in Bulgaria.
In Canada, capital markets fall under the regulation of provincial watchdogs and legislation rules may vary in from province to province. Binary options are not forbidden throughout the entire country, but providers of such instruments need to be regulated in order to operate. However, there is not a single binary options broker or platform authorized or licensed to operate in Canada. Under the BCSC’s legislation, binary options are treated as securities.
When engaging with unauthorized and non-regulated brokers, traders are putting their investments at higher risk. We strongly advise you to only deal with regulated forex brokers, authorized by reputable regulatory bodies like CySec, FCA, and CFTC/NFA, among others.
