SMN
France’s financial regulatory body, the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), issued on Friday a notice, in which it advises clients of no-longer licensed binary options broker Banc de Binary to cease business with it as soon as possible. Traders should contact the broker immediately and seek to get their funds back and terminate all operations, according to the watchdog.
Until recently Banc de Binary was regulated by the Cypress Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), but it renounced its Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) license earlier this month. Prior to the license lapse, Banc de Binary used to offer CySEC-regulated cervices via the website eu.bancdebinary.com.
“[…] The AMF recommends that investors who have opened an account on this website immediately send a registered letter to Banc de Binary Ltd. and a copy of this letter to the CySEC asking that their account(s) be closed, that they be reimbursed any balances, and, depending on the situation, putting forward a complaint,” the AMF said in the notice.
Banc de Binary obtained a CySEC license in early 2013. It also used to hold a license in Belize, but it lost it in October 2016 over non-compliance. Even though its Cyprus license has lapsed, the broker has remain under the CySEC’s supervision for a period of 3 months from so that it could settles its obligations.
Banc de Binary was founded in 2009. It is headquartered in it native Israel, but operates globally. Its product portfolio consists of binary options on currencies, stocks, commodities, and indices. The brand operates out of several domains, including www.eu.bancdebinary.com, www.bancdebinary.com and www.bbinary.com.
In February 2016, the brokerage paid $11 million in settlement to the US authorities after it was accused of soliciting local investors into trading without having the required authorization.
It January the same year, the broker was also fined €350,000 by the CySEC for non-compliance with the Cyprus regulatory framework. In Q3 2016, the brokerage tried to rethink its business model in an attempt to save its operations, but the measures it took were not enough.
