Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
After the dramatic exit of FXCM from the US market in February, there have been concerns in the forex industry whether other regulators, and most notably, UK’s FCA, are going to undertake similar measures against the brokerage. However, FXCM UK stated in a regulatory filing it is not facing any enforcement action from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over it business practices in the country.
We remind you that FXCM was severely fined and forced to exit the US forex market over significant and continuous violations and had to sell its client base to its competitor Gain Capital. The company was charged with taking positions against customers, concealing that a key market maker was tightly related to the broker, and claiming to offer “No Dealing Desk” execution with no conflict of interest with customers.
According to the report of the Board of Directors of FXCM UK included in the filed document, all matters outlined in the CFTC and NFA letters have been explained. Furthermore, no customer detriment to the Company’s clients has occurred, neither have clients been misled as to the execution policies of FXCM Group, and that is why the UK broker states it is “comfortable that the Company will not be put into enforcement with the FCA and will not face any fines or public sanctions.”
FXCM UK further promises it will continue to improve its services by lowering transaction costs and adding more products to its CFD trading portfolio. In addition, the broker announces its plans to launch MetaTrader 5, as well as an in-house developed Trading Station Web platform.
The report also contains summary financial results for the year 2016, compared to 2015:
The FXCM operations are now run out of London by FCA-licensed Forex Capital Markets Ltd. (FXCM UK). The FXCM Group also operates via ASIC-regulated FXCM Australia Pty. Ltd., as well as introducing broker (IB) partners. It is 50.1% majority owned by FXCM Inc., while the rest of the group moved to the hands of US lender Leucadia National Corporation in 2016.
