

Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
It appears the Russian financial regulator has decided to take further steps in dealing with unlicensed forex brokers. Namely, it intends to block the websites of such companies, according to an interview for Russian news agency TASS with Artem Sychev, Deputy Head of the Central Directorate for Security and Information Protection at the Central Bank of Russia (CRB).
In fact, the CRB has proposed some law amendments along with the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media. According to the proposed draft law, if a company is targeting Russian investors without having an authorization to do so, its website address is automatically entered in a special register (kept by Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications).
Russia’s c-bank and megaregulator has signed an agreement in that regard with Russia’s administrator of the top level national internet domains at the end of previous year. Accordingly, the Bank of Russia is authorized to block “harmful” financial sites with .ru, .su and .рф domain names that target Russian clients without being licensed. According to Mr. Sychev, the Russian regulator is authorized to do so without a court approval, and intends to include websites with other domain names in the near future.
After the enacting of the first of the basic standards for forex dealers operating on the financial markets, and the development of a draft law forbidding unlicensed forex brokers to attract clients, Bank of Russia undertakes further steps to protect members of the general public from financial fraud and create conditions for competition among licensed financial firms in the country.
We remind you that only companies holding Forex dealer licenses issued by the Central Bank of Russia are authorized to offer OTC forex services to Russian clients. Currently there are eight licensed forex brokers in the country: Alpari, Finam Forex, Forex Club, InstaForex, Teletrade, TrustForex, VTB 24 and Promsvyazbank. Despite the formal prohibition for unlicensed brokers to operate in Russia, there are still many companies without a license that attract Russian clients.