Italy’s financial markets and services provider regulator CONSOB (Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa) has updated its list of forex brokers who are not licensed to operate in Italy with one new addition – 4xpremium. The broker was banned for illegally using identifying elements (company, brand, name or corporate name, headquarters, addresses, web and/or e-mail addresses, etc.) that are identical to those of companies actually authorised.

Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB; Italian Companies and Exchange Commission) is the government authority of Italy responsible for regulating the Italian securities market. This includes the regulation of the Italian stock exchange, the Borsa Italiana.

4xpremium offers trading with Forex and CFDs, including Indices, Commodities and Stocks. The company is owned and operated by Index Limited. 4xpremium doesn't disclose any information about its location, contact details or, most importantly, its regulation. Also, mentioning Cyprus jurisdiction in the terms and conditions doesn't mean the authorization from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).

Although, our biggest concerns are the warning from several regulators which blacklisted 4xpremium for illegally use of identifying elements of companies actually authorised in the country. As the official CONSOB notice state, such companies are called "clone firms" and they not just use the names or addresses of the authorized entities, they may also refer to "licenses", whether valid or expired, issued by supervisory authorities to different subjects. By so doing, these subjects present themselves to potential customers as being authorised, often offering highly profitable investments in an underhand way.

Moreover, the broker has also been banned by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority as the owner-company Index Limited is a clone of the FCA-regulated Global Market Index Limited.

It is now clear that 4xpremium is way too suspicious to be dealt with. Trading with a licensed broker ensures you will not have issues withdrawing your investment. The most trustworthy brokers are those registered with such regulators as FCA in the United Kingdom and ASIC in Australia. You can read our review on this broker here.