The FCA warns against AGMarket and Kodimax brokers

FCA Regulator

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued warnings against AGMarket and Kodimax. The regulator said the brokers have been providing financial services and products targeting people in the UK without being licensed.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is a financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom, but operates independently of the UK Government, and is financed by charging fees to members of the financial services industry. The FCA regulates financial firms providing services to consumers and maintains the integrity of the financial markets in the United Kingdom.

Are these brokers legit?

AGMarket logo

AGMarket is a Forex broker, owned and operated by Lotens Partners LTD, based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  The broker doesn't provide any regulatory information, which only proves it is NOT regulated offshore broker that we would advise to avoid. Also, despite its offshore location, the contact number provided on the website has Swiss country code. It seems like AGMarket has been trying to target Swiss residents. 

Kodimax offers its clients trading with forex, CFDs on indices, commodities, stocks and cryptocurrencies. The broker doesn't disclose the company behind the brand's name as well as doesn't provide any information about its regulation/authorization. The terms and conditions on the website state that Kodimax is regulated by the Czech Republic law. However, it turned out Kodimax is not regulated in Czech Republic or any other country. 

Traders should trade with well-regulated brokers such as UK brokers or brokers in Australia and reliable brokers such as FP Markets and FXTM.

You can share your trading experience with AGMarket and Kodimax by commenting on this post.

ASIC Flags Unauthorized Forex Firm GFCinvestment

ASIC logo

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has updated its blacklist to include GFCinvestment, which is also known as DARTALON LTD. The financial regulator was alerted to the firm after it made unsolicited calls or sent emails about investing, financial advice, credit or loans.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is an independent Australian government body that acts as Australia’s corporate regulator. ASIC’s role is to enforce and regulate company and financial services laws to protect Australian consumers, investors and creditors.

According to the website, GFCinvestment is a worldwide brand committed to your trading experience. The broker GFCinvestment offers a choice of various financial assets such as currencies, stocks, indices, commodities. The website is owned and operated by DARTALON LTD., St.Vincent & the Grenadines offshore company. 

The Australian regulator has warned that the broker does not hold a current Australian Financial Services (AFS) license or an Australian Credit license from ASIC to provide financial services in Australia, highlighting that the company could be involved in a scam.

The broker doesn’t seem to be regulated by any authority and the offshore location of one of the co-companies doesn’t make it look more reliable. It has also been blacklisted by UK's regulator Financial Conduct Authority. 

In addition, the broker has got hundreds of negative reviews, where people complain about issues with withdrawing their funds and cold-calling from the side of the company.

To sum up, it is better to stay away from GFCinvestment, a broker that has a warning and also a quite big number of the negative review from the traders who was scammed by this firm. We recommend selecting among brokers licensed by the respective authorities in the UK, or Australia for example. For instance, a broker registered with the UK’s FCA can’t simply take investor’s money and disappear. They follow multiple reporting procedures and have to keep client funds segregated from the company’s. You can read our review on this broker here

South Korean Regulator Fines Four Global Banks for Rigging FX

The Fair Trade Commission logo

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has fined four global banks operating in Korea for illegally sharing information and colluding in price bids to win foreign exchange derivatives contracts from five Korean companies. Foreign exchange derivatives refer to financial products designed to avoid the risks of the exchange rate and interest rate fluctuations in foreign exchange transactions.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) is South Korea's regulatory authority for economic competition. It is a ministerial-level central administrative organization under the authority of the Prime Minister and also functions as a quasi-judicial body. The KFTC formulates and administers competition policies, and deliberates, decides, and handles antitrust cases.


According to the FTC, JPMorgan Chase has to pay the biggest fine of 251 million won ($223,000), followed by HSBC with a 225 million won fine. Deutsche Bank faces a penalty of 212 million won, and Standard Chartered (SC) Bank Korea gets 5 million won in fines. In total, South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has fined JP Morgan, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and StanChart a combined $613,000 for rigging forex derivative prices.
The South Korean agencies have been investigating some foreign investment banks. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has also been probing into a number of cases involving investment banks' price rigging of forex derivatives contracts separately.
According to the FTC, the investigation was about a worldwide scandal that helped global regulators to look into the implications of several investment banks such as JP Morgan Chase, HSBC and Citibank. From March 2010 to February 2012, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, and SC Bank conspired seven times to sell currency contracts to five corporate clients. The banks were offering the same price to avoid competition when the companies were looking to assign the banks to manage their contracts. Also, the four had worked together in order for one of them to win contracts should their clients decide to choose only one bank for derivatives trading management. This would enable them to take turns in winning the bids.
The regulator states that putting fines on the banks will bring back the market order and make companies deal through the fair competition.

Swedish FSA has issued a warning against BRFX Trade

Swedish regulator Financial Supervisory Authority logo

Swedish regulator Financial Supervisory Authority has issued a warning that the offshore Forex broker BRFX Trade is not licensed to provide financial services in the country.

Financial Supervisory Authority (Swedish: Finansinspektionen, FI) is the Swedish government agency responsible for financial regulation in Sweden. It is responsible for the oversight, regulation and authorization of financial markets and their participants. The agency falls under the Swedish Ministry of Finance and regulates all organisations that provide financial services in Sweden.

BRFX Trade offers online trading in Forex, as well as CFDs on commodities, indices and stocks and operates through the website brfxtrade.com. The company owning and operating this brokerage, BR Consulting Group Ltd., is registered offshore, in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Forex brokers operating from offshore destinations are not regulated by any agency, and are not recommended.

Also the website supports English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Italian languages which means it targets European residents without being authorized in those countries. There are numerous complains about this broker on the websites and different forums. People say that the broker is refusing to withdraw clients' investments, draining the money and cold calling.

Trading with offshore brokers is extremely risky. Many of these brokers are scam companies seeking to cut financial and regulatory corners. Unlike with the FCA and other EU financial regulatory entities, offshore agencies pay very little attention to compliance-check, reporting and, they don't report individual transactions, denying the withdrawals.

You can read our review on this broker here.

Hong Kong’s SFC warns of forex broker Gulf FX

SFC logo Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has updated its warning list with unlicensed Forex brokers. The latest addition includes Gulf FX. The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong is the independent statutory body charged with regulating the securities and futures markets in Hong Kong. The SFC is responsible for fostering an orderly securities and futures markets, to protect investors and to help promote Hong Kong as an international financial center and a key financial market in China. The broker’s website  www.gulffx.co gives the regulatory information of the company and that it is owned by Golf Fx EOOD and registered in Sofia, Bulgaria under the registration number 204445448. Although, there is no information about this company on the Financial Supervision Commission website (Bulgarian regulator). Also, the only contact details that can be found on the website are two phone numbers: one is British and the other one is with the Bahrain's country code. It is obvious now that the company targets UK residents and most probably people from the Middle East without being registered in any of those countries. Considering the above said, this broker seems highly suspicious. There are many fraudulent firms out there and most of them are operating without a proper broker license. Investing in such companies is extremely risky and it is recommended to select among brokerages regulated by UK’s FCA, Australia’s ASIC or CySEC. You can read our review on this broker here.

The SP500 Tries to Remain Bullish

The SP500 equity indices

The benchmark of all equity indices – the SP500 index – traded above 4,500 USD on Monday evening, trying to defend its short-term uptrend.

Rising Yields Still Not Causing Concerns 

Investors continue to ignore rising yields, along with the Federal Reserve's (Fed) aggressiveness in tightening monetary policy. 

US yields continued to increase sharply on Monday, pushing the 2-year yield 6% up, hitting the 2.4% threshold and the highest level since June 2019. Traders are now pricing in a 50 bps rate hike at the Fed's next meeting, while another 50 bps rate increase could follow afterward. Nevertheless, equities have performed well in this environment.

In other news, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday, "any meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy to exchange views now would be counter-productive."

 Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine is to insist on sovereignty and territorial integrity at the next round of talks with Russia in Turkey.

However, it looks like global markets have stopped caring about Ukraine as, for now, it remains a local conflict in a not-so economically important country. So far, the only outcome has been even more inflation, driving bond yields sharply higher. 

Daily Chart Appears Optimistic

"Whilst volume remains light to suggest this is still a rally within a broader range, we continue to see scope for a move above here to test the February highs at 4590/95, but we would expect a fresh cap here. Should strength directly extend though, we would look for a move to next resistance at the 78.6% retracement and price resistance at 4663/68." Analysts at Credit Suisse said on Monday.

Still, as long as the index trades above its 200-day average near 4,490 USD, the medium-term does indeed look bullish.

On the other hand, failure to stay above the mentioned average could lead to a more significant correction, targeting 4,400 USD. The next major support could be at 4,275 USD, followed by the current cycle lows at 4,145 USD.

Austria’s FMA has warned against Swissinv24 and FX NextGen

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) warns the public against the activities of two forex brokers Swissinv24 and FX NextGen. These companies have been offering investments without complying with Austrian financial legislation. According to the official statements, these brokers are not entitled to carry out banking transactions in Austria that require a licence.

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) is an independent, autonomous and integrated authority for the Austrian financial market. The Austrian FMA is responsible for: contributing to the stability of Austria as a financial market; reinforcing confidence in the ability of the Austrian financial market to function; protecting investors, creditors and consumers.

Are these brokers legit?

Swissinv24 logo

Swissinv24 is a Forex broker, owned and operated by Swissinv24 Ltd, registered in the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands is notorious for its practically absent requirements and regulations. Due to the setup cost is low and it does not regulate forex trading. The broker has also been blacklisted by several regulators, including FINMA and CONSOB. You can read our full Swissinv24 review here. 

FX NextGen broker is operated by FX NextGen Ltd and claims to be located in Kutaisi, Georgia. However, there are also mentions of such offshore licenses as Vanuatu and Belize. We have a detailed article explaining the risk of trading with brokers from Vanuatu. As it is not very safe to invest with offshore-registered companies, we advise traders to stay away from FX NextGen. 

When choosing a new Forex broker, it is very important to verify that they are in fact licensed for investors from your country of residence. 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 share your trading experience with Swissinv24 and FX NextGen by commenting on this post.

Austria’s FMA has issued a warning against TopTradePro

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) warns the public against the activities of TopTradePro a company that offers investments without complying with Austrian financial legislation. According to the official statement, TopTradePro (Ideas in Motion Ltd.) is not entitled to carry out banking transactions in Austria that require a licence.

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) is an independent, autonomous and integrated authority for the Austrian financial market. The Austrian FMA is responsible for: contributing to the stability of Austria as a financial market; reinforcing confidence in the ability of the Austrian financial market to function; protecting investors, creditors and consumers.

TopTradePro logo

TopTradePro offers trading Forex and CFD and operates through the website www.toptradepro.com. Our main concern about the broker is the confusing information provided on the website, which doesn’t add much trust to it. The company is registered offshore in the Marshall Islands. Those brokers registered offshore are not considered as reliable ones, because they are basically are not overseen by any authority.

If you still have plans to invest with TopTradePro, check the reviews online. Most of those reviews are negative, where people complain about withdrawal issues and losing huge amounts of money with this broker.

When choosing a new Forex broker, it is very important to verify that they are in fact licensed for investors from your country of residence. 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 United Kingdom and ASIC in Australia. You can read our review on this broker here.

ESMA warns CFDs providers on application of product intervention measures

ESMA logo

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets’ regulator, has published a statement addressed to providers marketing, distributing or selling contracts for difference (CFDs) to retail clients. The statement is in response to various practices and situations observed in the market, which raise concerns of non-compliance with the legal requirements applicable when providing services to retail clients.

ESMA still has serious concerns about firms’ marketing, distribution or sale of CFDs to retail clients and considers it necessary to remind CFD providers about some of the requirements connected with the offering of CFDs. ESMA has identified undesirable practices related to: Professional clients on request; and Marketing, distribution or sale by third-country CFD-Providers.

Steven Maijoor, Chair, said: “ESMA has acted in response to the significant investor protection concerns raised by the offer of CFDs to retail clients and adopted its own product intervention measures in 2018. To date, many NCAs across the EU have adopted similar measures but on a permanent basis. Ensuring investors are protected necessitates that all CFD providers respect all applicable requirements and do not circumvent them using professional client status or third country entities.”

ESMA clarifies in its statement that in the absence of authorisation or registration in the EU in accordance with MiFIR or with the national third-country regimes in force in various Member States, third-country firms are only allowed to provide services to clients in the Union at the client's own exclusive initiative.

Firms must ensure that they are compliant with all applicable legislative requirements and with the relevant product intervention decisions, taking into consideration clarifications provided in relevant Q&As and the content of this statement. ESMA and NCAs will continue to monitor compliance of CFD providers with the product intervention decisions.