We know the date of entry into force of the ESMA guidelines (including the 1 leverage: 30)

The European regulator of financial markets, ESMA, announced today the dates on which the new regulations regarding trading on Forex / CFDs and binary options, which were formalized at the end of March this year, will come into force. How much time is left for investors? Relatively little ...

Prohibition of binary options

From 2 July 2018. - ESMA's guidelines strictly prohibit the trading, distribution or sale of binary options to retail investors. From that date, all brokers within the European Union will be able to offer binary instruments only to institutional clients.

CFD / Forex contracts

From 1 August 2018. - A restriction on the trading, distribution or sale of CFDs to retail investors is in effect. This limitation includes:

• limits on financial leverage;
• a uniform margin close rule for each account;
• protection against negative balances for each account;
• preventing the use of incentives by entities offering CFDs;
• and a precise and uniform risk warning provided in a standardized manner.

Detailed conditions that will come into force we described in a separate article HERE.

Steven Maijoor, chairman of ESMA, said:

The measures taken by ESMA today are a significant step towards better investor protection in the EU. New measures for CFDs will provide investors for the first time that they will not be able to lose more money than they anticipate, they will limit the use of leverage and incentives and provide understandable risk warnings for investors.
The prohibition of ESMA to market, distribute or sell binary options to retail investors solves significant problems related to investor protection due to the specification of this product. This pan-European approach is the most appropriate way to solve this important problem of investor protection. The competent national authorities will monitor the impact of these measures during their application and will assess, together with ESMA, what further steps are required.

ESMA has collected applications in all official EU languages ​​and the provisions are temporary - for a period of three months from the date of submission of the application. The European regulator will decide about their extension by another 3 months, or a total remission, before the first 90 dates expire.