KNF wants to block the pages of unlicensed Forex brokers and more

As boomerang, the idea of ​​blocking websites of unlicensed Forex / CFDs, binary options and trade-related cryptocurrencies is coming back. It's nothing new. Already in April 2017, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) submitted a draft amendment to the act, which included just giving the regulator the appropriate powers.

In the footsteps of Europe

The bill is still valid and there is a chance that it will eventually enter into force. This is also the trend in Western Europe, where, for example, in France, authorities have been able to block suspicious sites since 2015. According to the press spokesman of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, Jacek Barszczewski, such a solution will contribute to increasing the safety of retail investors interested in the Forex market and related sectors (cryptocurrencies, binary options). It is to significantly reduce fraud and, at the same time, speed up the procedure of "curtailing" them by the regulator.

The register of prohibited domains would be a mandatory solution that everyone would have to adapt to. The websites of suspicious brokers would display information about the KNF's warning, and further along the path the KNF could apply for a total exclusion of the website.

A late idea?

The proposed solution can be viewed in two ways.

On the one hand, we are dealing with censorship of the Internet, which may not be liked by everyone. It also raises doubts as to how the criteria will be chosen, which will determine which sites are to be blocked. After all, an unlicensed entity in Poland is not necessarily a crook. Using the services of an Indian broker, we can be cut off from our money overnight (access to the customer's panel and platform, contact with the broker).

On the other hand, the scale of fraud in the last few years under the guise of "Forex investment" has taken an unimaginable scale. At least a few months passed from the moment the first notifications were received until the entity was even placed on the public list of alerts. At that time, the companies operated without much problem.

However, the practice has already been significantly reduced. Frequent warning messages from the KNF, but loud detentions of the police and the prosecutor's office effectively deterred the influx of new crooks.

According to preliminary estimates, it is possible that the changes will enter into force at the turn of 2018-2019. So the question arises whether the idea is at least 2-3 years late?