Binary options banned in the UK

British Financial Supervision, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), established that as of 2 April this year the sale of binary options to retail customers will be banned. This decision should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially since the temporary ban in this country has already been in force for at least the middle of the 2018 year.

Be sure to read: Binary options - gambling or investment?

Binaries on extinction

Changes in the law will cover not only sales, but also all distribution and marketing of the abovementioned instruments. According to the regulator, these are instruments that have more in common with gambling than investing.

Christopher Woolard, Executive Director of Strategy and Competition at FCA:

“Binary options are gambling products that imitate financial instruments. By maintaining our ban, we want to ensure that investors do not lose money because of such a defective product. "

This statement is nothing new. For many years, regulators across Europe have been extremely hostile to options. It must be admitted, however, that the industry itself has worked extremely hard on this image. Public alert lists are bursting at the seams with unregulated and dubious institutions urging you to invest in "binaries".

FCA's decision and ESMA

In fact, in the UK there is already a ban on binary options (Binary options banned in the EU from 1 on July 2018.), which results from the product intervention of the European ESMA regulator. Nevertheless, this right is introduced for a temporary period of three months, and although it is regularly renewed, it only covers member countries of the European Union.

The scenario assuming the withdrawal of the UK from the Community caused the FCA to decide internally to protect itself against sudden "unblocking" of access to these instruments by introducing internal regulations. Regardless of the situation, UK binary options will be unavailable to retailers. Until further notice, at least.

Official FCA message