The owner of the 24Option brand loses its CySEC license

Information on license withdrawal to the operator 24Option has just been reported by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). Earlier, the company was to voluntarily resign from the license, and also paid high financial penalties for numerous violations of the regulations.

Despite the withdrawal of the Cypriot license, the platform is operated by Richfield Capital Limited continues to offer its services to customers all over the world. Except that it operates through a Belize registered company. 

In March 2021, the company declared that it would renounce the Cypriot license, held since 2013, already knowing that it would be able to operate under the auspices of a country considered to be the so-called tax haven. The regulations in Belize allow for much more than the laws of European countries - even those smaller ones that are not members of the European Union.

24Option, i.e. binary options and Forex

The company was originally supposed to offer a platform for binary options, but quickly expanded and took up too FOREX and CFD market. She has long been the target of the Cypriot regulator, which regularly imposed financial penalties on her. 

In 2020 year CySEC imposed a total of 280 thousand. EUR penalties for multiple infringements, found after supervisory inspections. Most of them were the result of complaints from clients who simply felt cheated by the company and often lost considerable assets through unsuccessful investments.

It also had problems in other countries. Italian Consob he banned it from operating in his area, and it all started with the British Financial Supervisory Authority (FCA), which at the beginning of June 2020 warned against the platform, which - as it turned out - was unlawfully using the images of famous people from the world of sports, business and broadly understood pop culture to promote its services in social media.

Not everyone has to disappear, others pay

However, you can reach an agreement with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), which the example of Prior Capital Cy Ltd, also known as PriorFx. She managed to reach a settlement and retain the license. 

However, it cost 100. EUR fine from three Prior Capital board members: Konstantin Yasnov, Vladimir Załogin and Ekaterina Załogina. The report said that keeping the license was possible thanks to an admission of guilt and a quick fix. It was about, among others o shortcomings on the part of the management board in the assessment of the company's mandatory compliance in the period from July 2018 to March 2020.

The companies are coming back to Cyprus

CySEC - although it can be ruthless to stubbornly breaking the law - tries its best to attract as much foreign capital to its country as possible. A month ago, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had created the so-called temporary authorization system (TPR) that will allow you to operate under the regulations of this country. This was mainly benefited by UK investment companies, which had previously eagerly located their headquarters in Cyprus - due to favorable taxation, but also other regulations. 

96 companies submitted applications. Seven of them were rejected and one resigned. So there are 7 left now are in the registry, may be based on the regulations in Cyprus, but - what is most interesting - by the end of this year, even one representative of the company does not have to come to this country for one day. Among the accepted applications, we have applications from such companies as, for example, Goldman Sachs, Tickmill, Interactive Brokers, CMC Markets, AT Markets, LMAX or Finalto.