March 28, 2019, | AtoZ Markets - A CySEC broker Alfa-Forex announced on Wednesday that from the end of June 2019, it will no longer offer its services to individual customers and other users who are classified as “retail” within MiFID.
CySEC Broker Alfa-Forex in a brief
Alfa-Forex is an important part of Alfa Group Consortium that was founded in 1989 and is one of the largest privately owned financial-investment conglomerates in Russia. Alfa-Forex is a major global broker focused on clients from the European Union and CIS. This CySec broker is a trade name and trademark of Alfa Capital Holdings (Cyprus) Limited (Alfa Capital).
Alfa-Forex shuts down to concentrate on institutional trading
According to the statement, Alfa Capital's decision comes as the former wants to focus on its institutional business. Alfa Capital made a strategic decision to focus on providing “premium trading services” in the Forex market and related products to institutional market participants through its existing trading platforms.
The official Alfa-Forex statement says :
“Please note that following a decision by Alfa Capital Holdings (Cyprus) Limited to focus on institutional business, Alfa-Forex will cease offering services to all individual clients and other clients categorized as “retail” under MiFID, by the end of June 2019.
Alfa Capital Holdings (Cyprus) Limited will strategically focus on providing premium trading services on FX and FX related products to institutional market participants via its existing trading platforms. All other business lines and products of Alfa Capital Holdings (Cyprus) Limited are not affected by the decision relating to the brand Alfa-Forex. Affected clients will be contacted in due course.
For questions, please contact our Customer Support Team by phone at +35722470966 and +35722470969, by email at support@alfaforex.com or via our online chat service.”
ESMA tightens restrictions for the individual retailers
Alpha Forex shuts down for individual retailers at a time when the regulatory environment for retail suppliers is getting increasingly complex. As previously reported, the European Financial Regulator ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority) has introduced a number of restrictions for retail products. Although the new ESMA rules are temporary, the regulator continues to update the restrictions and may do so as long as it deems appropriate. Just yesterday, the European financial authority announced that it was updating intervention measures for its products for CFDs. The new update will take effect in early May, and will last until the end of August of this year. This means that product interventions have been taken for twelve months.
Atoz Markets tried to reach out to Alfa-Forex representatives to get more valuable information on the broker's decision. However, the company refused to provide any further comments on the topic, mentioning although that their current clients were informed today and yesterday by the corporate in-mails about the upcoming changes.
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