May 28, 2019, | AtoZ Markets - The French financial regulator Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) has recently added to its upgraded blacklist of unregulated entities new Forex brokers in France which were involved in fraudulent activities.
AMF “blacklist” for Forex scammers grows
As the French regulator reports, thanks to the recent upgrade the entities blacklisted in France will become easily searchable. In addition, the agency will offer more information about websites with fraudulent activity.
According to the latest reports, since the start of May 2019, 23 websites have appeared in the AMF warning list. Many of those firms were involved in illicit offerings of investments in wine, cattle, and gold.
Also, there are several additions related to online trading companies, including a couple of websites related to binary options, five new Forex brokers in France, and three websites dedicated to fraudulent offerings of crypto asset firms.
New crypto firms added to “blacklist” include the following websites:
- www.bforfinance.com
- www.coin-financial.com
- www.gwt-capital.com
New additions to Forex “blacklist”:
- www.finaria-fx.com / Goldtech Media Services OÜ
- www.marketsbroker.com / Markets Broker
- www.pepperdyne.com / Blackstone Capital Limited
- www.tradeprocapitals.com / TradePro Capital Markets
- www.tradershome.com / Tradershome Ltd
AMF concerns about crypto assets remain strong
The French authority remains cautious about newbies on the market of Forex and crypto trading. Special attention of the French governmental authorities attracts the latter industry. Recently, Eric Woerth, the head of the Finance Committee of France’s National Assembly, has proposed banning of anonymous cryptocurrencies because of the risks they entail, including tax evasion, money laundering, and energy consumption.
The French agency has been compiling its own “blacklist” of websites that offer investments in crypto-assets, since March 2018. Overall, AMF has warned the public against more than 100 unregulated entities or websites whose activities relate to crypto-assets.
French regulator's new restrictions to combat scammers
In June 2017 in France entered into force an anti-corruption law, addressing transparency, economic modernization, marketing of toxic online trading products, like binary options and high leverage CFDs, and problems associated with crypto-asset growth. The law, also known as the Sapin 2 law, stipulates that companies must establish an anti-corruption program to identify and mitigate corruption risks.
The 2018 AMF Annual Report revealed an interesting impact of Sapin 2. According to a report in 2018, the number of advertisements dedicated to speculative products decreased to 311. This compares with an average of 582 for the period from 2014 to 2016.
The majority of online merchandise advertisements in 2018, however, were legal. Only 51 advertisements violated the Sapin 2 law as they were issued by 9 legal entities "regulated" in Cyprus.
It is also worth to mention, that the French financial regulator decided to make permanent the European Securities and Markets Authority’s product intervention measures, introduced last August. The AMF outlined that it will help to restrict the activities and marketing of CFDs and ban binary options in the country.
In 2018, 36% of the requests received by the AMF Consumer Contact Center were related to online criminal activity.
In 2016, fraudulent offers concerning investments in Forex and binary options caused 3,768 inquiries, and proposals for crypto-assets - only 18 requests, but in 2018 the trend was the opposite. Last year, 968 requests related to currency and binary options, and more than 2,600 requests were related to crypto active assets.
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