Austrian Financial Market Authority breaks its silence by warning against doing business with SpotFN, a binary options company which claims to be based in Germany.
The warning was published in the official gazette “Amtsblatt zur Wiener Zeitung” commenting that SpotFN is not entitled to carry out brokerage activities in Austria.
Austrian Financial Market Authority Warns against SpotFN
AtoZForex.com team got on the topic and tried to find out the regulatory body that oversees SpotFN’s binary options operations, however we failed to find any. Surprisingly there is no official registration information about the company on spotfn.de site. There is no information about the licensing of the company, nor about the management of the company.
We searched the name of the CEO James Kingsley, and what we found was not positive neither, mostly privacy was kept, as if purposefully hiding from the public.
Some of the traders have also posted a number of online claims that they had wired large sums of money with the hope of getting some 200-250% bonus but never be able to withdraw their capital.
What we can add on this story is that, trading with a well-regulated financial institution is a must in modern world of finance. There are too many so called brokers offering a number of so called “Dream come true” products which have no legal binding to protect individual traders.
Even if a web based broker claiming to be regulated by a specific regulatory body, it is always a good idea to check with that regulator to make sure that indeed your broker is being regulated.
Regulation is not the only requirement for choosing your broker neither. The real challenge in choosing a broker comes when a trader does not know what he is looking for in a broker. So first thing first, determine what attributes you are looking for. Make a checklist and make sure that you chose the right broker to serve your needs.
Source: FMA