There were fewer complaints regarding Russian Forex dealers in the first quarter of 2020. Russia Central Bank registered a total of 293 complaints against participants in the securities market in the Q1 of 2020.
June 23 2020 | AtoZ Markets – Russian financial regulators have observed a continued decline in complaints filed by customers against Forex dealers, according to a report published by the Central Bank of Russia today.
FX dealers complaints in Russia drop 4%
During the first quarter of 2020, the regulator registered 293 complaints targeting participants in the securities market. This is down 4% from levels seen a year earlier.
The proportion of complaints against brokers rose (from 46% to 65% of the total). On the other hand, the percentage fell for FX dealers (from 9% to 0.3%). Notably, in 2019, among all of the complaints against professional market participants, the ones targeting FX dealers accounted for 4%. This compares with a proportion of 2.1% a year earlier.
It is worth noting that Russia has only four licensed Forex dealers or OTC FX brokers. Among them is PSB-Forex, which was put up for sale but the auction failed due to lack of bids. The small number of FX dealers partially explains the small number of complaints against them.
This, however, does not indicate that the Russian FX market lacks unauthorized firms targeting Russian investors. In October 2019, Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service published a warning about a number of foreign entities that illegally offer online trading services to Russian investors.
Russia forex scene has changed
In a window lasting just a little over two years, the Bank of Russia eliminated competition from the entire forex market in the country. The regulator made this move after deciding to strip several brokerage firms of their license to trade in forex.
Russia has sought to crack down on both crypto and FX industries in recent months, which has long flocked to other jurisdictions. Part of its crackdown, which dates back to 2018, the Russian central bank identified 140 companies it says might be illegally offering FX trading to local consumers earlier last year.
More broadly, however, the Russian Central Bank says that fewer Russians are now involved in illegal financial schemes. At the same time, the regulator has seen a notable increase in opening trading accounts with legal providers, for example, on domestic exchanges.
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