On December 27, the Central Bank of Russia revoked the licenses of the largest Forex dealers: Forex Club, Alpari Forex, Fix Trade, TrustForex, and Teletrade Group. This ‘New Year’s gift’ to the largest Forex brokers has become completely unexpected for both companies and their clients.

The regulator explained the adoption of such measures by numerous violations  of the Central Bank the requirements and noncompliance with the instructions, including violations of the requirements for internal accounting, providing false data, etc.

The licenses will cease to operate from January 27, 2019. By this date, companies must stop their activities and return all funds to their clients. The Central Bank also canceled the qualification certificates of Pavel Karyagin, Forex Club CEO, his deputy Yury Soloviev, Alpari Forex CEO Guzel Mirzeeva and her deputy Natalia Maximova, as well as the head of Teletrade, Sergey Shamrayev and his deputy Igor Danilevich.

The information turned out to be unexpected for the companies, and they are not yet ready to comment on this situation.

The activities of forex companies began to be regulated about three years ago. According to the law ‘On the Forex market,’ market participants were required to obtain the appropriate license from January 1, 2016 and join a self-regulatory organization. To work with Russian customers, dealers also had to introduce standards, the first of which was agreed by the regulator only a year later in May 2017. After the law entered into force, many market participants ceased their activities in Russia.

According to the Central Bank, nine brokers had licenses for operation as Forex dealers. After revocation, only four companies will keep their licenses, three of which are affiliated with major Russian banks: Alfa Forex, VTB Forex, PSB-Forex, and Finam forex.

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