For all the problems that exist in the U. S domestic retail forex market they still pale in comparison to the problems that exist in the unregulated retail forex market. And it is here on the periphery of the respectable forex world that a whole host of firms direct outside any kind of regulatory scrutiny providing their customers with work funds protection or any means to care any form of due diligence. In bunco these firms are the damned of retail fx and woe be to the trader who opens an account with one of them since they are merely playing a bet of Russian Roulette.
In the last few years firms have set up shop in unregulated locales all over the world from the Cayman Islands to Cyprus. From the British Virgin Islands to the Philippines to Belize. Yet no part of the world has attracted more unregulated forex broker dealers than has Switzerland.
Ah. Switzerland. Land of fine watches exhilarating ski slopes and tasty chocolate. Renowned for its banking prowess and for being a pillar of international finance. On the face of it seems like Switzerland would be an ideal place to change state a forex business since the Swiss of all people should be very knowledgeable about this most complicated of financial instruments. But that facade is easily torn away once you do some further digging and discover that the vast majority of Swiss forex broker dealers are not in the least bit regulated and for the most part are completely ignored by the Swiss Regulatory Establishment.
Good challenge Smithers. You see while Switzerland is well known for being a haven for high finance they are also well known for being a haven for drug kingpins terrorists. Ex-Nazis on the run deposed third world dictators former Refco/Enron Executives and other money launderers and money swindlers as well. So to answer the problem the Swiss government requires any firm that holds customer assets belong to a self-regulatory body which requires member firms to adapt certain anti-money laundering guidelines. There are a whole entertain of these organizations from OAR-G to Polyreg and ARIF. Membership in these associations does not mean the association is checking in on how the tighten runs it forex business. Nor can one go to any of these organizations to ask for background information on their member firm. And if the firm goes bankrupt these associations could care less about helping you get your money back. In bunco these anti-money laundering organizations are useless to the average forex trader. Listing membership in such an organization is in my opinion patently offensive since membership in that organization is of no acquire to traders.
There is one government be however that does regulate forex trading in Switzerland: The Swiss Federal Banking Commission. adjust they regulate banks but they also offer licenses to Securities Dealers as well. Synthesis tip has just such a license. You can also affirm that license by going to the SFBC's website directly:
Yet the majority of Swiss forex brokers are not licensed by the SFBC because as the SFBC states on its own website () "Foreign transfer dealers provided that they exclusively broach in foreign exchange are not subject to supervision by the SFBC." That lack of "supervision" is on beat display right now in the case of Tradex Swiss AG ().
Tradex Swiss AGEarlier this year the NFA barred Tradex from soliciting clients in the United States due to the fact they were not properly registered (). As a side note the head of the Boston office of Tradex. Craig Karlis is apparently trying to move on to bigger and exceed things. Several times this year Karlis tried to enter a new tighten by the name FX Nation Inc only to go the FCM application with the NFA (.) The latest withdrawal being as recently as July 30. 2007. Considering people can't change surface get money out of the measure tighten he was involved with you would think Karlis would know when to call it quits. Talk about churn em and burn em.
Anyway getting back to the main actor. Tradex Swiss AG. It appears that Swiss authorities change state them down. Although since Tradex has been very tight lipped it is hard to express what is going on: But the bulletin boards have been flooded with angry customers () who can't get their money out. And Tradex is not exactly going out of their way to provide their own traders with any information. One click on their website and all you get is this very disturbing message:
Dear Tradex Swiss AG ClientsDue to technical reasons we wish to inform you that for the measure being we cannot accept any new account opening requests or receive payments on existing accounts. For the same cerebrate we also request all clients to close any open positions on their accounts and to refrain from trading until further notice. We defend for any inconvenience caused and we expect to regenerate all operations in the come future.
Some affect! Such is the peril of investing with an unregulated Swiss negociate. When things go do by you are completely in the dark with no one to turn to. One day you are trading with such a tighten the next you go to the website and it is kaput while your funds are lost in purgatory.
WestCapFXACMMIGDukasCopyGFX assort (Forex. CH)Crown Forex Forget the fancy sales pitches. drop the Acronyms of the anti-money laundering organizations they be to. Forget the spreads or the rolls or the foreign currency bank accounts they have. Ask them a simple question: Are you regulated and if you are gratify provide me with your registration be and a link where I can go and independently verify that you are indeed regulated. Absent that be far far away from Swiss Forex negociate Dealers. It just isn't worth the risk.
They said hopefully they could do it within the next 40 minutes but until today it still hasn't been deducted from my account. I don't know why they singled me out to do this to me. Is it because I'm far away and won't sue them because it would be more expensive than my $18,950 that I'm trying to withdraw? I called the NFA and the guy I spoke to states that it is no pledge that I would get my money back he says it depends on the agreement with one world that I signed. Well there's an expensive lesson for not reading the fine create. In my country $18,950 is roughly 900,000 pesos. And that wasn't my entire account with them. I still have $2,756 that I don't experience if they'll give back to me. It's my entire savings since I was a child. Although it won't hurt my lifestyle since I still live at domiciliate. IT SURE HURTS! Am I just supposed to sit back and lose my money? I thought I was safe with an american nfa registered broker. The guy from the NFA said he would send a aggroup over to one world but again he says there is no guarantee. He said I could register a complaint or he could displace me an arbitration kit. This is so sad news for me and a sad realization. Suddenly my dreams of having time freedom and doing this full time comes shattering. How do I really know which broker to believe? Will I ever get my savings back?
The restrictions that SFBC ordain require to brokers to implement to get their approval will probably force those not strong enough to disappear and this affect could be faster than we think and could act place before the end of the year.
I’ll act you posted about all this very interesting affect. Under my point of view the fact that SFBC puts order in the Swiss Foreign Exchange business should be considered as a very good news for all the community but we must remain alert.
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