<p>Consob, Italy’s
financial market watchdog, continues its crackdown on illicit financial
services platforms, with the most recent blacklist of five new entities. These
platforms are unregulated in Italy and unlawfully provide their services to
retail consumers locally and in other regions.</p><p>Consob Adds Five New
Illegal Platforms to Warning List</p><p>The
blacklisted platforms are ToroProfit, Plan B ltd, EuropeanFX™ Markets Limited, CatenaFarmCapital
and EaglestonesFinance. At the time of writing, only the ToroProfit website is
unresponsive, while other companies are still offering their <a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/terms/r/retail-trading/” class=”terms__main-term” id=”2d172307-15c6-4278-a100-fcbb8d9c19c9″ target=”_blank”>retail trading</a>
services, including forex, stocks, cryptos and shares. However, information
released by Consob shows that the blocking of all of the above has already been
ordered.</p><p>”The
black-out of these websites by Internet service providers operating on Italian
territory is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the
black-out to come into effect,” Consob commented in a written statement.</p><p>EuropeanFX
and EaglestonesFinance claim to be London-registered firms, but there is no
information on their websites about the potential licenses needed to provide
investment services in the UK. CatenaFarmCapital, on the other hand, claims to
be registered with Consob and, additionally, the US market regulator, the SEC.
However, the company does not appear in any of the official registers.</p><p>In the last
three years, since July 2019, Consob has managed to block 855 sites belonging
to fraudulent financial intermediaries. </p><p>”Consob
draws investors’ attention to the importance of adopting the greatest diligence
to make informed investment choices, adopting common sense behaviors, essential
to safeguard their savings: these include, for websites that offer financial
services, checking in advance that the operator with whom they are investing is
authorized, and, for offers of financial products, that a prospectus has been
published,” the regulator added.</p><p>Ongoing Fight with
Fraudsters</p><p>Consob is
one of Europe’s most active financial supervisory commissions when it comes to
identifying and blocking suspicious, unlicensed or fraudulent websites and
their operators. This year alone, the Italian regulator has reported blocking rogue
sites at least twice, the first time in<a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/italys-cosob-blocks-access-to-5-illegal-fxcfds-brokers/” target=”_blank” rel=”follow”> February</a> and another <a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/italys-consob-blacklists-six-new-unregulated-trading-platforms/” target=”_blank” rel=”follow”>in early March</a>.</p><p>In addition
to Consob, the UK’s FCA remains active on the issue, adding more entities to
its warning list almost daily. <a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/fca-scolds-payment-firms-over-lack-of-controls/” target=”_blank” rel=”follow”>Last week</a> the entity scolded many payments firms
in the country, including payment institutions (PIs) and electronic money
institutions (EMIs) for lacking “sufficiently robust controls.”</p><p>Cyprus’
<a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/terms/c/cysec/” class=”terms__secondary-term” id=”37d97d82-59f8-4ce2-94d2-21c5bdc82663″ target=”_blank”>CySEC</a> and Spain’s CNMV are other active institutions seeking to ensure the
safety of retail investors. <a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/cysec-supervised-837-entities-and-imposed-29-million-fines-in-2022/” target=”_blank” rel=”follow”>CySEC supervised almost 840 financial institutions
in 2022</a> and imposed a total of €2.9 million in fines on those that broke
licensing rules. <a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/tag/cnmv/” target=”_blank” rel=”follow”>CNMV</a>, meanwhile, warned of four suspicious platforms
last week.</p>
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
