Clarissa Penhallow

Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have warned investors that AvaTrade is not registered to trade in their provinces. What it means.

CySEC reached a 100,000 euro settlement with ICC Intercertus Capital, the operator of Axiance, over the rules on marketing, distribution and sales of CFDs to retail clients. The way a broker sells is often the truest signal of how it will treat you.

CySEC withdrew the licence of Itrade Global, the company behind retail trading brands TradedWell and InvestFW, in 2025 — two years after a one million euro fine over its Spanish tied agent. A licence renunciation looks tidy on its own. Read in full, it is the last chapter of a bad story.

The Cyprus regulator has suspended in full the licence of Triangleview Investments, the firm behind the retail trading brand 3anglefx, over money laundering failures and deficiencies in the way the company was run. It is not the first time this broker has been in the regulator's sights.

In 2024 Key Way Group, owner of CAPEX.com, took about 75 percent of NAGA in a reverse merger, issuing 170 million new shares and heavily diluting existing holders.

Israel's securities regulator fined AvaTrade's local arm ATrade 500,000 shekels, plus a conditional fine, over providing services it was not licensed to give. Full detail.

South Africa's FSCA fined forex broker JP Markets 100,000 rand for enabling clients to trade CFDs on forex, shares and indices without proper OTC derivatives authorisation. The question to ask any broker: are you actually authorised to sell me this?

CySEC secured a 225,000 euro settlement from FxNet (FXNET Limited), operator of EMS Brokers and NessFX, over compliance lapses found in a 2021 to 2022 review. It is not the firm's first penalty from the regulator — a pattern worth knowing about before funding an account.

NAGA Group posted a 37 million euro loss for 2022, parted with auditor Ernst and Young, restated its 2021 results and filed late. What the turmoil means for clients.

Banxso, the South African CFD broker at the centre of one of the country's largest retail trading scandals, has been placed into final liquidation. A court has declared the company hopelessly insolvent, the regulator has fined it and its directors more than 2 billion rand, and the matter has been referred to the police for criminal investigation.

Belgium's FSMA reached an agreed settlement with AvaTrade's European arm over offering investment products without the required prospectus and unapproved marketing.

CySEC fined MCA Intelifunds, the operator of forex broker FXORO, 360,000 euro over breaches of Cyprus investment law found in a 2022 inspection. The machinery that turns the law into practice was missing.

HTFX, a retail forex and CFD broker focused on the Far East, has ceased operations around the world. Its main website now shows only a parked domain, the visible end of a collapse that ran through two European regulators before the business finally went dark.

CySEC fined First Prudential Markets, the Cyprus operator of FP Markets EU, 100,000 euro over a possible breach of article 42 of the European markets regulation and the CFD retail protection directive. The rules at the centre of this case are not obscure technicalities — they are the core safeguards between an ordinary trader and a catastrophic loss.

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission has permanently withdrawn the licence of Conotoxia, ending a saga that saw the CFD and forex broker suspended for almost a year before the regulator concluded the underlying problems were not going to be resolved.

The FSCA has provisionally withdrawn the licence of Mixirite, the firm behind the UMarketPro and Protea Markets trading platforms, and barred it from conducting financial services business while it investigates alleged high-pressure sales tactics, unauthorised advice, and promises of guaranteed returns.

Denmark's financial regulator has fined Saxo Bank DKK 313 million — roughly USD 49 million — over failures in its anti-money laundering controls, the bank's largest penalty in years. The failings centred on its white label arrangements, where it provides trading infrastructure to other firms without adequately knowing the end clients behind them.

ASIC cancelled the Australian financial services licence of Prospero Markets Pty Ltd, a forex and derivatives broker now in liquidation, closing a case that began with money laundering charges against its former officers and ended in the Federal Court.

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission fined IC Markets (EU) Ltd EUR 200,000 after finding the broker participated in activities that circumvented the initial margin protections European rules impose on CFDs sold to retail clients. The firm denies the finding and has begun legal action.

IronFX, one of the most heavily marketed retail forex brands of the past decade, has settled with CySEC for €100,000 over the rules governing how CFDs are sold to retail clients — under a new name, Notesco.

Forex CT, an Australian retail forex and CFD broker, was ordered by the Federal Court to pay a $20 million penalty for a system of unconscionable conduct that pressured vulnerable clients into depositing money many could not afford to lose. Its sole director was fined $400,000 and banned for eight years.

eToro, one of the world's most recognisable retail trading brands, has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle SEC charges that it operated an unregistered broker and clearing agency for crypto assets sold as securities — and will strip its US crypto menu back to just three tokens.

VPR Safe Financial Group, the Cyprus-licensed operator of retail forex and CFD brand Alvexo, has settled with CySEC for €50,000 over suspected compliance failures stretching across eight years — and has since handed back its European licence entirely.

A class action seeking A$948 million is advancing through Australia's Federal Court against IC Markets and its billionaire founder Andrew Budzinski. The opt-out window has closed, locking thousands of retail CFD traders into consolidated proceedings as the case moves toward trial.

Plus500 buys back its own shares almost daily while insiders cashed out millions near all-time highs. BestForex.io asks who really benefits from the buyback machine.

eToro now lets AI agents trade real money on X sentiment. BestForex.io asks if automated herd-following is really progress, or the oldest mistake in markets executed at machine speed.