Edmund Hartwell
Senior Markets Critic
Edmund Hartwell has spent over two decades observing the retail trading industry, focusing on institutional behaviour, capital allocation and corporate governance. Dry and unsentimental, he scrutinises the gap between brokers' press releases and their filings. He covers broker M&A, ownership structures and balance-sheet quality.
Edmund Hartwell is an editorial pen name of the BestForex.io in-house critic desk. See our editorial policy.
Articles by Edmund Hartwell
Record $80 Million: FinCEN's Largest-Ever Broker-Dealer BSA Penalty Lands on Canaccord Genuity for AML Failures
FinCEN, the SEC, and FINRA simultaneously resolved action against Canaccord Genuity LLC — totalling $120 million — for willful Bank Secrecy Act violations spanning six years. At least 160 suspicious activity reports were never filed.
$300 Million in Low-Priced Trades, Zero Suspicious Activity Reports: FINRA Fines Pictet Overseas $610,000
FINRA fined Pictet Overseas $610,000 for AML failures that persisted for three and a half years after a regulator had already flagged the exact same deficiencies. A four-year warning. Never acted on.
Blue Ocean ATS: Nobody Was Watching
One employee. 5.5 billion shares. No spoofing or layering surveillance at all. FINRA fined the dominant overnight trading platform $550,000 — but the real number to watch is not the fine.
Plus500's Prediction-Markets Gamble: Forecast or Flutter?
Plus500 is booming on US prediction markets, branding event bets as regulated innovation. BestForex.io asks what happens when the regulators stop agreeing.