FCA Warns Against ECN Markets and CMS Trader

The United Kingdom’s markets watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), today issued warnings to the public against two forex brands illegally providing financial services or products without a regulatory permission.

The first unauthorised provider operates under the name ECN Markets while its clients’ accounts are held and maintained by ECN Markets Payment services provided by ESCW Ltd., 788-790 Finchley Road, London NW11 7TJ, UK. According to its website, ECN Markets is located in Auckland while its client service office resides in New York and London in addition to smaller satellite offices in other parts of the world. The suspicious company can be found at the web address http://ecn-markets.com/.

As is the case with other scams, ECN Markets is banking on attracting newbie investors who are not aware of the existence of regulatory registers and are ill-informed to take investment decisions. On its website, the unregulated firm has only this statement to reassure its potential victims: “ECN Markets has the obligation under international Investment law to protect client interests. As a result, the Company has taken all necessary measures to protect client funds.”

Further Warning

The British financial watchdog has also warned against another broker, a UK-based company under the name ‘CMS Trader’ which is not regulated by the FCA.

The address of the company under the spotlight is: 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ; 44 Waterloo Station, Waterloo Road, London, SE1 8SW, and it can be found on the website http://www.cmstrader.com.

The brokerage which offers access to Saudi stocks trading in addition to regular forex and commodities instruments has been soliciting its services to investors in the UK without the authorisation to do so.

The FCA noted in its warning that although not all financial service providers in the UK market need to be authorized, most of them are, however this is not the case with CMS Trader and ECN Markets. It went on to remind market participants that victims of fraudulent entities will not be covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if things go wrong.