New Zealand’s FMA Warns Against Fake Regulator and Unregulated Firm

After receiving several complaints, New Zealand’s Financial Markets ‎Authority (FMA) today warned investors against being offered products and ‎services from a clone website called “Securities and Acquisition Conduct ‎Commission,” which tries to usurp the identity of the regulator itself to give the appearance of trustworthiness and legitimacy.‎

The financial watchdog today updated its warning list by blacklisting ‎www.sacc-govt.org, which claims to be a New Zealand financial services ‎regulator. The FMA said that the clone regulator ‎impersonates the organization in many areas and context. ‎

The SACC’s website is listing a few names of FMA’s ‎brokerage members, many of whom have contacted the ‎agency to inquire about its legitimacy. In addition, the ‎fake financial regulator is endorsing products and services from ‎suspected scams, including a brokerage firm called Nikora Ventures.‎

According to the warning, Nikora Ventures claims to be authorized to ‎provide financial services in New Zealand, however, this is not true. ‎Additionally, the FMA is concerned that the firm could be a scam after it ‎received a report saying that Nikora cold-called a New Zealand investor, ‎offering to buy securities at an inflated price and asking for the investor’s ‎bank account details. ‎

Based on this, the FMA warns the public not to invest with both entities and ‎be cautious of dealing with their solicitations. ‎

The FMA is focused on identifying and blacklisting any individual or entity ‎that is operating in New Zealand without a license or authorization, where ‎that is required by law. However, the FMA has warned that some companies ‎are overseas operations and the watchdog may only be alerted to them ‎once a local investor has a problem with them.‎

The FMA updates the public using warnings and alerts when it ‎believes investors may be at risk. Businesses and individuals are named on ‎this list if they are not registered to provide financial services in New ‎Zealand, have had the FMA enforce action against them for misconduct, ‎have either not responded or not offered a satisfactory response to a ‎request for information, or have received a warning notice from the FMA.‎

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