CySEC withdraws CIF license of 24option parent Rodeler Ltd
Cyprus financial regulator CySEC has announced that it has decided to withdraw the Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) authorisation of Rodeler Ltd, due to the company’s decision to expressly renounce it.
We had reported last August that CySEC reached a settlement with Rodeler, which operated the 24option.com and 24fx.com retail brokerage brand websites as CySEC licensed entities. The settlement saw Rodeler pay a fine of €280,000 to the Cyprus Treasury, in regards to violations of its CySEC CIF license.
And that settlement came after Rodeler and another CIF-holder under common ownership, TradeATF parent Hoch Capital Ltd, voluntarily renounced their CySEC CIF licenses. The “voluntary” moves followed trouble that both brokers got into with UK regulator The FCA at the beginning of June. As Cyprus licensed financial companies both 24option and TradeATF were able to “passport” their licenses into the UK and all other EU countries, and operate offices in those locations as well as take retail clients from those jurisdictions. However The FCA banned 24option and TradeATF (and some other CySEC licensed brands) from the UK, in a first-of-its-kind move against passporting brokers.
The FCA cited issues such as unauthorised celebrity endorsements on social media to entice consumers into scams involving CFDs. In addition, the regulator noted that the firms had failed to pay money owed to investors, charged customers undisclosed fees, and failed to tell them about the risks of trading CFDs.
Rodeler Ltd had operated 24option, as its name implies, as a Binary Options brokerage, but later transitioned to become a “standard” FX and CFDs broker. It appears as if 24option is continuing to operate website 24option.com as an offshore Belize incorporated entity called Richfield Capital Limited.