More than 900 illegal financial services websites already blocked in Italy
Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has ordered the blocking of access to several new websites that offer investment services without the necessary permission.
Consob has ordered the black-out of 5 new websites that offer financial services/financial products illegally: 4 illegal financial intermediation websites and 1 website through which an offer of financial products is carried out in the absence of a prospectus.
The websites targeted by the latest set of orders are:
- “CapitalFXM” (website www.capitalfxm.com and related page https://client.capitalfxm.com);
- “AW FX Bank” (website https://awfxbank.com and related page https://my.awfxbank.com);
- “INDEX ACCOUNTING” (websites www.optimainvesting.com, https://fincapindex.com and related page https://client.fincapindex.com);
- Finex Finance Global (website www.finexfinanceglobal.com).
In issuing the orders, the regulator availed itself of the powers deriving from the “Decreto crescita” (“Growth Decree” Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, Article no. 36, paragraph 2-terdecies), relating to the black-out of the sites of abusive financial intermediaries, as well as of the power introduced by the Law no. 8 of 28 February 2020, Article no. 4, paragraph 3-bis, with reference to the black-out of the website through which the illegal offer is carried out.
The number of websites blocked since July 2019, when Consob got the power to order that the websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries be blacked out, has thus risen to 903.
The black-out of these websites by Internet service providers operating on Italian territory is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the blocking to be implemented.