The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) today published its annual statistical bulletin for 2022.

The total number of Cyprus investment firms (CIFs) marked a 2% year-on-year decrease between 2021 and 2022. As at the end of 2022, the overall of CIFs was 225.

As at the end of 2022, the total number of CIFs’ clients was 4,147,949. The increase of 26% in the number of clients between 2021 and 2022, is attributed partly to market growth and partly to a change in the reporting of the clients implemented by a number of CIFs following Brexit.

The total number of employees of all CIFs increased by 10% between the years 2019 and 2020, while a substantial drop of 20% is witnessed between the years 2020 and 2022. As at the end of 2022, the total number of employees of CIFs reached 4,341.

In 2022, the Income generated from the activities of the CIF sector totalled €2.7 billion. Last year saw the highest Trading Income. The CIFs’ sector experienced a 14% year-on-year growth in their Trading Income between 2021 and 2022.

In 2022, CIFs’ Total Assets recorded an year-on-year reduction of 53%, for the first time in four years. CIFs’ Total Assets dropped significantly to €4.9 billion in 2022, when compared to €10.5 billion of 2021.

The conflict in Ukraine has affected CIFs’ Total Assets due to imposition of sanctions and reduction in CIFs’ volume of operations. Another factor that impacted negatively the value of CIFs’ Assets, was the huge deviation of the EUR/USD exchange rate that financial markets experienced during the last quarter of 2022. All CIFs having their assets denominated in USD were substantially affected by this currency fluctuation.

In addition to this, a large amount of CIFs’ Assets denominated in Russian Rubbles, was withdrawn from their accounts, in an attempt to limit their exposure to the specific currency.

At the end of 2022, CySEC regulated and supervised a total of 837 Regulated Entities.