FX week in review: CEO moves at Trading212 and Capital.com, Forex CT $20M fine

Gerald Segal 0 Comments May 8, 2021

The past week saw a number of senior FX industry executive moves involving firms such as Trading 212 (new CEO), Capital.com (CEO left), ETX Capital (Technical Analyst), and Currenex (ex CEO moves to Capitolis). And as usual, all the key moves were reported exclusively at FNG.

This week also saw new investors put money into FX liquidity solutions provider Advanced Markets, and old investors inject funds into CFDs broker ETX Capital.

There was also news about new sports sponsorships (eToro), the (sort of) rebranding of embattled FX broker USGFX, and a large (AUD $20 million) fine against Retail FX broker ForexCT.

Some of the top FX industry news stories to appear this week on FNG included:

Forex CT fined $20M for misconduct. Reported First at FNG… Australia Federal Justice John Middleton has issued a decision handing a fine of AUD $20 million to Retail FX broker Forex Capital Trading Pty Ltd, which operated the ASIC licensed Forex CT brand. The company’s CEO and sole director Shlomo Yoshai was fined $400,000. Forex CT lost its ASIC license last June. The company was originally sanctioned by ASIC back in March 2019, when ASIC put a restraining order on Forex CT, barring it from transferring money outside the country. The company’s CEO and sole director Shlomo Yoshai was later banned for 10 years, and a three year ban was imposed on a Forex CT account manager, Steven Marsh.

Mushegh Tovmasyan’s Forexify leads investment round in Advanced Markets. Institutional FX liquidity and prime-of-prime services provider Advanced Markets has announced what it has called a “significant investment” made in the company, led by merchant bank Forexify and Los Angeles based investment firm Corbel Capital Partners. Forexify and Corbel join existing Advanced Markets shareholders Macquarie Group and GFI Group LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of BGC Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ:BGCP), which have each reduced their stakes to accommodate new investors for the next phase of Advanced Markets’ growth. While the exact size of the investment round wasn’t disclosed by the company, one of the investors (Forexify) did mention in a social media post that it was an “8 figure investment round”, that is $10 million+.

Exclusive: Guru Capital injects $2.3M of fresh capital into ETX. FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that Monecor (London) Limited, the FCA regulated parent company of Retail FX and CFDs broker ETX Capital, has received £1.64 million (USD $2.3 million) in additional capital from its new ownership group, Switzerland based fintech investor Guru Capital SA. Guru Capital, run by former Swissquote executives Ryan Nettles and Luca Merolla, acquired ETX Capital last year from UK private equity firm JRJ Group. The company later closed on the acquisition of ETX’s EU-licensed subsidiary ETX Cyprus after CySEC regulatory approval was received. We understand that the capital injection was made to provide additional capital to support ETX’s planned business and technical initiatives this year.

USGFX parent rebranding as Union Strategic (and USGForex.com). Embattled Retail FX broker operator Union Standard International Group has announced that it is rebranding itself, and its various operating subsidiaries, to United Strategic International Group. The group’s main website which serves offshore clients, domiciled in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has been changed from usgfx.global to usgforex.com, as the company seems to be looking to drop the “USGFX” brand and to distance itself from the now-bankrupt Australia arm of the group, Union Standard International Group Pty Ltd. The usgfx.com and usgfx.com.au websites still belong to the bankrupt Australia company. The USG Group is still reeling and trying to recover from the 2020 bankruptcy of its then-main operating subsidiary in Australia.