German regulator warns against digital currency and forex broker

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The German financial markets regulator has issued a warning against a digital currencies and forex broker. According to its warning, the broker has been operating illegally and is not authorized to offer its services in Germany.

Better known as BaFin, the regulator claimed that the company, EasyTrade55 has not been authorized to offer its services to German residents. It wrote, “The BaFin points out that the Easytrade55 Ltd. with an alleged company headquarters in Frankfurt has no permission to conduct banking business or provide financial services domestically. The company is not under the supervision of BaFin.”

BaFin further pointed out that EasyTrade55 offers forex, contracts for differences (CFDs), raw materials and digital currency trading. However, the address given on its homepage, indicating its based in Frankfurt is false, BaFin claims.

On its website, which is in Italian, the company claims to offer trading in stocks in several markets, including the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. It further claims to offer trading bots and expert advisors to its clients.

BaFin is one of the regulators that have consistently warned the public against dealing with fraudulent stock, CFDs, ETFs, forex and digital currency brokers. Its U.K counterpart the Financial Conduct Authority has been just as active, smoking out any financial services provider it believes to be fraudulent. Just days ago, it issued a warning against Bitcoin Evolution, revealing that it has been issuing financial services in the U.K without its authorization. It urged the public to stay away as they could end up falling victims to a scam. The FCA also sounded a warning against two renowned platforms, Kraken and BitMEX. With the former, the watchdog had made a mistake which it admitted and consequently pulled down the warning, while the latter has yet to respond.

In Italy, the regulator has done more than sounded a warning, it has shut down websites it believes have been operating illegally. In February, the CONSOB shut down eight trading websites, with two of these being digital currency-related. The CONSOB worked with the country’s Internet service providers to block access to these sites.