Financial Company Forex Club, a unit of Russian-based forex brokerage group Forex Club, and its peer Open Investments have acquired status as Belarus-registered forex brokers, data published on the website of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) indicated. They are the first ones to be entered into the NBRB’s register of forex brokers. Both companies were added on 19 April.
Since March this year, forex brokers need to be registered in order to operate legally in Belaruse. In June 2015, Belarisian president Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree on a new regulation of the country’s financial market, under which Belarus should maintain a register of forex companies licensed by the Belarusian central bank, the NBRB, as well as a national forex center for supervision of the compliance with requirements of the decree.
Forex Club applied with the NBRB mid-March to receive a status of registered forex broker in Belarus, while Open Investments has not provided any information as to when it applied for registration. Under the laws, the central bank has to make a decision within 30 days of receiving an application.
Forex Club is a provider of trading and educational products for investment in forex, contracts for difference (CFDs), securities, precious metals, oil and gas, indices and other instruments. It is a founding member of CRFIN, the Russian self-regulatory organization.
The group does not provide on its website information regarding licensing, but it has applied for a Russian forex broker license and is awaiting a response from the Russian central bank, which is in charge of the regulation. Russia adopted last year regulatory amendments, which require from 1 January 2016 all local forex brokers to obtain a license from the central bank in order to provide services to local citizens. Non-Russia based brokers, however, are not required to hold a Russian license and the majority of brokers serve Russian citizens through their foreign branches. Currently, Finam Forex is the only forex broker licensed by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).
Source: NBRB
