AMF Reports Drop In Forex & Binary Options Complaints

The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) recently released its 2017 Annual Report which gives us some interesting insights into the forex and binary options market. France implemented the Sapin 2 law in 2017 which prohibits digital advertising of risky financial products such as binary options.

The AMF is in charge of ensuring that the law is strictly followed and the report suggests that the reduction of these online ads has helped in cleaning up the forex and binary options market.

Last year, the AMF had to notify 30 trading platforms that they were violating the law with their ads.

Most of these trading platforms were based out of Cyprus. The report found 140 websites featured illegal advertisements of risky trading products. Additionally, among the 250 ads that featured online trading products, 161 of them were illegal and required the AMF to take action.

The AMF had to put in a lot of work to monitor and take action against forex and binary options firms who breached the Sapin 2 law but those efforts have paid off well. The number of complaints against binary options and forex products in 2017 was just 566. This is less than half of the number for 2015, which saw as many as 1,656 complaints. This is a drop of 67 percent compared to 2015 levels and a 48 percent drop when compared to 2016.

AMF Now Focusing On Crypto Market

The AMF is happy with its efforts in cleaning up the forex and binary options market in the country and will now turn its attention to the cryptocurrency market. With the increased volatility of bitcoin in the last half of 2017, there have been more questions and complaints about cryptocurrencies. The AMF reports that as complaints dropped for forex and binary options, there was a corresponding rise in cryptocurrency complaints.

The results of the AMF report correlate with the results of another Annual Report for 2017, this time from France's financial ombudsman. Released earlier this year, this report showed that the volume of complaints about binary options and forex has dropped. However, the concern over fraudulent ads and operators in these markets still remain a concern.

According to the ombudsman report, forex complaints in 2017 dropped 50% compared to 2016 numbers. This reflects well on the efforts of the AMF and the effectiveness of the Sapin 2 law. There was a total of 1,361 submissions, which comprised of inquiries, complaints about forex and binary options.

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