Simplified Client ID Will Make It Easy For Russian Forex Brokers

A new bill submitted to the Russian Duma will be a great help to Russian Forex brokers or dealers as they are known in Russia. This is because part of the bill suggests a simplified procedure to identify forex clients. Both in and outside Russia, the current process of client identification has slowed down the Forex trading process and the new bill would be a great help.

According to the authors of the bill, Russia's legal Forex marker is rather restricted. As of May 15, 2018, there were only 3,539 clients of licensed Forex brokers in Russia. That is surprisingly low considering the size of the country. However, there are more than 200 unlicensed companies operating in Russian territory. These companies operate in offshore locations which means they end up avoiding a lot of regulations. They also happen to service more than 500,000 clients, with an average deposit of 50 to 60,000 rubles.

Forex Law Changes To Help Market Growth

With the current Forex laws that govern the industry in Russia, a lot of Forex investors prefer to stay outside of Russian jurisdiction. The current Russian Forex law was signed into law by Vladimir Putin back in 2014. It is rather restrictive and there is a push for it to be changed. The current law for example allows forex dealers to only deal in forex and no venture into other trading features. They also need to have a minimum capital of 100 million rubles.

There are higher requirements for those who plan to hold more than 150 billion rubles in client funds. The law also imposes a number of other restrictions like maximum leverage and having a brick-and-mortar office. The reason for the new Forex law was to encourage market growth and getting rid of the scams in the Forex sector. However those efforts seem to have stalled on the legal front.

One of the problems, lawmakers explain, is that the current laws lack a way for clients to identify themselves easily. Offshore Forex brokers make it easy for clients, with them allowing for clients to open forex accounts online, without needing a visit to the forex dealer's office. With a simple change to Russia's anti-money laundering law, the simplified procedure in the bill allows for clients to just sign a contract with a forex dealer and the same will immediately apply to all companies that have forex dealer licenses.

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