HF Markets (Europe) Ltd. better known as HotForex, appears to have been granted a CySEC licence meaning they have become a MiFID regulated brokerage. This move sees HotForex add to it’s rather weak FSC regulation with regulation from a far better known regulatory body. It appears that HotForex were just using their FSC Regulation as a temporary stop gap solution. HotForex, has come a long way since it was founded as a totally unregulated Foreign exchange brokerage.
HotForex has worked hard at growing it’s customer base by providing some of the tighter spreads on the major Forex pairings out there. This substantial growth is likely the reason why they have been able to raise the required capital needed to acquire a CySEC licence. Many Forex companies begin live as unregulated entities in order to acquire the necessary capital to open a brokerage in a European jurisdiction. I can think of a number of other Contract for Difference providers who have taken a similar route to that of HotForex.
It is however not clear whether HotForex intends to open a new European regulated arm of their business or simply transfer its complete client base over to it’s CySEC regulated company. This ambiguity is due to the fact that HotForex has not yet updated it’s website to include the new regulatory information. One would assume such an update would be completed as soon as the deal had gone through, as it appears to be something that HotForex would want to boast about.
It may be that HotForex needs to prepare and change it’s systems in order to operate in a way that is fully compliant with CySEC regulation. We will keep you updated in regards to the situation surrounding HotForex’s newly gained MiFID regulation.
