Banc De Binary who recently became the second Cysec regulated Binary Options provider (if you exclude platform provider SpotOption Ltd.) have recently announced that they have entered into talks with the CTFC (Commodities Trading Futures Commission) regarding the regulation of Binary Options in America. They released an official statement which can be found at Forex Magnates.
In the statement they talked about being the first Cysec regulated Binary Options provider (strictly not true TopOption run by Safecap Investments pipped them to that). This Cysec regulation they claim gives an air of legitimacy to the claim that non-exchange traded Binary Options are a legitimate financial instrument. However, it should be noted that Cysec are still currently the only MiFID regulator who recognizes Binary Options as a financial instrument. So it has hardly achieved great acceptance among Europe’s regulatory regime’s.
They also announced that in line with CTFC regulations they would not be accepting anymore American clients, which seems to suggest they currently do have US Customers. Something I can’t see going down well with the CTFC especially since Banc De Binary is currently on the SEC’s PAUSE list. They go onto to state that since their inception in 2009 they operated in full accordance with all federal and state laws regarding banking and compliance. There has simply been no regulation regarding Binary Options.
In fact there has been regulation in place for Binary Options but only exchange traded Binary Options as available on the CBOE and AMEX since 2008. There is no provision for Binary Options as offered currently on Banc De Binary and on the majority of Binary Options platforms.
So what are the chances of Banc De Binary achieving US regulation? I would say that is extremely unlikely if there US platform continues to offer Binary Options as currently offered. Having previously accepted US clients won’t go down to well with the CTFC, so that seems to be something else that will go against them.
It is more likely that Banc De Binary could achieve CTFC regulation if they offered a real exchange Binary Options business like the one currently offered by CTFC regulated Nadex who are ultimately operated by IG Group. If they did start up such an offering and transferred existing US customers to this kind of platform. It shall be interesting to see what happens.
Update 13th Feb 2013: Banc De Binary Retract Original Press Statement, Full Story Can Be Found Here.
