The FinancialForex brokers have been in the news lately regarding advertising their services in Russia without the proper license. In 2019, Instaforex, Freshforex and a handful of other firms have been accused by Russia’s anti monopoly agency (FAS) of placing advertising on Russia’s most popular search engine, Yandex without the appropriate license from the Central Bank.
This issue has resulted in the filing of civil cases in Russia against the brokers and online portal to settle the matters of unlawful advertising. Now the FAS agency has directly both Instaforex and Yandex to cease advertising in order to avoid civil penalties, which may be as high as 500,000 rubles for each case.
It is important to understand that advertising and offering FX/CFD services in Russia is only permitted with a license from the Central Bank, which now regulates OTC Forex trading in-country. With the number of such cases and regulatory notices increasing, it is not surprising that the Russian authorities have expanded their oversight with the assistance of fellow regulators in Cyprus and elsewhere in order to desist the inappropriate offering of FX services by non-Russina registered firms to Russian residents.