CMC Markets Halts Countdown Trading Ahead of ASIC Ban

The Financial Commission / Media posts / CMC Markets Halts Countdown Trading Ahead of ASIC Ban

The international brokerage CMC Markets has announced to its Australian clients that it will no longer offer Countdown trading on its platform ahead of the ban on binary options trading by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) that is coming into effect on May 3, 2021.

The broker indicated that such trading products will be halted at 5 pm AEST 30 April 2021 on its website. Countdown trading allows traders to speculate on whether the price of an instrument goes up or down in a specified time. Once a Countdown is opened, the stake is immediately payable, and a corresponding deduction will be made to the cash in the relevant account. 

A Countdown will be closed and settled by the platform automatically once the Countdown expires. These instruments usually have a time frame of just 30 seconds and offer a payout of up to 90 percent. One can argue that such trading instruments are very similar to binary options and indeed, the same instruments are regulated in Britain as licensed gambling products. 

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