Only two weeks after the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) published a new circular targeting binary options providers operating in non-European countries, the largest Israeli provider anyoption has closed its Israeli call center, laying off approximately 80 employees. The shakeup at anyoption follows Banc De Binary closing its doors last month.
A source within anyoption told local financial newspaper The Marker that it is not shutting down its business, but moving its call centers outside of Israel. anyoption is a CySEC regulated CIF registered as Ouroboros Derivatives Trading Ltd. FortuneZ has reached out to anyoption for a comment and will update this article once a response is received.
CySEC recently issued a circular which forces regulated brokers to operate their sales and marketing divisions either from their head offices or from EU-member countries. The change appears to be directed towards Israeli brokers and companies that have been outsourcing activities to the Far East in their efforts to target clients from the region.
The cooperation between the Israeli and Cypriot financial supervision authorities appears to have strengthened in recent months. The latest changes come after a meeting between the Israeli Securities Authority (ISA) chief Prof. Hauser and CySEC head Demetra Kalogerou earlier this year.
The financial supervisors are committed to tackling major issues for financial services providers, and specifically binary options brokers. The latter came under increased scrutiny throughout 2016. Many companies that have been operating in the European Union have dramatically downsized their operations.
At the beginning of the year, Hauser revealed that the Israeli government is drafting legislation that will ban the marketing of binary options outside of the country. As FortuneZ alluded to at the time, the aforementioned meeting between the financial supervisors was to synchronise their regulatory efforts.
(Photo: FortuneZ, Screenshot of AnyOption website)
