Italy's CONSOB on Blocking Spree Again!

CONSOB stands for Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa, the Italian financial regulator responsible for overseeing and regulating the Italian securities market.

Established in 1974, CONSOB is an independent regulatory body that reports to the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance. It has the power to issue regulations, impose sanctions, and conduct investigations to ensure that financial institutions and market participants comply with Italian financial laws and regulations.

• Supervising the Italian securities market to ensure that it is transparent, fair, and efficient.

• Regulating the conduct of financial institutions and market participants, including brokers, investment firms, and listed companies.

• Monitoring insider trading and market manipulation to maintain market integrity and protect investors.

• Promoting investor education and awareness of financial risks and opportunities.

In a bid to curb unauthorized financial services, Italy's regulatory body, the Italian Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB), has instructed internet service providers in the country to block access to the websites of several financial services firms that have been found to be targeting Italian investors without proper authorization. The blockage process may take several days to come into effect.

The websites being blocked include Aquilafx, EuroCryptoFX, Pine Consulting LTD, BestProducts Limited, MTinvesting, and MFS Securities Corporation. CONSOB has the authority to order the takedown of unauthorized financial services websites in Italy under the Growth Decree, and it has blocked a total of 871 illegal trading websites in the last three years since the implementation of the law in July 2019.

In a statement published on Thursday, CONSOB advised investors to exercise due diligence when making investment decisions and to check that the operator with whom they are investing is authorized to offer financial services. It also recommended that investors should check that a prospectus has been published for any financial products being offered.

Since July 2019, CONSOB has remained persistent in its crackdown on illegal websites offering financial services in Italy. In the previous month, the regulator blocked five more platforms, namely ToroProfit, Plan B Ltd, EuropeanFX Markets Limited, CatenaFarmCapital, and EaglestonesFinance.

Similar to Italy, financial regulators in other European countries are actively seeking out unauthorized financial services providers. For instance, in March, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) blacklisted six online trading websites, including pitbulls-markets.com, eurotradeforex.com, and 21stfinance.net. CySEC warned that these websites had not received authorization to provide investment services or activities in Cyprus.

Although WikiFX and CONSOB are not directly related, both entities play a role in ensuring that investors in the forex market are protected from fraudulent financial services providers. Investors can use platforms like WikiFX to access information about brokers and check if they are authorized by regulators like CONSOB before making investment decisions.