Federal Financial Supervisory Authority

29.11.2022 | Topic Unauthorised business Stak FX Ltd, target of suspected identity fraud: BaFin issues warning against trading platform stakefx.com In accordance with section 37 (4) of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz – KWG), BaFin would like to make clear that StakeFX Markets Ltd, Seychelles, does not have authorisation under the KWG to conduct banking business or provide financial services. The company is not supervised by BaFin. When presenting itself to customers, the company untruthfully claims connection to or identifies itself as the Cypriot company Stak FX Ltd, which is registered with BaFin. BaFin has no reason to believe that the claim is true; rather, it is likely that Stak FX Ltd has become the target of identity fraud. The information provided on the stakefx.com website and the information and documents available to BaFin give reasonable grounds to suspect that the platform is being used to conduct banking business and/or provide financial or investment services in Germany without the required authorisation. Companies that conduct banking business or provide financial services in Germany require authorisation under the KWG; to provide investment services in Germany, they require authorisation under the German Investment Firm Act (Wertpapierinstitutsgesetz – WpIG). However, some companies operate without the necessary authorisation. Information on whether a particular company has been authorised by BaFin can be found in BaFin’s database of companies. BaFin, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt – BKA) and the German state criminal police offices (Landeskriminalämter) recommend that consumers seeking to invest money online should exercise the utmost caution and do the necessary research beforehand in order to identify fraud attempts at an early stage.