Following the French ban on all advertising of Forex products, binary options and some CFDs by its national regulator AMF, Belgium has followed these steps and taken the same measures to ban advertising and marketing of such products, as well as any offering of them to traders in Belgium.
This will result in a complete ban on any kind of ads and offering of financial products with leverage in the entire Belgium, becoming a non-interesting country for agencies, looking for clients in this industry. Among the products, which are banned, are those ones offered by brokers regulated elsewhere in the EU (such as by the FCA in the UK or by CySEC in Cyprus), so even those, who acquired their respective licenses via MiFID to Belgium.
These new measures will come into effect in August 18, 2016.
This step was not much expected on the market, as Belgium has not been a leader in such actions yet, just following a trend in capital markets regulation. But it seems that in this case the FSMA is taking a very aggressive lead role, motivated by the recent French regulator and its activity.
Here are some official statements from major representatives of the country.
Kris Peeters, Minister for Employment, Economy and Consumer Affairs:
“This Regulation contributes to better protection of consumers of financial products. Henceforth, it will be clear to everyone that binary options and other speculative derivatives have no place on the Belgian retail market.”
Minister of Finance, Johan Van Overtveldt:
“In recent years, we have seen a rise in the number of foreign offerors of products such as binary options that approach the Belgian market without having an authorization and /or a published prospectus. This Regulation will help combat such offers.”
FSMA Chairman Jean-Paul Servais:
“The FSMA has repeatedly issued warnings about the risks associated with these products. Other supervisory authorities and ESMA have done likewise. Yet the FSMA continues to receive complaints about these products. Therefore it proposed establishing a framework regulating the distribution of OTC derivatives and to prohibit the distribution of certain types of these products.”
If you speak, French, check it in its original version here.
