MOSCOW, February 21. /TASS/. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank Vladimir Chistyukhin believes that forex services, despite the fact that they are legally regulated, are similar to pyramid schemes, as most users of these services lose money, he said in an interview with TASS.
"To me personally, forex services, despite the fact that they are legally regulated, to some extent resemble financial pyramids that attract people, who want to make quick money and do not weigh the risks," he said.
Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank noted that he had never used such services, since he considers the risks too high. "For me, this is impossible - I believe that the level of risk that forex clubs offer is not comparable with the potential gain. Statistics shows that no matter what kind of foresight you have, and no matter how well you understand the financial market, your account would reach zero. Some people might leave, having earned a little, but the majority are losing money," Chistyukhin said.
In his opinion, the majority of forex services users are not very financially literate people with low incomes. According to Chistyukhin, the number of active clients of licensed forex dealers in the Russian Federation does not exceed 9,000-10,000 people.
On December 27, the Russian Central Bank revoked licenses of five largest Russian forex dealers - Forex Club, Fix Trade, Trustforex, Alpari Forex and Teletrade Group. Licenses are revoked starting from January 27, 2019.
At the same time, the Central Bank canceled qualification certificates of supervisors and general directors of these companies.
Thus, the Central Bank revoked licenses of five out of the nine Russian forex dealers. Alfa-forex, VTB-forex, PSB-forex and Finam-forex remained on the market.
Head of the Securities Market and Commodity Market Department Larisa Selyutina said that activities of the five forex dealers, whose licenses were revoked by the Russian Central Bank, were focused on aggressive advertising and withdrawing Russian clients to foreign jurisdictions. "All companies whose licenses have been revoked are ‘subsidiaries’ of large foreign forex dealers with recognizable brands, operating mainly in foreign forex markets. The decision to revoke is connected with the regulator’s deep concern for enormous risks for Russian citizens from the companies’ activities," she said.