Swiss brokers: Should they have the right to be in FXstreet's Brokers list?

This is an email I just sent:

Dear XXXX,

We at FXstreet.com only accept companies regulated in the US, UK, Switzerland, Nordic Countries, Australia and Japan.

A couple of years ago - maybe it was even before but I can´t remember it for sure - we accepted firms regulated in Switzerland and recently we have accepted firms from Nordic countries.

What's going on with Switzerland?
We had many discussions at FXstreet whether to accept Swiss firms or not.
On one hand, Switzerland is a main financial place and Swiss firms can'¡t be excluded because they are an important part of the FX market.

On the other, as you very well said, FX is completely unregulated in Switzerland. The so called regulatory organizations as

    * Groupement Suisse des Conseils en Gestion Indépendants
    * Polyreg
    * Organisme d'autorégulation fondé par le GSCGI
    * Association Romande des intermediares financiers

are no more than private self regulatory services and probably you are right that their only duty is to apply the Anti-Money-Laundering Act.

On May 18th I published on my blog a post titled "Gossip from Switzerland". I was explaining that the SFBC (Swiss Federal Banking Commission) had finally decided to rule the Swiss FX market. My source told me that this process should be concluded in 2 to 3 years.

So we decided to accept Swiss firms and keep an eye on them. Since then, we have had proven claims against some Swiss firms and we have intervened siding the trader, but we have not received more proven complaints against Swiss firms than against US firms, all of them regulated by the NFA.

Recently we've accepted Nordic firms because firms in all fields from those countries are well known for their honest practices and we trust their local regulators.

We can´t be sure that all firms included in our brokers list will behave as they should, but I can guarantee that we are watching them and backing traders if they come to us with proven claims against brokers.

We are not a body regulator but we do not want bad people on our site. If you have any solid prove against any of the companies listed there, please let me know.

Regarding Swiss firms, we will keep them on our site and wait for the SFBC to do its job.

We will try to monitor things as close as possible and keep our visitors posted.

I´m going to post this reply on my personal blog

http://weblog.fxstreet.com

Feel free to reply me there if you wish so

All the best

Francesc

----- Original Message -----
This is just something you may not be aware of:
The so called regulation of Brokers in Switzerland is in no case ANY regulation.
The whole Forex market is completely unregulated in Switzerland. The often mentioned Self Regulation Service is only due to the Anti-Money-Laundering Act. No authority in Switzerland cares for any activity of the FX brokers there. But the SFBC is just closing FX brokers there. There is no official mentioned reason. You may ask the SFBC yourself for those often mentioned SWISS "regulations".
Also the Swiss Finance Ministry does not care of FX.

Just some facts and our question why do your promoted Non regulated brokers following your "rules"
Thanks for your attention.

Sincerely Yours, XXXX

Comments

[Julie Sykes]

Hi,

I would just like to make a comment regarding Swiss FX brokers..All fx brokers in Switzerland are now required to obtain a banking licence within 1 year and the SBFC is now the regulating body for these fx brokers. This change in regulation has had a direct effect on bullion brokerage services from swiss brokers also as they are not permitted to offer bullion trading services until they have their banking licenses.
Regards Julie

[FRiverola]

thanks Julie for your feed-back

francesc