Italian Financial Regulator Blocks Five Unauthorized Websites

Consob, the Italian government’s top authority responsible for regulating the domestic securities market, has ordered the blackout of five websites tied to financial markets services, considering them as ‘abusive’. Per the press release, the watchdog relied on the ‘Growth Decree’ to ask internet providers to block access from Italy to such websites.

According to the enacted order, Consob blacklisted Atlasfx, S.P. Inc, Digital Exchange Limited and Securex Plus Solution EOOD, Think Market 247 Ltd and RL Ltd, and Finlay, with most of them related to foreign exchange (forex) brokers. With such a set of new financial services-related sites, the regulator completes a total number of blocked websites of 457 since July 2019. In fact, the watchdog considers such companies as ‘fraudulent financial intermediaries’.

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“The blackout of these websites by Internet service providers operating on Italian territory is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the blackout to come into effect,” Consob clarified in the official announcement.

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Furthermore, the Italian authority reminded investors that the blocked websites offered financial services without a license, which they should have granted beforehand. “Consob draws investors’ attention to the importance of adopting the greatest diligence in order to make informed investment choices, adopting common sense behaviors, essential to safeguard their savings: these include, for websites that offer financial services, checking in advance that the operator with whom they are investing is authorized, and, for offers of financial products, that a prospectus has been published,” the regulator added.

This blackout campaign of ‘abusive financial services websites’ deployed by the Consob is not the first one carried out over the year. Finance Magnates reported that the Italian regulator ordered in February to block the websites of Nab Europe Limited, Swiss Management Corporation, Expertsystemsfx, FXOptexGroups, Italiano invest and QubitTech Corporation. In January, they did the same with Axedo, Fxfinancepro, Thinkmarket 247 Ltd, Donnybrook consulting, Globalinvestfx and Universe citizens limited.