INVESTORS should be banned from trading contracts for difference unless they prove they can handle the highly complex derivatives, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has said. The call for a ban in the FOS’s annual review goes beyond the independent complaints body’s earlier written submission to the corporate regulator asking for comprehensive education to protect investors.
”In our experience, the only investors who trade in CFDs successfully are sophisticated traders who watch and manage their investments full-time,” the FOS stated in its review. In the review, the FOS raised the need for CFD traders to obtain a certificate from an accountant or financial planner to show they are competent to trade CFDs. The FOS’s investments ombudsman, Alison Maynard, said in an interview: ”We think a certificate from an accountant or an AFSL holder [financial planner] would be an appropriate safeguard.”
The FOS’s annual review for last year said of 54 complaints it had received in derivatives and hedging, half related to CFDs. ASIC’s approach, foreshadowed in a November consultation paper, focuses on CFD providers meeting a regime of disclosure against a set of benchmarks.
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Contracts for difference will be centrally cleared for the first time ever this week through an agreement between LCH.Clearnet, Europe’s largest clearinghouse, and multilateral trading facility Chi-X Europe.
The move, say LCH.Clearnet and Chi-X Europe, supports the goal of regulators to increase central clearing in OTC trades. The service will begin with the most liquid U.K. stocks. Traders in the over -the-counter market will send transactions for confirmation to London-based Chi-X Europe, which will pass them on to LCH.Clearnet for final clearing in its EquityClear service. Currently, CFDs are cleared bilaterally between executing brokers and prime brokers. CFDs allow investors to bet on shares or other assets without owning them. The securities are traded off-exchange and investors use the underlying stock to hedge their positions. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have been pushing for more OTC contracts to be centrally cleared e cleared amid criticism of opaque financial products and excessive risk-taking in the wake of the financial crisis. Clearinghouses typically act as central counterparties to every buy and sell order thereby reducing the potential for a counterparty to either default on its obligation or go bust.
“In the same way as Chi-X Europe launched its cash equities market ahead of MIFiD’s transformation of the trading landscape, we hope centrally cleared CFDs will help address the European Commission’s aim of bringing more OTC trades on-exchange ahead of any regulatory imperative,” says Alasdair aynes, chief executive officer of Chi-X Europe in a statement issued by LCH. Clearnet and Chi-X Europe on Monday. “This is an exciting new opportunity for us to expand our business into new areas.”
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