Resolution no. 22655

Order, pursuant to article 7-octies, paragraph 1, letter b) of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 ("Consolidated Law on Finance") to cease the infringement of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance carried out through the website www.fintechmarket.pro and the relevant page https://cfd.fintechmarket.pro

LA COMMISSIONE NAZIONALE PER LE SOCIETÀ E LA BORSA
[THE NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR COMPANIES AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE]

HAVING REGARD TO Law no. 216 of 7 June 1974 and subsequent amendments and supplements;

HAVING REGARD TO Legislative Decree no. 58 of 24th February 1998 ("Consolidated Law on Finance") and subsequent amendments and supplements;

HAVING ESTABLISHED that, from checks on the web, it emerged that:

1. the website www.fintechmarket.pro - which is active and also available in Italian - offers potential investors the possibility to trade CFDs on currencies and cryptocurrencies through a trading platform by "Fintech Market", defined on the website as a "trustworthy CFD provider";
2. in order to place such trades, users must register with the website at the URL https://cfd.fintechmarket.pro, through a procedure that is also available for Italian users, and subsequently open a trading account and deposit the necessary funds. Specifically, the website advertises the features of two trading accounts with "fixed" and "variable" spreads and a so-called "raw" trading account; the same section also makes reference to "VIP Accounts" with a dedicated "account manager". After registration a dashboard is displayed, available in Italian, where users can among other things access a trading platform available in Italian, where it is possible to trade contracts on currencies, indices, shares and commodities;
3. as for the traceability of the website www.fintechmarket.pro, generic reference is made to "Fintech Market" with reported registered address in Austria;

WHEREAS the activity carried out through the www.fintechmarket.pro website and its https://cfd.fintechmarket.pro page constitutes the provision of investment services, as referred to in article 1, paragraph 5, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, insofar as users are offered the opportunity through the aforementioned domains to open a trading account and place orders to buy and/or sell financial instruments;

WHEREAS the above activity, carried out through the website www.fintechmarket.pro and the respective pages https://cfd.fintechmarket.pro, is still ongoing and is aimed at Italian investors, insofar as the above domains are available in Italian, reports of cold calling of Italian customers have been received, no mechanism has been found to block registration by users attempting to register with said website from Italy/through Italian IP addresses and complaints have been received from Italian retail investors;

WHEREAS the above domains cannot be attributed to any entity which is authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public, insofar as the company "Fintech Market" as mentioned on the above website, is not listed on the register maintained by Consob pursuant to article 20 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING REGARD to the fact that the provision of investment services and activities is reserved to licensed parties as referred to under article 18, paragraph 1, of the Consolidated Law on Finance, pursuant to which, "The professional provision of investment services and activities to the public is reserved to Italian investment firms, EU investment firms, Italian banks, EU banks and non-EU firms";

HAVING ESTABLISHED, therefore, that the operations in question qualify as the professional provision of investment services to the Italian public, in infringement of art. 18, paragraph 1 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING REGARD TO the fact that, according to the provisions of article 7-octies, letter b) of the Consolidated Law on Finance - "Powers to counteract unauthorised provision of investment services" - Consob "may, with regard to anyone who offers or carries out investment services or activities over the Internet without being qualified to do so pursuant to this decree: […] b) order the cessation of the infringement";

CONSIDERING it therefore necessary, in the light of the foregoing, to adopt this Resolution immediately for reasons of urgency;

RESOLVES:

To order the cessation of the infringement of article 18 of Legislative Decree no. 58/98 carried out through the website www.fintechmarket.pro and the respective page https://cfd.fintechmarket.pro, constituted by offering and providing investment services and activities to the Italian public.

This Resolution shall be brought to the attention of the all the concerned parties and published in the Consob Bulletin.

This measure may be appealed before the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio within 60 days of the date of service.

29 March 2023

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona