Resolution No. 23497

Order, pursuant to article 7-octies, paragraph 1, letter b) of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 (“Consolidated Law on Finance”) to cease the breach of article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Finance carried out via the website https://finanzaexpert.com and its related pages https://clients.finanzaexpert.com https://trading.finanzaexpert.com

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, as subsequently amended and supplemented;

HAVING REGARD to Legislative Decree no. 58 of 24 February 1998 (“Consolidated Law on Finance”), as subsequently amended and supplemented;

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

1. potential investors are offered the opportunity, through the https://finanzaexpert.com website – which is active, available also in Italian and registered anonymously – to trade contracts relating to commodities, cryptocurrencies, forex, indices and shares using a specific trading platform;
2. to carry out the transactions, users must register with the website, following a procedure that is also available to users connected from Italy, and open a trading account;
3. after registering, users can access the reserved area, available at the https://clients.finanzaexpert.com domain, where they can make deposits and access the trading platform available at the page https://trading.finanzaexpert.com;
4. as to the traceability of the aforementioned operations, at the bottom of the website's pages there is a reference to Finanza Expert and the email address info@finanzaexpert.com is indicated;

WHEREAS the activity carried out via the https://finanzaexpert.com website and its related pages https://clients.finanzaexpert.com and https://trading.finanzaexpert.com constitutes the provision of investment services, as referred to in Article 1, paragraph 5 of the Consolidated Law on Finance, since users are offered the opportunity via the aforementioned domains to open a trading account and place orders to buy and/or sell financial instruments;

WHEREAS the above activity, performed via the website https://finanzaexpert.com and its related pages https://clients.finanzaexpert.com and https://trading.finanzaexpert.com, is still ongoing and is aimed at Italian investors, given that the website https://finanzaexpert.com is available in Italian and that no mechanism was found to block registration by users attempting to register with the website from Italy through Italian IP addresses; in relation to said website, interaction with Italian customers was reported and complaints were received from Italian retail investors who complained about not being able to obtain a refund of the capital deposited;

WHEREAS the transactions recorded on the https://finanzaexpert.com website and its pages https://clients.finanzaexpert.com and https://trading.finanzaexpert.com are not attributed to any entity authorised to provide investment services to the Italian public;

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 commercial 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 activities in question qualify as the professional provision of investment services to the Italian public, in breach of Article 18, paragraph 1 of the Consolidated Law on Finance;

HAVING REGARD to the provisions of Article 7-octies, paragraph 1, letter b) of the Consolidated Law on Finance - “Powers to counteract unauthorised provision of investment services” - pursuant to which 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 that the infringement cease”;

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 https://finanzaexpert.com website and its https://clients.finanzaexpert.com and https://trading.finanzaexpert.com pages constituted by the offer and provision of investment services and activities to the Italian public.

This Resolution shall be brought to the attention of 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.

1^st April 2025

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona