MarketFinancials Ltd, regulated by FSA Seychelles, operated the offshore broker bkfx until 2020. At least that’s what the broker’s records show. Currently, FSCA-regulated BKFX (Pty) Ltd in South Africa and BKFX LLC registered in St. Vincent & The Grenadines are the operators. BKFX offers leverage of up to 1:2000 and aggressive bonus schemes. In the EU and UK, a maximum of 1:30 is allowed. However, BKFX accepts clients from the EU, UK, and most other jurisdictions where it operates unauthorized and non-compliant.
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Key data
| Trading name | BKFX |
| Domain | https://bkfx.io/ |
| Social media | LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter |
| Legal entities | BKFX (Pty) Ltd BKFX LLC |
| Jurisdictions | South Africa St. Vincent & The Grenadines |
| Regulators | FSCA South Africa FSA SVG |
| Payment options | Credit and debit card, alternative payments, crypto |
| Payment processors | SticPay, LetKnow, Perfect Money, EntreBiz |
Entities and regulation
BKFX was operated by the offshore vehicle MarketFinancials Limited controlled via Cyprus until 2020. Cyprus is likely to remain the broker’s center, as some employees are based there, according to LinkedIn.
- BKFX (Pty) Ltd is authorized and regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) of South Africa;
- BKFX LLC is registered by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Financial Services Authority (FSA);
Initial review
In our review on April 20, 2022, our people were able to register as EU and UK residents. BKFX is active in most of the world’s regulatory regimes with the exception of the US, Canada, Syria, North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
Already after confirming the email we were able to open a trading account and make pre-KYC deposits with unverified BKFX profiles:
- Bank wire deposits are available in EUR and USD and are capped at $10,000. Wire transfers are made to EntreBiz Pte Ltd‘s bank account at CIMB Bank Berhad in Singapore. EntreBiz (https://www.entrebiz-pte.com) is a full-service, software & applications development provider evidently acting as an unauthorized payment processor for BKFX.
- Credit and debit card deposits were made through a Virtual Pay (VP), a payment processor in Kenya. The pre-KYC deposits are capped at $10,000.
- When depositing crypto (ADA) via the licensed Estonian Let Know, we could have made a maximum pre-KYC deposit of $10,000.
- Pre-KYC deposits via Russian Perfect Money and SticPay were also capped at $10,000.
Preliminary conclusion
BKFX operates in the UK and EU and most other regimes without the required authorization and therefore illegally. The South African FSCA license does not authorize BKFX to solicit clients in the regulatory regimes of FCA, ESMA, or ASIC. Just to name a few. Onboarding with pre-KYC deposits of up to $10,000 is also incompatible with ESMA regulations which cap pre-KYC deposits at the equivalent of around $3000. Moreover, the leverage of up to 1:2,000 as well as its bonus schemes are not compliant with these regulatory frameworks.
Clients of these offshore brokers are not eligible for Investor Compensation Schemes in the UK, EU, or Australia. Furthermore, there is no supervision, no monitoring of whether client funds are held in segregated accounts. Offshore regulators do not even check whether investments or trading actually take place through authorized exchanges or liquidity providers. And finally, clients are not entitled to the assistance of Financial Ombudsman Services.
Share information
If you have any information about BKFX, its partners and facilitators, please share it with us through our whistleblower system, Whistle42.
