Maybe too late is better than never. We doubt it, at least for financial market regulators. The Spanish CNMV (here) and UK FCA issued warnings against the GoldingFX broker scam in Mai and June 2021, respectively. Only eight months later with the scam already vanished, the German BaFin issued a warning against GoldingFX on Feb 17, 2022, which is acting as a clone of a BaFin-regulated entity Golding Capital Partner GmbH. The broker scam already vanished with the money of many victims. The BaFin warning came way too late.
These late warnings from regulators are incomprehensible. The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) operates and Investor Alerts Portal on its website https://www.iosco.org where all participating regulators such as BaFin theoretically post their warnings. BaFin explicitly points this out on its website:
Furthermore, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has a portal on its website for publishing warnings and investor alerts that it receives from its members, i.e., from national supervisory authorities that have joined IOSCO. (Source: BaFin website)
IOSCO was established in 1983. Its members regulates more than 95% of the world’s securities markets in more than 130 jurisdictions. With IOSCO, how can it be that a participating regulator needs months before it issues a warning against a scam that has been warned against already by a fellow regulator and IOSCO member? The Italian Consob, for example, issues its weekly national warnings and, additionally, lists the warnings of its fellow regulators right below. That’s at least something!
While cybercrime organizations have no problem operating across regulatory regimes, the respective regulators have not yet leveled up into the age of financial cybercrime. Warnings from BaFin, for example, regularly come far too late. In some cases, as GoldingFX, the scammers have already vanished with their victims’ money. The German regulator obviously lacks resources and know-how. BaFin recently came under massive criticism for its destructive actions during the Wirecard collapse. Regulators need to significantly level up to become fit for the cyberfinanc era.
