Bank of Russia Blacklists over 1,800 Firms, Including FX Brokers

More than 1,800 financial firms are blacklisted by the Bank of Russia recently, the country's central bank, including some highly renowned FX brokers that are licensed by other countries.

Alpari, Interactive Brokers, Swissquote, those names are found in the blacklist published by the Russian central bank recently, in addition to crypto firms (e.g. Exchange-coindesk) and brokers offering binary options (e.g. Binarium).

It is widely known that investors in Russia have been the target of a number of fraudulent financial firms for a long time, and Russian regulators as well as the country's central bank have been criticized for being sluggish in taking actions against illicit financial activities.

Many of the blacklisted firms are not duly licensed to operate in Russia, and are accused of running pyramid schemes, providing illegal lending, and illegal participation in the securities market, detected by the bank's own monitoring system since 2020.

Further actions will be taken, including blocking the firms' websites, and expanding the collaboration between the bank and the police and foreign regulators.

It still remains unclear whether the blacklisting heralds a larger cleanup.