CONSOB Further Adds 4 Abusive Websites Offering Financial Services to Its Blacklist

The Italian financial watchdog CONSOB announced the latest addition of another 4 new websites offering financial services without the proper authorization to its blacklist, bringing the total number of websites blacked out to 890.

The 4 new websites blacklisted by CONSOB are as follows:

• Activ4X (website https://www.activ4x.com and related pages https://client.activ4x.com and https://trade.activ4x.com);

• ​VirtuFinance (website www.virtufinancial.eu and related page https://webtrader.virtufinancial.eu);

• XTB Empire Ltd (website https://xtbempire.com and related page https://client.xtbempire.com);

• Goldy Deal (website www.goldydeal.com).

Three of them are illegal financial intermediation websites, and one website provided financial products in the absence of a prospectus.

The Authority availed itself of the powers deriving from the "Decreto crescita" ("Growth Decree" Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, Article no. 36, paragraph 2-terdecies), relating to the black-out of the sites of abusive financial intermediaries, as well as of the power introduced by the Law no. 8 of 28 February 2020, Article no. 4, paragraph 3-bis, with reference to the black-out of the website through which the illegal offer is carried out.

The regulator also explained that it can take several days for the black-out of these websites due to technical reasons.

At the time of press, CONSOB has blacklisted 75 new illegal financial websites in 2023.