Israel bans binary options industry

Israeli lawmarkers unanimously outlawed the country's binary options industry, which some local authorities said had links to organised crime.

The move by the parliament, the Knesset, was at the behest of the head of the country's securities regulator, Shmuel Hauser, who had promised to act against the industry in August 2016, following an investigation by The Times of Israel.

In August, Israeli Police Superintendent Gabi Biton, accused Israeli crime kingpins of backing the binary options industry.

"Our eyes have been opened. [...] What we're seing here is a massive organised criminal enterprise. We are talking about criminals at various levels of crime organisations, up to the very top," Biton told a meeting of the Reforms Committee in August, according to The Times of Israel.