FCA fines broker TFS-ICAP £3.4m
The Financial Conduct Authority has fined TFS-ICAP more than £3m after it ruled the forex options broker had mislead customers.
The City watchdog said that between 2008 and 2015, brokers at TFS-ICAP had openly carried out the practice of "printing" trades. Printing involves brokers telling clients that a trade had occurred at a certain price and/or quantity, when in fact no such trade has taken place. Printing is used to encourage customers to trade, even if they were not planning to.
According to the regulator, the TFS-ICAP did not observe proper standards of market conduct by allowing printing to take place. It also found that the firm did not react to warning signs printing was taking place, thereby failing to act with due skill, care and diligence.
The FCA called the practice “opaque and unrecorded”.
Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “This market should take notice that printing, or providing information to clients where the basis for the information is not true, is not in keeping with appropriate standards of market conduct.
“The market should also take notice that the opacity of such practices, while forensically challenging, is no bar to action either.”
The FCA’s investigation included assistance from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the US.
TFS-ICAP has accepted the FCA’s ruling, which qualified the firm for a 30% discount and reduced the original fine from £4.92m to £3.44m.
TFS-ICAP is not associated with UK broker dealer TP ICAP.