Erscheinung:22.04.2021 | Topic Unauthorised business Lollygag Partners LTD/online trading platform finocapital.io: BaFin prohibits unauthorised portfolio management and unauthorised proprietary trading
In a notice dated 25 March 2021, BaFin ordered Lollygag Partners LTD, Dominica, to immediately cease its unauthorised portfolio management activities and unauthorised proprietary trading.
The company opens trading accounts for clients on its trading platform finocapital.io. These accounts are supposed to enable customers to trade in CFDs, forex products, futures, indices, metals, energy and shares. The company makes investment decisions regarding the accounts without consulting the account holders beforehand. Lollygag Partners LTD offers trades at prices determined by the company itself, and then acts as counterparty in its clients’ trading contracts.
The company is therefore conducting portfolio management activities under section 1 (1a) sentence 2 no. 3 of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz – KWG) and proprietary trading under section 1 (1a) sentence 2 no. 4 (c) of the KWG on a commercial basis. However, it does not hold authorisation from BaFin as required under section 32 (1) of the KWG and is thus conducting unauthorised business.
Persons who claimed to be employees of BaFin called clients of Lollygag Partners LTD in connection with the aforementioned transactions. These clients later received e-mails from the following e-mail address, suggesting they were sent by BaFin: support@bbafin.com. BaFin would like to stress that, as a financial supervisory authority, it is not involved in any business transactions conducted by providers of financial services. The e-mail address in question is not a genuine BaFin e-mail address.
