Erscheinung:13.11.2023 | Topic Unauthorised business, Consumer protection fintechmarket-consulting.com: BaFin investigates website operator
The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) warns consumers about the website fintechmarket-consulting.com. According to information available to BaFin, the operators are providing financial and investment services on this website without the required authorisation.
The website operators claim that they have a business address in Steyr, Austria and that Fintech Market PLC is regulated by the British supervisor, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This is not the case: we refer to the warning that the FCA had already issued to consumers on 6 January 2023 concerning “Fintech Market”.
The website operators also claim that fintechmarket-consulting.com is supervised by a supervisory authority they refer to as the “European Financial Supervisory Authority”, FISEU. On 10 February 2023, BaFin had already issued a warning in which it informed consumers that FISEU is not a supervisory authority. Consumers are asked to turn down any offers or demands if they contain a reference to FISEU as supervisory authority.
Anyone conducting banking business or providing financial or investment services in Germany may do so only with authorisation from BaFin. However, some companies offer these services without the required authorisation. Information on whether a particular company has been granted authorisation by BaFin can be found in BaFin’s database of companies.
The information provided by BaFin is based on section 37 (4) of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz – KWG).
Please be aware
BaFin, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt – BKA) and the German state criminal police offices (Landeskriminalämter) recommend that consumers seeking to invest money online should exercise the utmost caution and do the necessary research beforehand in order to identify fraud attempts at an early stage.
