The regulatory agency warns against replicating two popular retail trading brands

CoinWorld.com reports:
Despite the efforts of financial market regulatory authorities to crack down on unlicensed investment companies, their struggle seems to be never-ending. The Spanish CNMV has just reported that scammers are once again attempting to impersonate popular retail trading brands. Furthermore, the latest warning list includes entities operating in the country without proper licenses.
CNMV issues alerts against StoneX and IG Group clones
According to the latest update from the Spanish financial market regulatory authority CNMV on Monday, the watchdog has added ten new entities to its warning list.
Among them, “Finance IG”, which operates through the websites Finance-IG.com and financeig.com, is a clone of the popular London-based listed company IG Group, known throughout Europe and worldwide.
The warning list also includes clones, which refers to entities or individuals using the details of authorized companies in an attempt to convince people that they are engaged in fraudulent activities at these companies. This is a relatively new strategy, with fraudsters using the names, “company registration numbers,” and addresses of companies and individuals authorized by regulatory bodies to make themselves appear legitimate. Cloning seems to be a primitive technique that scammers have adopted in the information age. As the regulatory authority states, cloning refers to entities or individuals using the details of authorized companies in an attempt to convince people that they are engaged in fraudulent activities at these companies. This is a relatively new strategy, with fraudsters using the names, “company registration numbers,” and addresses of companies and individuals authorized by regulatory bodies to make themselves appear legitimate. Cloning seems to be a primitive technique that scammers have adopted in the information age. Among the entities targeted by the regulatory authority is StoneX, a US-based company, as stated on its website stonexly.com/es.
Unfortunately, attempts to imitate popular brands are common. Just a few months ago, CNMV also warned against a company impersonating the popular social trading platform eToro.
According to a survey conducted by Finance Magnates and FXStreet, clones of brokers and signal providers are considered the biggest threat to the retail trading industry. However, conversations with representatives of frequently cloned companies indicate that this practice is widespread, making it extremely challenging to effectively prevent it.
Eight unauthorized entities and clones
In addition to the two clones warned by CNMV, the update also includes information about eight entities operating in the Spanish market without proper authorization.
These entities include Fusionlot, TD Markets, Rumlenomic, AMI Solutions, Adent Capital, TCM Globals, and Trader Expertss:
According to CNMV, “Based on the records of the CNMV, these entities are not registered in the corresponding register of the Commission and therefore are not authorized to provide investment services or other activities supervised by the CNMV.”
This is another update to the Spanish regulatory authority’s warning list in the past month. In June, Finance Magnates reported that eight unregistered forex/CFD brokers were under scrutiny by CNMV.
Recently, CNMV has also shown interest in Linq Capital, a company that offers leveraged trading. In financial trading, leverage is a loan provided by brokers that enables traders to control significantly larger funds with a relatively small initial investment. As a result, compared to trading without any leverage, leverage allows traders to achieve greater investment returns. Traders attempt to profit from fluctuations in financial markets such as stocks and currencies. Trading without any leverage would greatly reduce the potential returns, so traders read this term as high as 1000:1. The company claims to be registered in the UK, a city that doesn’t actually exist. Several months ago, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority also drew attention to its suspicious activities.