F.W International (Finance Wise International) establishes unsolicited contact with German customers of the trading platform hoxglobal.com, operated by Trading Global (Hoxton), LTD, and claims to carry on business for the company via its own platform, financewiseint.com. The two websites are almost identical. In accordance with section 37 (4) of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz –KWG),BaFinwould like to make clear thatF.W International (Finance Wise International) does not have authorisation under theKWGto conduct banking business or provide financial services. The company is not supervised byBaFin. The provider claims to have branches in Germany (Berlin), Cyprus, Australia and the United Kingdom. It also claims to be registered with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission; however, this registration refers to a company calledICGlobal MarketsLtd.and the registration cannot be verified.
The information provided on the financewiseint.com website and the information and documents available toBaFingive reasonable grounds to suspect that the website is being used to conduct banking business and/or provide financial services in Germany without the required authorisation.
Companies that conduct banking business or provide financial services in Germany require authorisation under theKWG. However, some companies operate without the necessary authorisation. Information on whether a particular company has been granted authorisation byBaFincan be found in BaFin’s database of companies.
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 to avoid becoming the victim of fraud.