Metro Options Limited was wound up on 13 November 2017. It traded from the website www.metrooptions.com between July 2015 to December 2016 with the website not being accessible after this period.
Binary options, bets on whether investments will go up or down, have seen a growing number of scams in recent years. Since 2012, there have been a reported 2,605 victims who have lost £59.4m on binary options scams.
It is understood that Metro Option’s sales representatives offered investors the opportunity to conduct binary options trading, a form of fixed-odds betting on movements in financial markets. The website made various investment return claims, none of which were founded, including:
• Profits of £400 per £500 trade were achievable
• The company would match customer deposits and that a bonus scheme existed
• Trading insurances of between 50% and 100% would be provided
• The company had more than 600 retail clients
• The company was awaiting a licence renewal from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission
• The company operated a one-off refund policy for losses incurred in a 90 day period
Customers who contacted the police, via Action Fraud, said that the company ceased all communication after requests for refunds or supposed investment returns were made.
Metro Options falsely claimed to have a Canary Wharf registered office.
Cheryl Lambert, a chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “The Insolvency Service will take action against companies that make unfounded and misleading statements in order to induce members of the public to invest money.”
Binary options are currently regulated by the UK’s Gambling Commission but only if the firm has gambling equipment in the UK. Consumers do not currently have the protections offered by the UK’s financial services regulatory framework when purchasing binary options.
From 3 January firms offering binary options will be regulated by the FCA. However, the FCA warns that any binary options firms based in other EU states will still be regulated by their home regulator although they will appear on the FCA register if they operate in the UK.