Italy’s Consob Blocks Five Unauthorized Financial Services Websites

Consob, the Italian government’s top authority responsible for regulating the domestic securities market, has issued an order to block five websites that allegedly offer Italians illicit financial services.

According to the watchdog, the ruling enacted under the “Growth Decree” asks internet service providers to blacklist Preqster Ltd (www.pips500.com and my.pips500.com), Trade Action Ltd and TradeSaction Ltd (tradesaction.com and accounts.tradesaction.com), Libortrading Ltd and LiborTC Ltd (libortrading.com and client.libortrading.com), Astrica Ltd (www.vipforexpro.com), Orobanc and Equal Target Ltd (orobanc.com).

With the new addition of blocked financial trading-related websites, the number of sites blacklisted by Consob rose to 462 since July 2019, when the Italian watchdog got the power to prevent these “fraudulent financial intermediaries” from being accessed from the country. The authority clarified that it could take several days for the blackout to come into effect due to technical reasons.

“Consob draws investors’ attention to the importance of adopting the greatest diligence in order to make informed investment choices, adopting common sense behaviors, essential to safeguard their savings: these include, for websites that offer financial services, checking in advance that the operator with whom they are investing is authorized, and, for offers of financial products, that a prospectus has been published,” the Italian financial watchdog stated.

Other Sites Blocked by the Regulator So Far This Year

Furthermore, Consob reminded Italians to check their official website to watch out for warnings issued against “financially abusive initiatives.”

Recently, Finance Magnates reported that the authority blocked five other websites tied to financial market services. Sites blacklisted during the campaign were Consob blacklisted Atlasfx, S.P. Inc, Digital Exchange Limited and Securex Plus Solution EOOD, Think Market 247 Ltd and RL Ltd, and Finlay, with most of them related to foreign exchange (forex) brokers. Also, in February, the websites of Nab Europe Limited, Swiss Management Corporation, Expertsystemsfx, FXOptexGroups, Italiano invest, and QubitTech Corporation were blocked by Consob.