ACH that Claims to Hold “FSP License” is Unregulated

Broker: ACH (New Zealand)

Visited on: October 18th, 2019

Conclusion: broker‘s office doesn’t exist at the regulatory address

On-the-spot investigation

Regulatory information shows that New Zealand forex broker ACH is located at Suite 1 Level 2, 20 Northcroft Street Takapuna Auckland, and WikiFX survey team recently visited ACH at the place.

Following the map‘s direction, WikiFX team soon found the office building in a small business district on the north shore of Auckland. We entered the 2-storey building, but didn’t find the name of ACH on the directory sign in the first-floor lobby. After coming to the second floor, we still didnt find the office of ACH. We asked the staff in the nearby office about ACH and was told that they had no idea about this company. Thus we confirm through the visit that the office of the New Zealand broker ACH does not exist at the alleged location.

Survey analysis

As the country that starts trading earliest everyday on the global market, New Zealand enjoys a significant status on the forex market. In recent years, more and more brokers have chosen to register in New Zealand. However, prudent investors may notice that brokers registered in New Zealand will usually mention 2 different types of regulatory licenses, FSP and FMA, and may wonder about the difference between them.

FSP is abbreviation for “Financial Service Providers”, and New Zealand‘s legislation requires all individuals and organizations that provide financial services in the country to have FSP registration. Meanwhile, any compliant foreign exchange broker under New Zealand’s regulation must obtain FMA (Financial Markets Authority)s license for derivative provider, in order to operate on derivatives market. Therefore, a broker with an FSP registration number cannot be considered to be fully compliant; only those who also hold an FMA license are qualified for providing forex-related products and services.

Obviously, ACH is taking advantage of investors knowledge blind-spot about New Zealand regulation. The broker might have an FSP's registration as it claims, but without a proper FMA license, it is nevertheless unqualified for forex business operations.

Conclusion

According to WikiFX App, ACH has no valid regulation at the moment and even its FSP registration had already expired. WikiFX has marked ACH as an illegal broker to warn investors against it.