The fight against binary options schemes has reached a new level as provincial securities regulators have proposed a nationwide ban on selling the unregulated investments.
Binary options – where investors bet via an internet brokerage on the performance of an underlying asset, like a stock index, over a short period of time in an all-or-nothing proposition – have been on the rise in Canada, and have resulted in people across the country losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“In my mind, it is Canada’s greatest investment fraud threat,” said Jason Roy, a senior investigator with the Manitoba Securities Commission.
There are no binary options firms registered to operate in Canada. The unregulated industry involves hundreds of overseas organizations using boiler-room tactics to lure potential victims.
Advertisements for binary options are all over the internet, they use ads and fake websites to target innocent Canadians with hooks like “Winnipeg millionaire exposes how she makes $472/hr.”
Read more at Winnipeg Free Press
