Retail broker Exness has stopped onboarding customers in India.
The broker sent a message to affiliates, saying that it would no longer accept client referrals from India. The pause seems to have been in place since last Friday.
Visiting Exness from an Indian IP address also shows a simple log in screen, rather than the broker’s actual homepage, which let’s you either log in or sign up.
If you try to sign up for an account, you receive a notice saying that sign ups are not permitted from the region.
However, clients with an existing account can still log in and trade with the broker.
Why did Exness stop taking clients in India?
Exness has been huge in India for a long period of time now.
The company always operated in the country via affiliates and introducing brokers, as it does in most other markets it has a large presence in.
There has been on official explanation as to why the company has stopped accepting clients in India.
CFD trading is prohibited within in India itself, meaning firms have to rely on reverse solicitation rules to accept clients.
However, even doing that can lead to problems.
For example, OctaFX was also very active in India but then faced a huge backlash from local authorities. One report from June indicates the firm made approximately $92m in less than 12 months from its activities in the country.
Will Exness go back to India?
On Wednesday, the broker told existing clients it will be transferring them from its Seychelles entity to one in Vanuatu.
Whether that precedes some sort of return to the market remains to be seen.
The Seychelles has taken steps that suggests it wants to limit the number of brokers that have a local license over the last 12 months or so.
That was reflected in the roll out of a number of changes to the requirements license holders have to meet earlier this year.