Australia's ASIC and UK's FCA look to regulate copy trading

Article originally published on Leaprate

Those who make money by having retail traders copy or mirror their trades will need to be licensed.

Two of the world's leading financial regulators, certainly when it comes to forex regulation -- ASIC in Australia and the FCA in the UK -- are in the advanced planning stages of regulating the practice of copy trading / auto trading / mirror trading.

While still not finalized in either instance, it appears as if both ASIC and the FCA will require anyone directing the investing and trading of client money, such as copy and mirror trade leaders as well as PAMM managers, to have an appropriate money managers' license, whether or not they actually hold client funds.

In ASIC's case, in a post they made yesterday on the topic of high frequency trading and dark liquidity (large anonymous trades done away from an exchange), ASIC made a side note that "it will "release guidance on automated trading and market manipulation in coming months". ASIC has already held discussions with certain industry participants in Australia as it prepares its final guidelines for auto and copy trading.

In Europe, the FCA is looking at a pan-European ESMA rule which is already on the books but which is not enforced, which states that mirror-trading falls within the parameters of MiFID regulated portfolio management. What this means is that trade 'leaders', and PAMM managers, will need to hold an investment manager license if they direct the trades of retail forex traders. We reported yesterday that newly-launched trader education and trade leader rating company TradeSlide spent a year to receive their investment manager license from the FCA, in anticipation of the enforcement of these rules.