The UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has provided an update to clients of Foreign Currency Innovations Ltd, trading as FCI Markets.
The brokerage has been authorized by the FCA since July 2014. FCI offered a range of brokerage services, including contracts for differences (CFDs), rolling currency contracts and spread betting.
FCI entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation on 10 March 2023 with James Patchett of Turpin Baker Armstrong and Stephen Katz of Begbies Traynor appointed as Joint Liquidators.
The FSCS is working with the Joint Liquidators to understand whether there are likely to be valid claims that would allow the Scheme to pay compensation. The FSCS will now open online claims service in the claims.
The documentation that the Joint Liquidators were able to obtain from the FCI and send to the FSCS to assist its investigation was limited. So the FSCS asks customers to send the following evidence to help them process their claim:
- Copies of contracts with FCI (business terms or customer agreements),
- Evidence of investments / positions held,
- Bank statements showing money transferred to or received by FCI,
- Annual statements
- Brochures or any other promotional material provided by FCI,
- Copies of any complaints made to FCI, together with any responses received;
- Any other correspondence with the company in relation to investments made / positions held.
Business customers who believe they should have been classified as retail customers should submit any relevant questionnaires and explain why they believe they have been misclassified, if they were aware of the misclassification, and copies of correspondence regarding it.
Although the FSCS accepts claims against FCI, they will not be immediately forwarded to its claims processing teams for assessment. This is because the FSCS is still investigating the company to see if any claims qualify for compensation and this may take some time.
The FSCS will provide updated information through a special website as his research progresses.