AMF Forex Regulation – Should You Trust It?

AMF, which is also known as Autorité des marchés financiers, is a regulatory body in France and monitors and controls the field of finances. As Forex trading in France becomes quite popular from time to time, more and more brokers try to become AMF-registered brokers, as the organization allows them to make their services more attractive for traders and investors in the Forex industry.

AMF is the autonomous government agency responsible for managing French financial markets under the Financial Security Act (2003). The establishment of the AMF was a merging of 3 national financial supervisory bodies: The Committee of Operations of the Bourse (COB), the Council of Financial Markets, and, of course, the Council of Discipline of the Financial Management (CMF) (CDGF). The AMF is supported by the money charged by financial firms that it supervises, led by present Chairman Robert Ophèle.

The regulatory body was established in 2003 and is headquartered in Paris, France. The AMF-registered brokers’ list is quite wide, however, this doesn’t mean that the company can’t control all of them individually and provide investors with eloquent services. The organization has several aims and goals that should be fulfilled, including:

• Protect investors’ and customers’ financial assets and provide them with the service of helping and supporting with making savings and investments in a safe way;
• Make sure customers get significant and reliable data;
• Keep the financial system stable.

Moreover, it should be said that this organization is part of the European regulatory umbrella which is known as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).

What Does AMF Do?

AMF is an acronym for the Autorité des marchés financiers. It is a self-regulatory body in France and it operates under the jurisdiction of the French Government. Its main duties and responsibilities lie in monitoring and making processes transparent in the financial sector. The AMF not only provides customers with an AMF-regulated Forex brokers list, but it also has several aims, like controlling the malpractice and crime in the industry of finances.

The corporation’s major goal is to ensure that investors have a secure environment to preserve their assets. AMF increasingly draws investors in the nation with its initiatives.

AMF oversees every stakeholder, including asset managers, financial advisers, fundraising experts, and national depository securities, and its products functioning in the nation as its obligation to French banking firms.

The AMF is authorized to establish boundaries, investigate crimes, and impose financial penalties on enterprises discovered to be violating compliance responsibilities, to investigate and stop money laundering, terrorism funding, and other illegal criminal activity. The AMF may also penalize people, including managers, workers, and officials, or anybody working on behalf of a commercial bank within a finance company. In addition to that, the company tries to actively monitor those FX brokers that are given on the AMF broker list.

The organization has several aims and objectives in order to make processes that are related to the financial sector proper. One of the main ideas of the organization is providing investors with a fair competitive environment where they are allowed to make their services more eloquent and attractive for both domestic and international investors. Moreover, the main goal, which should be accomplished by this company is to prevent crimes that aren’t quite rare in the financial sector. The main crime which should be precluded is money laundering and the malpractice that is familiar with Forex trading.

How Does the AMF Operate?

This regulatory body implements its duties and responsibilities in accordance with Article L. 561-36 of the French Monetary and Financial Code. The AMF strives to guarantee that banking firms function in adherence and compliance with the compliance criteria laid out in the anti-cash laundering rules of the AMF with this power. The anti-money laundering initiatives of the AMF include, in practice:

Risk-based vigilance: The AMF demands the maintenance of adequate vigilance by French financial firms in maintaining the asset allocations of its clients. This responsibility means that every commercial bank must be ready to adopt its own AML policies, AMF standards, and regulatory mechanisms.

Reporting obligations: The AMF again mandates the financial firms and institutions, as well to disclose to the French authorities any suspected behavior regarding money laundering. In particular, corporations must notify of the implementation by the AMF of its money laundering legislation to TRAFCIN (Treatment of Intelligence and Against Les Circuits Financiers Clandestine), the French Ministry of Finance’s enforcement organization.

Audits and inspections: AMF carries out auditing by French financial institutions to execute money laundering rules and fully comply with them, focusing both on internal AML systems and operations and on facilities and on Compliance monitoring persons. The AMF Enforcement Committee is usually notified of violations of compliance.

AMF Regulatory – Can You Trust Your Funds To It?

France is an EU member and hence the AMF has to comply with the EMIR laws and regulations (The European Market Infrastructure Regulation).

They additionally removed a number of websites outside and locally in order to keep the marketplace away from corrupt practices.

The Financial Agents Register provides the regulated Forex business directory online. This list is known as the REGAFI list.