Things do not have to be illegal for retail investors to get ripped off. Why did ASIC allow what went on below, is it because they did not want to upset the big end of town ?
The following is for 2018:
The corporate regulator has accused global financial companies of flogging billions of dollars of risky derivatives via Australia, in a "regulatory arbitrage" that has caused $2 billion in losses to a million investors, mostly in Asia.
ASIC said the 65 Australian licensees issuing the products have 1 million clients, with 83 per cent based offshore, and over 60 per cent in Asia. The biggest market for foreign buyers is China – it represents 21 per cent of total clients – even though China has made foreign exchange margin trading illegal.
Binary options and CFD issuers reported aggregate annual marketing expenses up 40 per cent, from $93 million in 2017 to $131 million in 2018, even though there was no material change in the number of issuers. This amount is understood to be similar to the entire marketing spend of the Australian gambling industry.
During the calendar year 2018, ASIC said issuers of binary options and CFDs received gross trading revenue of $2 billion, of which $490 million was from binary options and $1.5 billion from CFDs. These numbers are roughly equivalent to customer losses, given the all or nothing nature of the bet.
