The FCA has welcomed the European regulator’s decision to potentially intervene in the binary options market which has seen a large number of scams hitting UK investors.

A company offering a binary options trading platform to investors has been successfully shut down by the Insolvency Service at Manchester District Registry after investors lost £350,000.

The FCA will take over regulation of binary options from the Gambling Commission from 3 January in the wake of a growing number of investment scams which have cheated investors out of millions.

Two companies have been placed in provisional liquidation following an investigation by Company Investigations Unit of The Insolvency Service.