Licensed and registered in Vanuatu, but not searchable

Question

On the Topic Markets website we can find the following statement in the footer:

LEGAL: Topic Markets Limited is licensed and registered in Vanuatu by the Vanuatu financial service commission under the name of TMI Holding Limited.

which points to Licensees-List-update-November-2017.pdf file hosted on the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission website, and the company exists on the 476th place as TMI Holding Ltd.

However when I perform the register search on the vfsc.vu the website, the record is not there.

Does it mean the company had the license for some reason and got removed? Is there any way of to check when and why it was removed?

Answer 1

LEGAL: Topic Markets Limited is licensed and registered in Vanuatu by the Vanuatu financial service commission under the name of TMI Holding Limited.

One can claim anything on website. It can say Topic Markets Limited is licensed and registered in USA by FSA under Apple or Google. So that statement has very little value. Apart from the claim, there is nothing to show that TMI Holding a registered entity is running the website.

However when I perform the register search on the vfsc.vu the website, the record is not there.

Maybe the search only lists companies and not brokers. I couldn't find any of the brokers listed in PDF via search, not just TMI. BTW the updated list of Feb 2018 again shows TMI on 480. The list also has 2dots at number 1. Some of the websites like https://www.8infx.com/index.php quote they are registered as 2dots. Again there is no way to tell it apart.

Does it mean the company had the license for some reason and got removed? Is there any way of to check when and why it was removed?

Such scams are very sophisticated and often impossible to trace back to single person / entity. They create a maze of obscure things that are difficult to trace back.

Good Luck.

Answer 2

To answer your direct question: if you look at this page, the link "Licensees List update February 2018" returns a PDF document which does list TMI Holding Limited. Why it's not returned from the search function, nobody can tell you except the folks at Vanuatu Financial Services Commission website. Why don't you ask them?

To offer some unsolicited advice, your question is the next thing to irrelevant. Are you prepared to hire a solicitor in Vanuatu to enforce your interests? What regulations does Vanuatu impose on brokers? What are their enforcement powers? You should be aware that some nations will happily register companies for all sorts of roles as long as they pay the required fee, and offer NO actual regulation or legal recourse whatsoever. I've no idea if Vanuatu is in that category or not, but if you don't know either, why would you place any value on a financial company's promise that it is registered with the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission? Unless you have the wherewithal to hire overseas attorneys, you had better stick to businesses with a physical presence in the UK, and even then you'd better find out in advance who they are regulated by, and how complaints are investigated.