The financial industry regulator of Russia has recently observed a continuous downturn in the volume of complaints that customers have filed. This is in specific regards to the forex dealers within the country, ones that provide licensed FX services through an OTC format to Russia’s many residents.

Recording Drops Across the Board

The Russian Central Bank (RCB) has recently analyzed the complaints it has received through the year of 2019, particularly against financial services firms. As the study shows, the overall volume of complaints totaled in at about 246,600, which is a decent 2.8% drop from the year before.

When you start going into the details, securities brokers, in particular, managed to clean up their act significantly. The total amount of complaints against them totaled 1,000, with the previous year’s complaints totaling 1,439. The increase is a tad more than 30%, meaning Russia’s securities industry almost dropped a third in complaints.

New Regulations Possible Too Strict

An important fact to know is that only 40 of these complaints were actually aimed against OTC FX brokers, which means that only 4% of these customers were dissatisfied with the OTC FX industry. An impressive number, no matter how you look at it.

However, there is a darker side to this improvement. Russia’s new crackdown within the FX industry, coupled with the RCB’s extensive efforts to limit its products, might actually just be driving customers away. Thus, the net decrease in complaints could be less about the improved regulations, and more about traders opting out of the sanctioned products within Russia. After all, why struggle locally when you can do business in more lax jurisdiction outside your country’s borders? Russian interest in the country’s speculative products have been suffering under the new laws, so much so that they’re not even getting as many complaints anymore, it seems.

Eliminating The Competition

The CBR has actually done something objectively impressive, but subjectively less so. The Bank had managed to eliminate its competition within the entire forex industry of the country, having done so in just over two years. The CBR managed to do so due to its ability to strip brokerage firms of their licenses to trade forex within Russia’s borders.

However, it seems the RCB is doing something right. The Bank claims that fewer Russians are partaking in illegal financial schemes, now. At the same time, the regulator is recording a notable rise in the opening of trading accounts through legal avenues. Maybe the business loss was for the best.