Pepperstone, Capital.com and Trade Nation have launched a new industry association in the Bahamas, aiming to enhance coordination among forex and CFD firms and strengthen engagement with local regulators. The Bahamas Institute of Forex and CFD Issuers (BIFCI) has been created as a broker-led body to represent licensed entities in a growing offshore market.
According to Tamas Szabo, Group CEO of Pepperstone, the initiative has been under development since April 2023 and is now operational. The concept arose from common challenges faced by licensed firms in the jurisdiction, including navigating regulatory expectations, capital requirements and market conduct standards.
The three founding brokers already operate under multiple major regulatory regimes, answering to the FCA, ASIC and CySEC. Through BIFCI, they are seeking to bring that governance mindset to their offshore operations by creating a formal trade body around their Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB)-licensed entities.
Membership and Regulatory Context
BIFCI has opened its membership to all licensed brokers in the Bahamas. However, some of the largest SCB-licensed brokers in the jurisdiction, including IC Markets, FxPro, Eightcap, ActivTrades and Infinox, are not part of the founding group. The association’s launch therefore marks a coordinated step by a subset of multi-jurisdiction brokers rather than a universal industry alignment at this stage.
The establishment of BIFCI comes against the backdrop of a defined regulatory framework for contracts for differences in the Bahamas. The Securities Industry (Contracts For Differences) Rules 2020, which came into force in May 2021, introduced several key measures. These include leverage caps of up to 200:1 for retail clients, a ban on binary options, negative balance protection and tighter restrictions on marketing activities.
Significance for the Offshore Market
In many offshore centres, brokers typically operate independently under local rules without a collective trade body. The creation of BIFCI brings together three multi-jurisdiction brokers to form a formal association focused on regulatory engagement and industry standards among SCB-licensed entities.
This development stands out as a notable outlier compared with other offshore hubs, where similar broker-led coordination is less common. By establishing BIFCI, Pepperstone, Capital.com and Trade Nation are seeking to address shared operational and regulatory issues in the Bahamas while potentially shaping how the offshore forex and CFD market evolves under the existing rules framework.
