We brought our initial review of broker scheme One Financial Markets (OFM) in May 2022 and a brief update in October. OFM is a brand alongside AXI, with which the Australian AXI Group is active. AXI Group has regulatory permission from the UK FCA and South Africa’s FSCA. However, the offshore mutations of OFM and AXI are operated by an entity in St. Vincent & The Grenadines. We have added AXI Group to our Orange Compliance list.
Axi Group Key data
| Trading names | AXI One Financial Markets |
| Domains | www.onefinancialmarkets.com www.ofmarketsgroup.com www.axi.com https://www.axi.com/int https://www.axi.com/uk https://www.axi.com/de https://www.axi.com/cn www.axi.group |
| Social media | |
| Legal entities | Axi Financial Services (UK) Ltd, UK AxiCorp Limited, UK AxiTrader Limited, SVG AxiCorp Financial Services Pty Ltd |
| Contact | +44 (0) 203 857 2100 + 44 ( 0 ) 203 544 9646 +61 2 9965 5830 +971 44 222 888 [email protected] [email protected] +61448088246 (WhatsApp) |
| Related individuals | Adam James Wilson Marc Kimsey Paul Hodgkiss Pradeep Kher John Hoa Tai Truong Stuart James Cooke Katie Polly le Roux Rajesh Yohannan Paul Kiff Louis Cooper Gavin Ward |
| Jurisdictions | United Kingdom St. Vincent & The Grenadines |
| Regulator | UK FCA for Axi Financial Services (UK) Ltd FSCA for Axi Financial Servies (UK) Ltd and AxiCorp Limited (applied to cancel) |
| Leverage | up to 1:500 |
| Payment options | Credit/debit card, e-wallet |
| Related brands/ Facilitated brands | OnspotBNK (https://onspotb.com) DBFX (https://dbfx.trade) NewFX (https://newfx.us) ICorpSecurities (https://icorpsecurities.com) |
| Warnings | CNVM against NewFX MFSA against NewFX Consob against NewFX Consob against DBFX CNMV against ICorpSecurities |
| Compliance rating | Orange |
The Axi Group Narrative
In May 2022, we published our initial review of the Australian Axi Group and its FCA-regulated One Financial Markets broker. We found that offshore brokers such as OnspotBNK, DBFX, NewFX, or ICorpSecurities were connected to the FCA-regulated broker. We discovered that it offers potential customers from the UK and the EU leverage of up to 1:500 via offshore onboarding. Following our report, some of its offshore brokers blocked EEA residents, and OnspotBNK changed its domain.
The FCA-regulated investment firm Axi Financial Services (UK) Ltd is part of the Australien AXI CORP group, which operates the two broker brands One Financial Markets and AXI, via different legal entities in several jurisdictions.
Through AxiTrader Limited, registered in St. Vincent & The Grenadine, the AXI Group also operates offshore mutations of One Financial Markets and AXI that (not only) solicits residents in the UK and the EU with leverage of up to 1:500.
Our initial review in 2022 revealed that One Financial Markets was the broker and payment processor behind some offshore brokers such as OnspotBNK, DBFX, or NewFX. From the registration via the web trader to the deposits, all content and data were loaded from the One Financial Markets servers (screenshot right).
Based on these findings, we conclude that these Cyprus-controlled offshore brokers are essentially only acting as Introducing Brokers for One Financial Markets without disclosing that. Thus, the FCA-regulated entity would also be jointly responsible for the activities of its offshore broker clients.
The Maltese connections
The OnspotBNK, DBFX, or NewFX offshore broker schemes apparently belong to a network of broker schemes and/or scams that operated DubaiFXM, among others. We have already elaborated on this in a report in November 2021 that, at least for a certain period, the boiler rooms were operated by Gennaro Lanza‘s Maltese Capital Solutions Ltd. Through this boiler room operator, other offshore broker schemes were also operated.
Read the report on Maltese Capital Solutions Ltd here.
Compliance Check
In our review on July 22, 2023, we registered as an EEA resident with the offshore mutation of One Financial Markets and AXI without any problems. We could choose to register with the FCA-regulated or offshore broker with a leverage of 1:500. Both brokers use the same office addresses in the UK and Dubai. The offhore broker schemes of OMF and AXI even use the same phone numbers as the FCA-regulated broker. There is no separation there. They also use the same WhatsApp channel.
In this respect, the Axi Group is using its offshore brokers to circumvent European regulatory requirements and offer retail clients, for example, leverage of up to 1:500. The cooperation with the above-mentioned offshore brokers OnspotBNK, DBFX, or NewFX remains questionable. We have therefore placed the Axi Group broker scheme on our Orange Compliance List.
Share information
If you have any information about the AXI Group, or its connections to the OnstopBKN, NewFX, DBFX, or ICorpSecurties broker schemes, please share it with us through our whistleblower system, Whistle42.
