Banning annoying marketing tactics (but not really)

Banning annoying marketing tactics (but not really)

Advertising unlicensed financial services is going to be banned at DIFC. But will it have the same loophole as the telemarketing ban, asks Precious de Leon.

April 18, 2011 3:47 by Precious de Leon

While all financial services have always been DFSA-regulated, there was apparently a way around the regulations to promote financial services. This new move now means “only companies regulated by the DFSA or another UAE federal authority can advertise their services in or from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).”

“The new legislation provides the DFSA with a greater degree of regulatory oversight and control over who may conduct financial promotions in or from the DIFC, and in particular oversight of the standards which such promotions must meet with respect to retail investors,” said Paul Koster, the chief executive of the DFSA, in a statement.

Any sort of client or consumer protection can always be good of course. With this new DFS A regulation in place, “boiler room” scams, which sees duped individuals persuaded into buying hollow investments, will be avoided. Well and good.

Of course Kipp really hopes that really is that…and there aren’t any loopholes around this newly closed loophole (if you know what we mean).

While we’ve seen just about every back and forth-ing on regulations in town, we’ll certainly be disappointed (although not terribly surprised) if we found unlicensed services continuing to advertise under the DIFC umbrella. It’ll certainly be a step backward when the original intention, at least in theory, is to leap forward.

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Tags: authority, calls, DFSA, DIFC, financial, financial services, phone calls, regulate, regulation, scam, services, telemarketing, UAE