Brazil's securities regulator has opened sanctions cases against nine foreign trading platforms since 2021, six of them between April 2025 and February 2026, and in August fined Pocket Option's operator R$3.9 million. We read the CVM's own records: who is named, what the penalties have been, how the CVM decides a platform is targeting Brazil, and what it means for traders and for the firms that court them.
On 25 August 2026, the board of Brazil’s Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) unanimously fined Infinite Trade LLC, the company behind the Pocket Option platform, R$3.9 million for publicly offering securities in Brazil without registration. The ruling noted that Pocket Option’s Portuguese website, its social media profiles and a YouTube channel called “Pocket Option Brasil” were still live after two CVM stop orders, in 2021 and 2025.
It is the largest penalty so far in a run of cases against foreign trading platforms. The CVM’s own data on its sanctions cases, updated on 20 October 2026, shows nine cases since December 2021 against foreign companies behind online trading platforms. In eight, the CVM describes the case as an unauthorised offer of securities or intermediation services to Brazilian residents. In the ninth, against two Axi companies, the record does not yet state the charge. Six of them were opened in just over ten months, between April 2025 and February 2026.
This is no longer only about unlicensed binary options sites. The firms named now include well-known names in retail trading: XTB, which is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, Axi, whose ASIC-licensed Australian company is one of the two named, Hantec Markets and FBS. A licence elsewhere does not authorise a firm to serve Brazilians.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 0 |
| 2025 | 5 |
| 2026 (to 20 October) | 1 |
Source: CVM open data on sanctions cases, file dated 20 October 2026; TBR analysis
After three cases in 2021 and 2022, the CVM opened none against a foreign trading platform for almost three years. Then came five in 2025 and one so far in 2026.
| Platform | Companies named by the CVM | Case opened | Where it stands, 20 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ Option | IQ Option LLC | December 2021 | Two settlement offers rejected, of R$30,000 in 2022 and R$200,000 in March 2026; at judgment stage |
| Olymp Trade | Saledo Global LLC | June 2022 | Fined R$680,000 in July 2024; case closed |
| Binomo | Dolphin Corp | July 2022 | Settled for R$2.4 million in February 2024; closed in June 2024 after the settlement was fulfilled |
| Zero Markets | Zero Financial Ltd, Zero Markets LLC and Zero Securities Pty Ltd, with one individual | April 2025 | Settlement proposed in July 2025; at judgment stage |
| XTB | XTB International Limited, with a Brazilian distributor and one individual | June 2025 | Settlement proposed in October 2025; under review |
| Hantec Markets | Hantec Markets Limited and Hantec Markets Ltd., with one individual | July 2025 | Settlement proposed in February 2026; at judgment stage |
| FBS | FBS Markets Inc and Mitsui Markets Ltd | September 2025 | No defence filed; at judgment stage |
| Pocket Option | Infinite Trade LLC | October 2025 | Fined R$3.9 million in August 2026; may appeal |
| Axi | AxiCorp Financial Services Pty Ltd and AxiTrader LLC | February 2026 | Charge not yet published; defence stage closed, and on 15 October both companies said they intend to propose a settlement |
In the open cases the charges are allegations, not findings. A settlement with the CVM, called a termo de compromisso, ends a case without any admission of wrongdoing.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Pocket Option operator, fine, August 2026 | R$3.90m |
| Binomo operator, settlement, February 2024 | R$2.40m |
| Olymp Trade operator, fine, July 2024 | R$0.68m |
Source: CVM judgments and settlement decisions
The Pocket Option ruling shows how the number was built. The board set a base fine of R$3 million, then added 15% for each of two aggravating factors: relevant damage to the image of Brazil’s securities market, and the “systematic and repeated” nature of the conduct. Olymp Trade’s operator was fined R$255,000 for the unregistered public offer and R$425,000 for distributing and intermediating securities outside Brazil’s distribution system. Binomo’s operator agreed to pay R$2.4 million in four equal instalments.
The CVM does not take every offer. IQ Option first offered R$30,000, plus compensation for clients who had complained to the CVM after its 2020 stop order, capped at what each had first deposited. The CVM rejected it in November 2022, after its staff said the company was still repeatedly carrying on the conduct. A second offer, of R$200,000, was rejected unanimously on 24 March 2026: the CVM’s settlement committee found nothing that answered the reasons for the first rejection, and the board decided the case was best decided at judgment.
Every one of these firms is based outside Brazil, so the first question in the offer cases is whether the offer counts as public in Brazil. The CVM applies its Guidance Opinion 33 of 2005: a foreign firm’s offer is public in Brazil if it means to reach Brazilian residents, or if it uses channels that can reach them without taking precautions to stop that happening.
The Pocket Option ruling lists what the CVM looked at:
In a preliminary filing, the firm argued that Brazilians reached the platform entirely on their own initiative, with no marketing effort in Brazil. The CVM rejected that, and gave no weight to a footer disclaimer, added after the investigation began, saying the platform offered no CVM-regulated services. The firm filed no defence.
IQ Option’s first settlement offer is a useful list of what the CVM sees as aiming at Brazil. It offered to stop marketing campaigns directed at the Brazilian market, including on television, billboards and in magazines, to stop saying its services were meant for Brazilian residents, and to remove any flag that referred to Brazil from its website.
A stop order, published as an ato declaratório, is the CVM’s precautionary step: it warns the public and orders the firm to stop. It is not a penalty. At least six of the nine platforms had a CVM stop order or public alert against them before their sanctions case was opened:
| Platform | Earlier CVM warning | Sanctions case opened |
|---|---|---|
| IQ Option | Stop order, April 2020 | December 2021 |
| Olymp Trade | Stop order, February 2019 | June 2022 |
| Binomo | Stop order, June 2020 | July 2022 |
| Hantec Markets | Stop order, February 2022, against a company the CVM found presented itself as responsible for the Hantec Markets website | July 2025 |
| FBS | Public alert, February 2025 | September 2025 |
| Pocket Option | Stop orders, 2021 and July 2025 | October 2025 |
The files show what happens when a warning is ignored. The CVM recorded that IQ Option carried on even after its April 2020 stop order, that Binomo’s Brazilian page was still offering its services when the charges were drawn up in July 2022, that complaints about Olymp Trade kept arriving after its 2019 order, and that Pocket Option’s Portuguese site and Brazil-facing channels were still live after two.
We downloaded the CVM’s open data on its sanctions cases (processo administrativo sancionador), in the file dated 20 October 2026, and selected every case against a foreign company behind an online trading platform. That data describes eight of them as unauthorised offers of securities or intermediation services. The Axi case was opened by the CVM’s intermediaries supervision unit after a complaint, and the data does not state its charge. We left out cases about investment funds, listed companies and a crypto investment scheme. The stage of each case and the dates of each accused party’s steps, such as settlement proposals and defences, are as recorded in that data.
We read the CVM’s decisions in the three closed or decided cases and in the IQ Option settlement decision, and took the penalty amounts from them. The platform behind each company, and the dates of the earlier stop orders and alerts, come from the CVM’s decisions, stop orders and alerts and from our own audits of each platform. The individuals named in some cases are not named here.
Every UK and EU CFD provider must publish the share of its retail accounts that lose money. We collected nine firms' current figures and read the rules that produce them.
A February 2026 statement tells firms that the commercial name of a leveraged derivative is irrelevant. What matters is whether it meets the definition of a CFD, and most perpetuals likely do.
A licence number on a website proves nothing on its own. Six checks, all on regulators' own registers, separate a regulated firm from a clone of one.
