FCA says Alpari customer money is ring-fenced
LONDON (Reuters) - Alpari, the British foreign exchange broker in special administration, has more than 100,000 customers whose money has been kept at arm's length from the company, the Financial Conduct Authority said on Tuesday.
The administrators will assess whether any client money is missing, the watchdog said.
"The initial view in the early stages is that the client money is whole," the UK regulator said in a statement on its website.
This refers to the money from customers of Alpari being kept in accounts separate from the company itself, though customers could still lose on trades if they were on the wrong side of the market when the cap on the Swiss franc was ditched.
Alpari lost millions of dollars after the Swiss National Bank last week abandoned the more than three-year old cap against the euro, and administrators were appointed to the firm on Monday.
"The special administrators will return as much client money to clients as possible, as quickly as possible," the FCA said.
If there are any customer losses related to client money, customers may be eligible for compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, it added.
(Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by Marc Jones and John Stonestreet)
