The Capital Market Authority of Rwanda (CMA Rwanda) is a regulatory public institution established by Law with a dual mandate of facilitating market development while fostering investor protection in the Rwandan capital market industry. One of the ways to achieve its mandates include putting in place and maintaining a conducive legal and regulatory framework that promotes and ensures an orderly, fair, transparent and efficient capital market in Rwanda.  In line with the above, the Capital Market Authority of Rwanda announces the publication of the Regulations Governing Leveraged Foreign Exchange Trading in Rwanda.

Leveraged Foreign Exchange Trading is an internet-based trading business carried out Over the Counter (OTC), that enables traders to trade on the price movement of currency pairs (rising or falling prices of foreign exchange) by depositing a small percentage of the full value of the trade in order to open a position, which allows to magnify either returns or losses.  It is one of the contracts for differences product family where the underlying asset is currency.

The establishment of these regulations is a result of a recent demand from the market to put in place a regulatory framework for Leveraged Foreign Exchange Trading (commonly known as “online forex trading”) in Rwanda. Many Rwandans especially the youth have been participating in this type of business using local and foreign players mostly over the internet without knowing whether such players are licensed or not, which posed a high risk to them.

CMA calls upon all players interested to operate Leveraged Foreign Exchange Trading in Rwanda to apply for an appropriate license. CMA further takes this opportunity to inform the general public interested to invest in such business to always ascertain that the players they will be engaging are licensed to operate such type of business in Rwanda. The Regulations are available in the Official Gazette of Rwanda Nº 001/CMA/2024 OF 26/02/2024 and CMA website: https://www.cma.rw/index.php?id=118