SHEER MARKETS and STUNWILL Regulatory Risk Review

From 2025 to the first half of 2026, global financial markets continued to experience sharp volatility. After repeatedly reaching new historical highs, gold prices entered a wide trading range. U.S. stocks underwent repeated adjustments under the influence of expectations for Federal Reserve monetary policy, while the cryptocurrency market showed even more pronounced volatility. Against this backdrop, intensive market trading signals attracted a large number of investors to participate. However, in addition to market price fluctuations themselves, the compliance status of trading platforms also represents a risk exposure that cannot be ignored.

According to a recently released regulatory tracking report by a third-party forex industry monitoring platform, the license status of two online trading platforms, SHEER MARKETS and STUNWILL, has undergone major changes. The former’s regulated entity has completed a name change, while the latter’s registration in Canada has expired and become invalid, leaving uncertainty over the safety of investor funds.

SHEER MARKETS:CySECLicensed Entity Renamed Gate Securities

SHEER MARKETS is registered in Cyprus and has been operating for approximately five to ten years. It previously held an investment firm license issued by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), license number 395/20, with the license issued on December 18, 2020. The platform offers CFD products covering forex, non-deliverable forwards (NDF), stocks, indices, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. Its advanced account offers maximum leverage of 100:1, with a minimum deposit threshold of EUR 2,500.

According to the official CySEC registration information page, the registered entity corresponding to license number 395/20 has changed from Sheer Markets (Cyprus) Ltd to Gate Securities (Cyprus) Ltd. The company currently operates under the Gate Securities brand, with its registered address at 331, 28th October Avenue, Lido House Block 2, Unit 365, Limassol. The CySEC registration page shows that the license remains active. However, investors conducting business under the “SHEER MARKETS” brand should note that the corresponding regulated entity has undergone a legal entity name change.

The third-party monitoring platform stated that when searching under the “SHEER MARKETS” brand, it could no longer match a valid regulatory relationship. As a result, the brand was marked as having “questionable regulatory license,” “questionable business region,” and “high-level risk concerns.” In its multidimensional assessment, the platform received extremely low scores in key indicators such as licensing, regulation, and risk control, with an overall evaluation score of only 1.51.

CySEC Has Continued to Strengthen Enforcement in Recent Years

CySEC Chairman George Theocharides stated in January 2026 that administrative fines and settlement amounts imposed through regulatory enforcement actions in 2025 totaled approximately EUR 2.3 million, of which EUR 1.3 million targeted Cyprus investment firms. Total fines over the past three years reached EUR 7.3 million. In 2025, CySEC also approved 47 new licenses while revoking licenses or suspending authorizations for a number of licensed entities that failed to meet compliance standards. As of the end of 2025, the total number of entities regulated by CySEC stood at 808.

(Source: Cyprus Mail, CySEC imposes €2.3 million in fines, tightens AML and sanctions enforcement, published: 2026-01-21.)

Key Risk Points Investors Should Watch

• The legal entity corresponding to license number 395/20 has changed from Sheer Markets (Cyprus) Ltd to Gate Securities (Cyprus) Ltd. Searching regulatory information under the old brand name may be misleading.

• The CySEC registration page shows that the license remained active at the time of inquiry, but the third-party monitoring platform determined the brand to be “regulatory status questionable” after searching by brand name, creating an information gap between the two.

• Investors should verify the licensed entity name, license number, and current status of the trading platform directly through CySEC’s official register, rather than relying solely on third-party platform ratings.

• CySEC’s regulatory enforcement has tightened in recent years. In 2025, a number of investment firms were fined or had their licenses revoked due to failures in anti-money laundering compliance, late annual report submissions, and other issues. The industry compliance environment is becoming stricter.

STUNWILL:FINTRACRegistration Expired, No Office Found During Site Visit

STUNWILL is registered in the United Kingdom, has been operating for approximately five to ten years, and its domain mainly targets Chinese investors. The platform previously claimed to hold a license from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), number M21737310, and a license from the U.S. National Futures Association (NFA), number 0540894.

Upon verification, records in FINTRAC’s official Money Services Business Registry show that the initial registration date for number M21737310 was November 19, 2021, with validity until November 30, 2024. The registration was not renewed and is currently invalid. Canadian federal corporate registration information also shows that STUNWILL LIMITED was incorporated in Canada on November 4, 2021, with corporation number 13485544 and a registered address at 500 Laurier Avenue West, Suite 20, Ottawa, ON K1R 7X6.

(Source: FINTRAC, Money Services Business Registry; Canadian federal corporate registration information, Corporation Number 13485544, registration date: 2021-11-04.)

Legal Nature of FINTRAC Registration: AML Registration, Not a Financial Regulatory License

FINTRAC is Canada’s financial intelligence unit established under theProceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. Its main responsibility is to ensure that money services businesses (MSB) fulfill their anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing reporting obligations. FINTRAC clearly states in its official registry that registration does not mean FINTRAC endorses or licenses the business; FINTRAC does not issue licenses or registration certificates to businesses it regulates; and FINTRAC cannot provide any additional information about a business beyond what is already publicly available in the registry.

FINTRAC does not regulate the commercial conduct of money services businesses, has no authority to approve or cancel financial transactions, and has no authority to freeze funds or assist in recovering funds. Therefore, STUNWILL’s packaging of FINTRAC registration as a “forex regulatory license” is, in substance, the use of anti-money laundering registration to impersonate financial regulatory authorization, which is seriously misleading to investors.

(Source: FINTRAC, Money services businesses with revoked registration and MSB Registry page notes, updated: June 2026.)

FINTRAC 2024–2025 Enforcement Data

According to data disclosed in FINTRAC’s 2024–2025 annual report, 12 money services business registrations were revoked during the year; 509 new businesses completed registration; 351 businesses completed renewal; 198 businesses voluntarily cancelled their registration; and 566 registrations expired without renewal. In the first quarter of 2026, FINTRAC revoked the registrations of 35 money services businesses in two rounds of coordinated enforcement actions, with 94% of the revoked entities registered in 2021. In September and October 2024, FINTRAC imposed administrative monetary penalties of approximately CAD 20 million and approximately CAD 177 million, respectively, on two MSB operators involved in virtual currency, with the latter being the largest recorded penalty ever imposed on a cryptocurrency business in Canada.

Site Visit Result: Registered Address Is a Senior Care Centre, No Actual Office Found

On July 31, 2024, the field investigation team of a third-party monitoring platform visited the business address publicly displayed by STUNWILL in Ottawa, Canada: 500 Laurier Avenue West, Suite 20. The findings were as follows:

1. The building at this address is a senior care centre. The public information board in the building displayed only the names of senior care centre staff, with no company name or signage related to STUNWILL.

2. Building management refused access to the floors for individuals who were not relatives of residents.

3. The field investigation concluded that STUNWILL had no real business premises and merely used the address for corporate registration.

Summary of User Complaints

A large number of user complaints against STUNWILL have appeared on several forex industry monitoring platforms, mainly involving the following issues:

• Withdrawals not received: some users reported that after submitting withdrawal requests, funds did not arrive, and communication with the platform produced no substantive result. They regarded the platform as engaging in fraudulent conduct.

• Unauthorized account operations: some users reported that the platform changed their MT5 trading account passwords without authorization and executed trades, resulting in account losses of more than USD 2,000.

• Serious inconsistency between demo and live account performance: some users stated that the platform’s demo account showed strong returns, but after switching to live funds, account performance reversed significantly, with the probability of losses much higher than the probability of profits.

• Accounts forcibly closed: some users complained that after failing to resolve withdrawal issues with the platform, the platform unilaterally closed their trading accounts.

(Source: WikiFX user comment section and WikiBit broker review page, as of June 2026.)

Questions About Forex Platform Regulatory Verification