Assertive! Investment Alert Task Force Calls Binary Options Like Binomo Cs Not Trading, Just Guessing Aka Gambling

Chairman of the Investment Vigilance Task Force (SWI) Tongam L. Tobing. (Photo: Screenshot of OJK's virtual channel)

JAKARTA - The chairman of the Investment Alert Task Force (SWI) Tongam L. Tobing reiterated that binary options are illegal financial activities. According to him, the platform is not a trading activity because no goods are traded.

"Binary options are guesswork about things going up or down in a certain period which we see tends to be gambling," he said at a virtual press conference on Monday, February 21.

Tongam added that in his search for binary options, participants who participate require that they deposit a certain amount of money, and if the predictions are correct, they will get incomplete results. However, if the prediction is wrong, you will lose all the money.

"This is clearly just guesswork or just gambling," he said.

Furthermore, Tongam also found that binary options is a platform originating from abroad and has not yet obtained a permit from the Financial Services Authority (OJK) or the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (CoFTRA).

“Basically they (the affiliates) offer futures brokers that are abroad, such as Binomo and others. And they also usually offer a variety of content on social media," he said.

Tongam himself said that the SWI Task Force had frozen hundreds of illegal trading platforms that had the potential to cause harm to the public because they violated applicable regulations.

"We have stopped the activities of 634 illegal futures trading platforms, including the Binomo binary option earlier," he said.

Despite his efforts, Tongam, who is listed as part of the OJK, admits that technological developments always present gaps for illegal financial activities to continue to mushroom.

"Currently it is still rampant but that does not prevent us from continuing to protect the community," he said.

Just so you know, the Investment Alert Task Force estimates that public losses due to illegal investments in the period 2011 to 2022 will reach Rp. 117.5 trillion.