The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) announced on Thursday that it has suspended the ‘fast track’ examination scheme that enables financial services companies to expedite their application process for the Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) license.

The regulator initially launched the scheme in early November 2015, which involved paying a supplementary fee of €25,000 to ‘fast track’ the examination process. It speeds up the examination of the applications before the commission, and the deadline set in this accelerated procedure is reduced considerably when compared to those of the normal examination process.

The move turned out to be a massive success, and many brokers are opting to gain a regulatory license faster under the scheme.

The decision of the latest suspension was taken as the regulator was facing an ‘exceedingly large number of applications received for participation in the Scheme’.

Moreover, CySEC detailed that it will continue processing the applications it has already received under the scheme but will stop accepting any more applications.

“The Scheme will be launched again with the same procedures and time schedules that were set at the Commission’s Announcement dated November 2, 2015, at a future date that will be announced by the Commission,” CySEC added.

A Popular Scheme to Get License Faster

The Cypriot regulator suspended the ‘fast track’ examination scheme several times in the past but relaunched it every time. Though it did not reveal the number of CIF license applications received under the scheme, it was clearly not ready to handle such volume.

CySEC even said that the extra proceeds from the application process are used to finance overtime payments for its employees who examine the applications outside their normal working hours.

Cyprus is one of the preferred bases of the forex and CFDs brokers intending to enter the European markets to offer licensed trading services. Many macroeconomic events like Brexit and the implementation of MiFID II rules have encouraged many brokers to approach the Cypriot regulator for licensing.