The corporate regulator has accused global financial companies of flogging billions of dollars of risky derivatives via Australia, in a "regulatory arbitrage" that has caused $2 billion in losses to a million investors, mostly in Asia.

A whopping $22 trillion of "contracts for difference" and "binary options" has flooded through 65 Australian licensees in the past year, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said on Thursday, as it moved to restrict the products.