ASIC hands four-year ban to Gold Coast businessman Gregory William Finerty

A Queensland business director who ‘misled’ clients about the performance of a trading robot he leased has been banned from providing financial services.

A Queensland business director who leased an automated trading program has been banned from providing financial services for four years. Picture: iStock

A Queensland man who leased an automated trading robot has been banned from providing financial services after the corporate regulator found him to be unlicensed and “not a fit and proper person” to provide such services.

Gold Coast business director Gregory William Finerty has been banned from providing any financial services for four years after ASIC found he did not hold an Australian financial services (AFS) licence.

For almost two years Mr Finerty, the sole director of Bradford AI, allowed “his clients to acquire and dispose of financial products” that were foreign currency CFDs without a licence to do so.

He did so through the use of a financial algorithmic trading program known as “Robot 1” which is designed to work in the foreign currency market.

In 2021, ASIC launched a crackdown on the trading of CFDs that allow an investor to speculate on the short-term movements of foreign exchange rates and share prices among other assets. In April last year an intervention was extended to May 23, 2027.

Mr Finerty was found to have “engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct” relating to the performance of Robot 1, which operated using a local over-the-counter contracts for difference broker.

The financial algorithmic trading program is known as ‘Robot 1’.

He was also found to have assisted clients to mislead the CFD broker about their trading experience.

“He is banned from controlling, whether alone or with others, an entity that carries on a financial services business and performing any function involved in carrying on a financial services business,” ASIC said in a statement.

“ASIC also found that he is not a fit and proper person to provide financial services, is not adequately trained or competent to provide financial services, and is likely to contravene financial services law.”

Mr Finerty has since been added to ASIC’s banned and disqualified list, a searchable register containing the details of people and organisations barred from providing financial services.

Originally published as ASIC hands four-year ban to Gold Coast businessman Gregory William Finerty