Inspection Reason

Recently, many investors made telephone calls to the inspection team, expressing their hope for the inspection team to expose more Australia licensed brokers whose actual addresses are inconsistent with that recorded by the regulator. Upon the investors’ request, the inspection personnel decided to visit the Australia licensed broker Blackrock to get more first-hand information.

Office

Regulatory information shows the Australia licensed broker Blackrock is at Level 18, 120 Collins Street Melbourne VIC 3000, and the inspection team visited the broker at the site.

With the help of map navigation, the inspection personnel easily found the office building. On the exterior wall of the building, the personnel saw a company name “crestone”. To find out whether Blackrock shares the same building, the inspection personnel made further query.

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The inspection personnel found the lobby at the ground floor is spacious and clean, and luxuriously decorated. They checked the floor guide and found no information about Blackrock at all.

Considering it is possible that Blackrock’s office is at a different floor from that shown by the regulatory information, the inspection personnel took the elevator to Floor 18 to make sure. It turned out the whole floor is resided by Crestone, thus the inspection personnel confirmed the inspection result.

Conclusion

The inspection team’s on-site inspection confirms the actual address of the licensed broker Blackrock in Australia doesn’t match the address from the broker’s regulatory information. The inspection team identified that the broker is regulated by SFC (license No.: AFF275) and MAS (license No. not published) at present. However, the broker’s common finance license (No.: 230523) issued by ASIC and investment consulting license (No. 178638) issued by FCA indicate that not all its businesses are licensed.