In its latest annual report, the DFSA said it received 105 complaints in 2016, well down on the 264 received in 2015.
“A large proportion of complaints continue to be about the promotion of scams,” it said.
In total, the DFSA received 34 complaints about scams, and issued seven consumer alerts in 2016.
“The types of scams that came to the attention of the DFSA included advance fee scams, cloning scams and scams in which the identities of the DFSA, DIFC, and firms within the DIFC and/or their employees were stolen or misused,” it said.
The DFSA only issues alerts about scams where the fraudulent conduct affects the integrity of the DIFC.
The regulatory authority said the main reason for the overall drop in the number of complaints was due to a new handling process, which filtered the complaints coming into its website to exclude those that fell outside its jurisdiction.
The latest annual report for the regulator also disclosed that 77 new firms had been authorised to operate in the DIFC during 2016, up from 73 firms in 2015, bringing the total to 445 authorised firms, a rise of nearly 10% in the number operating in the DIFC since the end of 2015.
