The Federal Bureau of Investigation will check if millions of client accounts are missing after American brokerage firm MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday over its $6.5 billion eurozone debt exposure.

News of the filing led stock exchanges, including the Australian Securities Exchange, to suspend trading in MF Global shares. Reports said the company plans to sell its assets to competitor Interactive Brokers Group.

MF Global Australia is the fourth largest dealer of high-risk instruments called contracts for difference (CFDs) in the country. It handled white label trades for eTrade, CommSec, Westpac and others.

MF Global Australia, which holds more than $400 million in its trading books and enjoyed a 5 per cent market share, is the largest of the CFD brokers to encounter financial problems. Previously, margin lenders Opes Prime and Lift Capital have collapsed.

MF Global has acknowledged that money was missing from its customer accounts, although as of Aug. 31, $7.3 billion of customer funds held by MF Global were segregated, according to data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

CFTC regulations require futures brokers that trade on exchanges to keep their clients' collateral separate from the company's accounts to reduce risk in futures trade. .

The filing for bankruptcy protection followed MF Global's report of a $191.6 million quarterly loss which caused the company's shares to fall by two thirds and its credit rating reclassified to junk.

The company was co-chaired by Jon Corzine, former New Jersey governor and officer of Goldman Sachs Group. Mr Corzine informed regulators on Monday about deficiencies in accounts that MF Global managed for clients in the futures marker.

With the admission, Mr Corzine would also face a regulatory investigation. The MF Global co-chairman used $6.3 billion of company funds to purchase sovereign European debts to hike the firm's profit. However, because of the spread of the European debt contagion, the company instead logged a $191.6 million loss for the last quarter.

JPMorgan Chase and Deustche Bank are the biggest creditors of MF Global. JPMorgan has claims of over $1.2 billion and Deutsche has more than $1 billion claims. On news of MF Global's Chapter 11 filing, shares of JPMorgan went down 3.3 per cent while Deutsche Bank slipped 8.7 per cent.

RELATED STORIES