The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that Wirecard Card Solutions Limited, the UK subsidiary of Germany’s Wirecard AG, is winding down.
The FCA said: “Wirecard is entering a process to eventually close its UK e-money and payment services business.
“Wirecard will continue to trade while alternative arrangements are being made with its card providers, so that existing customers and products are transferred to another provider as appropriate.”
You may remember how FCA suddenly froze Wirecard’s UK operations earlier this year, which affected a number of fintech firms and meant their customers weren’t able to access their cash.
Its assets were later unfrozen, but it perhaps gave some people pause over how safe money apps were.
Unlike that sudden freeze, the winding down process will be much slower. It will give any fintech firms currently using Wirecard’s e-money services to move their business elsewhere, so customers shouldn’t be affected by outages.
However, as I mentioned before, Wirecard also offers currency card services through a number of major providers, including Asda Travel Money Card, Sainsbury’s Cash Passport, Moneycorp Explorer Multi-Currency Card.
If you have any of those, or anything that says it’s “issued by Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd (“WDCS”)”, you may want to talk to your currency card provider about your next steps, including whether you need to cash out.
You should also watch out for any potential scams.
