Breaking: Wirecard’s UK activities frozen by the FCA

The UK financial regulator has ordered Wirecard’s UK subsidiary, Wirecard Card Solutions (WCS), to halt all activities just 24 hours after its German parent company filed for insolvency. 

It’s a move which will have ramifications for dozens of fintechs and tens of thousands of UK customers who will likely be unable to access funds which are passed through WCS. 

“Our primary objective is to protect the interests and money of consumers who use Wirecard,” wrote the FCA in its order. 

“We have been working closely with Wirecard UK and other authorities over the past few days to take action that protects consumers. We are continuing to do this and on 26 June, we took additional measures to require the firm to cease all regulated activities in order to further protect customer money.” 

“This now means customers money cannot be accessed.” 

Among UK fintech who’ll likely be affected this morning are Revolut, Pockit, Soldo, ANNA, Tymit and Curve, although to differing degrees as many including Curve and Revolut had begun migrating away from Wirecard’s services. 

A spokesperson for Curve said the startup was: “fortunate for a number of reasons, as we’re already so far down that process of bringing card processing in-house, the disruption is going to be minimal.” 

Even so, Curve is advising customers carry another card with them for the next few days, and other fintechs which hold customers funds (as opposed to Curve which doesn’t operate an account) will be more acutely affected.