UK’s ePayments Systems Shutters for Good

U.K.-based electronic payments company ePayments Systems is shutting up shop for good. In a post on the company website announcing the news, ePayment Systems said that it “has begun the process of closing its doors and entered into an orderly, solvent wind-down.”

The FinTech business has been closed for nearly three years after the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) identified weaknesses in its financial crime controls and ordered it to suspend all operations.

Visitors to the ePayments website are now met with a pop-up stating informing them of the closure and requesting customers to withdraw their funds as soon as possible. In today’s statement, the company said it “will now focus entirely on providing customers with refunds and working through the process of closing your accounts.”

As Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Sept. 13), company filings reveal that ePayments has a subsidiary in Moscow and the vast bulk of its revenue has come from outside the U.K.

Previously, ePayments Systems had been operating under an electronic money license, a type of license that allows an organization to provide payment services and hold funds of its clients, but can’t provide investment, deposit and credit services.

Companies that use an electronic money license typically provide payment services and point-of-sale services to businesses. Some well-known examples of electronic money institutions (EMI) in the country include the cross-border transfer company Wise and the payment systems provider Rapyd.

The case of ePayments Systems is not the only instance of the FCA forcing an EMI to stop trading over concerns it was facilitating criminal activity. In 2019, a similar order was issued to Allied Wallet, a payment solution developer that is currently in liquidation following court action by the FCA.

As PYMNTS reported recently, new U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss is expected to review the role of the country’s financial regulators and is said to be considering plans to merge the FCA, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Payments Systems Regulator into a single regulatory body.

Read on: New UK Prime Minister Inherits Worsening Crisis, Skyrocketing Energy Bills

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