UK’s FCA Freezes Euro Exchange Securities Over Financial Crime Fears

The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority said in a Friday (June 5) press release that it blocked international payments company Euro Exchange Securities from carrying out any regulated electronic money or payment services due to the regulator’s concerns about risks of financial crime.

The FCA also said in the release that court-appointed interim managers will oversee EES’ affairs until a Thursday (June 11) court date.

“Serious concerns around the way EES operated its business indicated there were significant risks of financial crime,” FCA said in the release. “This includes systemic weaknesses in the firm’s financial crime framework and safeguarding arrangements, alongside its ownership and governance. These risks could have had an impact on both consumers and the integrity of the market.”

A PYMNTS email sent to the address on Euro Exchange Securities’ home page was returned as undeliverable.

The court appointed interim managers over EES under the Payment and Electronic Money Institution Insolvency Regulations 2021, according to the FCA press release.

The company will have an opportunity to be heard by the court on June 11, per the release.

EES has operations in the United States and Spain, and the FCA applied to have the proceedings in the U.K. recognized in the U.S., Bloomberg News reported Friday.

The regulator said in U.S. federal court filings that it is concerned about the “high-risk nature” of some EES customers and that the company may have caused “widespread breaches” of money-laundering rules, according to the report.

“The FCA has expressed concerns that companies in the company’s network and clients of the company have been linked to money laundering, or the failure to prevent it,” the FCA’s U.S. filing said, per the report.

This action follows moves the FCA made due to anti-money laundering concerns in 2025. During that year, the regulator fined digital bank Monzo 21,091,300 pounds (about $28 million) for deficient financial crime controls, fined Barclays 42 million pounds (about $56 million) for financial crime control lapses, and seized seven cryptocurrency ATMs in a money laundering investigation in which four locations were searched and two people were arrested.