Worldline Defends Itself Against Claims in ‘Dirty Payments’ Probe

Worldline’s shares plunged Wednesday (June 25) as media reports alleged the company concealed customer fraud.

The French payments firm responded by saying it had for the last two years bolstered its merchant risk controls and stopped doing business with noncompliant customers.

The allegations stem from a series of reports dubbed “Dirty Payments,” published by a variety of European media outlets under the umbrella group EIC.

That investigation, based on confidential internal documents and data from Worldline, claims the company had taken on “questionable” clients such as pornography and gambling sites.

One such report, published Tuesday (June 24) by Dutch newspaper NRC, describes the “tricks” that Worldline allegedly employed to conceal fraud.

“For instance, if a division had too many fraudulent customers, they were shifted to another division,” the report said.

“As a result, the payment company made it possible for thousands of consumers to be defrauded via web shops and websites. This concerns, for example, fraud in which consumers order products that are never delivered. Or consumers who are unknowingly sold a subscription to a website, after which the money is automatically debited from their credit card.”

In its response, Worldline said it has since 2023 instituted a “thorough review” of its high-brand-risk (HBR) portfolio, which includes clients like online casinos and adult dating sites.

“All HBR clients still active within this portfolio are now subject to enhanced oversight, based on specific procedures,” the company said. “Additional requirements in terms of controls, verifications and evidence documentation have been introduced to ensure ongoing alignment with regulatory obligations and our enhanced internal standards.”

Worldline added that it has stepped up its protections as part of a company-wide financial crime compliance effort to “pursue reinforcement of supervision and controls with regular engagement with the relevant regulatory authorities.”

PYMNTS examined some of the challenges facing companies in adopting proper compliance measures in a recent interview with Greenlite AI CEO Will Lawrence.

“The last 20 years of compliance has been broadly building systems that help you identify risks,” Lawrence said in an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. “What happens when it goes wrong? That’s when a human gets involved. It’s a very labor-intensive and operationally intensive process.”

A study cited by Lawrence claims up to 85% of what compliance investigators do is non-analytical work, like document processing, form-filling and internal follow-ups.

“If you told me my sales team was only going to spend 15% of their time selling, I’d be very concerned,” he said. “But we’ve tolerated that in compliance.”

Lawrence said Greenlite believes it has found a better way to handle compliance. The solution is throwing more software at the problem of financial crime and compliance but rather letting smarter artificial intelligence (AI) agents automate repetitive tasks.