Worldline’s Woes Deepen as Belgium Opens Probe Into Payment Firm

(Bloomberg) – Worldline SA claimed that he had been cleaning the payment business for a long time. Now, regulators and investors test this narrative after the new claims that he ignores the fraud among high -risk customers.

The Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office said on Friday that the French firm ignored the warnings and continued to do business with banned and high -risk customers and opened an investigation into the Belgian unit after a series of media report that allows some fraudulent transactions to continue. Sweden’s financial inspection authority said he called the company to a meeting.

Such a attention deepens the crisis in a company that serves 1.4 million businesses around the world and says that it is the largest payment provider in Europe. Pierre-Antoine Vacheron, CEO, who rejected the reports as a “attack ,, said that the firm negatively affected the reputation among customers.

Less than four years ago, the market value of about € 24 billion ($ 28.1 billion), the market value of the company, is less than € 900 million after shares dropped to 11% on Friday. This polished some of the 20% rebound on Thursday, which followed a 38% decline on Wednesday.

Their struggles are the last example of a European payment company that cannot be separated from the dark corners of the internet, which is often fleeing by large banks. And the payment industry, the general manager of the arrest of the German company and the German company can not find more than $ 2 billion in the balance of accounting scandal in 2020 after the 2020 Wirecard’s failure to help eliminate the stigmatization.

Bernstein analysts, this week’s articles, German financial guard Bafin’in Wordline’s Payone subsidiary restrictions on the subsidiary of the 2023’tek said very few new reports, he said. However, they cause significant risks of reputation and can harm Worldline’s business relations. Company, payment networks Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. and many European lenders, including Unicredit Spa and BNP Paribas SA.

Credit Agricole SA is particularly close. The French lent announced a joint venture in 2023 and then received a 7% share to help balance the payment partner who was fighting in 2024. This week, the staff pushed the decision to question the decision.

At the beginning of this week, various media organizations coordinated by the European investigation cooperation network claimed that the company carried out the judicial zones, including high-risk customers-points and flirting websites, rather than losing their business despite their warnings.

A report of the Dutch newspaper NRC claimed that even if the Risk Management Department of Worldline in recent years, the Risk Management department of the Risk Management department prints for more strict controls, claimed that it did not ban profitable customers with high fraud rates. Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter, Worldline’s multiple high -risk customers from Worldline Belgium, Credit Card Provider Visa A.Ş.

Brussels said in a statement on Friday, “the company claimed that the company has paid for companies engaged in illegal activities and allegedly not respected.” He said. Authorities, the investigation of the world line group focused on the presence of Belgium and the authorities, the federal judicial police entrusted, he added.

Meanwhile, Sweden’s financial inspection authority called on Wednesday to ask the company at a meeting to ask the company “Questions about the information announced” and how it works to ensure that the company’s services cannot be used for criminal purposes ”.

Worldline, E -Post a statement sent by a statement, Belgium “agreed to launch an investigation for money laundering” and “the authorities will cooperate,” he said. The opening of an investigation does not mean that the company is guilty of any mistakes.

While Worldline’s activities in the payment sector can be monitored until the 1970s, the company’s modern incarnation was created as the electronic payment unit of the French computer services company ATOS PLC in the 2000s. He was listed in 2014 and spent his later years by combining a series of purchases, including the purchase of Six Group’s payment business for € 2.3 billion in 2018.

-With the help of Steven Arons, Charles Daly and Abhinav Ramnarayan.

(Updates with comments in the fifth paragraph)

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