Wirex may suffer card outage in EEA due to UAB PayrNet licensing issue
Debit cards offered through crypto payment service Wirex may stop functioning in the European Economic Area (EEA), according to a June 23 email the company sent to some of its customers. The threat of stoppage was triggered by Lithuania’s central bank revoking the license of UAB PayrNet, Wirex’s card provider.
This news comes after Wirex’s competitor, Cryptopay, also announced that its cards may stop working in the region due to the same issue.
Wirex is a multi-currency crypto payment app that features fiat on-ramps and off-ramps, as well as debit cards. It claimed in 2020 to have over 3 million users throughout Europe and Asia.
The email sent to customers stated that “our current card partner has experienced problems and this is causing an interruption in the debit card service for EEA customers.” This disruption “has no impact on your ability to access your funds through any other Wirex means, such as our IBAN service, or via transfer and purchase of cryptocurrency on the Wirex app.” Customers do not need to take any action as a result of this information, since funds are held in the app and unaffected by the card services issue.
Wirex stated that the cause of the problem was UAB PayrNet, not any issues within Wirex’s system.
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On June 22, the Bank of Lithuania announced it was revoking UAB PayrNet’s electronic money institution (EMI) license “for serious, systematic and multiple violations of legal acts.” Among other accusations, the central bank claimed that PayrNet failed to properly administer Anti-Money laundering (AML) provisions to prevent its services from being used for illicit financing.
In its announcement, the Bank of Lithuania claimed that client funds
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