With online payments company Wirecard undergoing insolvency proceedings this month, mainstream financial services like VISA, PayPal, and Mastercard are rushing to fill the digital payments void, and be one of the first to offer crypto payment cards, stated experts in the crypto industry. During an interview with Cointelegraph, Jerry Chan, CEO of blockchain service provider TAAL, and Rod Hsu, President & Co-Founder of virtual currency platform Coincurve, both agreed that the competition could be just what the industry needs to shift the way that digital currencies are being used as a method of payment or technology. But Chan goes beyond …

Wirecard has announced it will lay off 730 out of its 1,300 staff in Germany following a $2.1 billion scandal that left the company insolvent in June. According to an Aug. 25 report from Law360, Michael Jaffé, a lawyer and representative of Wirecard's administrator, said that "far-reaching cuts" were necessary for the company to effectively maintain the option of exploiting its core businesses. "The usual restructuring and cost-adjustment measures are not sufficient," Jaffé said. “The economic situation of Wirecard AG was and is extremely difficult in light of the lack of liquidity and the well-known scandalous circumstances." Two months ago …

A new video takes viewers through German financial technology company Wirecard’s journey from being one of the top businesses in the world to one who’s shares plummeted by more than 98% before filing for insolvency. In an Aug. 6 video posted to YouTube by ColdFusion, Australian host Dagogo Altraide retells the story of how the Wirecard scandal began when auditors were unable to locate more than $2 billion that was supposed to be sitting in the FinTech firm’s Philippines-based accounts. The Wirecard board later admitted that the funds likely did not exist. “This was a tale of liars, accounting manipulation, …

Controversial German payments processor Wirecard — the issuer of several crypto debit cards — has been implicated in a new report on alleged criminal activities by a Mastercard executive operating at the troubled FBME bank in Cyprus. In 2014, the United States’ Financial Crime Enforcement Network had banned U.S. financial institutions from dealing with FBME after the bank was accused of being used to “facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, transnational organized crime, fraud, sanctions evasion and other illicit activity.” The allegations included facilitiating the processing of money tied to the Syrian chemical weapons’ program and internet child sex abuse, according …

Wirecard chief operating officer Jan Marsalek reportedly used Bitcoin (BTC) to move funds from Dubai to Russia. Russian media outlet Kommersant reported on July 20 that Marsalek is hiding in Russia with funds that he was able to transfer there with the cryptocurrency. Per the report, Marsalek is currently in a private house near Moscow under the supervision of Russian special services. Documents leaked earlier this month also suggest that Marsalek indeed had links with Russian government operators. According to a recent report, he allegedly held secret documents and bragged of his intelligence service ties in an effort to further …

Jan Marsalek, the former chief operations officer of Wirecard who went missing after his supposed trip to the Philippines last month to chase the missing 2 billion Euro in the company’s books, has been located in Belarus. Marsalek reportedly entered the Philippines via Manila before flying to Cebu City and then to China in June. Philippine authorities said there was no footage of Marsalek arriving in the city nor were there records of a flight leaving Cebu for China. Forged traveling tracks According to investigative reporting website Bellingcat, the former Wirecard executive’s trip to the Philippines was forged. Investigations have …

Wirecard’s recently-prosecuted former Chief Operations Officer, Jan Marsalek, may have had ties to Russian intelligence services. He also allegedly held secret documents about the use of a Russian chemical weapon in the U.K. According to the Financial Times, the former Wirecard executive bragged of his intelligence services’ ties in an effort to further integrate with London traders. Recovered documents contain specific data on the formula for the world’s deadliest nerve agent, known as Novichok. The chemical weapon was used in the poisoning of a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Julia on March 4, 2018. Germany on the …

Some of the most impactful frauds in modern history, from the Enron scandal to the Bernie Madoff investment scheme, were carried out by malignant actors inside or at the helm of corporate entities who manipulated the tangled, esoteric financial records. This is precisely the kind of behavior blockchain technology is designed to obliterate. The rapid demise of the German financial technology company Wirecard, which established itself in the blockchain community as a major crypto debit card issuer, seemingly belongs to the same category of events. In the long term, it might contribute to the growing public demand for increased transparency …

Wirecard-issued crypto debit cards from companies like Crypto.com and TenX have been reactivated following permission from the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority, or FCA. On 29 June, the U.K. watchdog allowed Wirecard Card Solutions, a Newcastle-based subsidiary of troubled German company Wirecard AG, to resume regulated activity. The FCA suspended Wirecard Card Solutions’ license on June 26, soon after news about Wirecard AG misrepresenting over $2 billion in cash reserves surfaced. The respective restrictions were lifted at 00:01 GMT on June 30, 2020, meaning that all crypto debit cards issued by Wirecard have now been re-enabled. The regulator stressed that …

Shareholders in German fintech Wirecard are taking legal action against Big Four auditor EY in the fallout from the scandal now engulfing the company. Earlier this month, the auditor had refused to sign off the fintech’s 2019 financial report after discovering a shortfall of €1.9 billion (roughly $2.1 billion) on its books. Following EY’s discovery, German authorities arrested Wirecard’s (now-former) CEO, Markus Braun, who had been at the helm of the fintech for almost two decades. Braun has been accused of conspiring to inflate the company’s assets and misrepresent what amounted to over 32% of Wirecard’s assets — $2.1 billion …

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week PayPal is hiring crypto engineers amid rumors of Bitcoin integration There have been a lot of rumors surrounding PayPal this week. A report suggested that the online payments giant plans to allow hundreds of millions of users to buy and sell crypto directly. Job vacancies for crypto and blockchain experts have added fuel to the …

Troubled fintech company Wirecard, which powers many of the crypto debit cards on the market, has reportedly filed to open insolvency proceedings. As reported by Wall Street Journal and others, Wirecard filed an application with the Munich district court to begin preparing for insolvency resolution procedures. The company cited its “impending insolvency and over-indebtedness” as motivation for the filing, alluding to the $2.1 billion of its balance sheet that went missing. Events unfolded quickly for Wirecard since discovering that 32% of its balance sheet never existed. The company quickly became leaderless as the founding CEO and other top executives resigned, …