- 06 Μαρ 2019, 01:13
#569927
https://www.bankingtech.com/2019/03/uk- ... ud-claims/Revolut is facing a fraud investigation by The Metropolitan Police in London due to a complaint about a £70,000 money transfer.
[https://www]
Under investigation
The police confirmed the news to the Financial Times (FT). The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, a branch of the City of London Police, is also assessing the matter.
This latest chapter adds more pressure. As reported on 1 March, Revolut’s chief financial officer resigned as the digital challenger faced questions over its compliance systems. There were also acidic remarks about its work culture.
Revolut adds that O’Higgins’ resignation was unconnected with concerns raised over compliance.
The firm, which was valued at $1.7 billion in its most recent fundraising, was accused of violating basic banking rules by failing to block thousands of potentially suspicious transactions on its platform.
In terms of the money transfer, and according to the FT, Paul Carlier, a former foreign exchange trader, filed a complaint on behalf of his wife, who said she had not received a payment of more than £70,000 owed to her in January.
Carlier says he pursued the fintech firm over the hold-up for more than two weeks, at which point Revolut informed his wife that it was shutting down her account. A customer support officer told her that he “cannot confirm you’ll receive a full and detailed explanation as of [sic] why the account is being closed”.
According to official emails seen by the FT, it appears the £70,000 sum was incorrectly paid into another person’s account. Revolut’s banking infrastructure partner, PrePay Technologies, later told Carlier it had contacted Revolut in an attempt to have the money redirected to its proper recipient.
Carlier explains: “Revolut went to extraordinary lengths to prevent acknowledging both a complaint made by [my wife’s] business and the authority given by the business for me to investigate and communicate on their behalf.”
“Revolut ignored requests for information, forcing the business to turn to social media to request information,” he adds. “They were quickly blocked for daring to raise genuine concerns and questions.”
Revolut responds: “We are unable to comment on individual cases but we would like to apologise for any distress that may have been caused.”
The challenger is also facing pressure from regulators in the UK and politicians in Lithuania, where it received a European banking licence last year.
Revolut’s founder Nikolay Storonsky hit back against criticism in Lithuania, calling it “scaremongering campaigns”.
On its blog, Storonsky also made its position clear on 1 March and 4 March about these culture and compliance issues.
In terms of the latter, he explains: “In July last year, we rolled out a more advanced sanctions screening system in parallel with our existing controls.”
“During the initial testing stage of these new systems, we decided that they were not calibrated to a standard that we would expect, so we therefore decided to temporarily revert to our existing controls, while we continued to enhance the new systems. In our view, the new systems were imprecise and were resulting in too many false positive cases, which in turn resulted in an increase in customer dissatisfaction.
“This roll-out did not result in a breach of any sanctions or money laundering laws and requirements – so we did not send a formal notification to the regulator.”
FinTech Futures contacted Revolut for its official comments about the FT report.
A spokesperson says: “This article relates to a payment of £73,515 from a non-Revolut customer to a Revolut customer. In this case the payment instructions that the non-Revolut customer provided were incorrect and so the funds never reached Revolut.
“On behalf of the customer, Revolut worked with its partners to investigate the misdirected payments to ensure the funds were returned, however, Revolut was never in control of the funds.
“We have spoken with the Met Police and they have confirmed that they are not investigating Revolut in any way and to say so is misleading and damaging to us.”
< Note >
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