“We are sorry for the complications that this situation could have caused our customers,” Twist founder and director Michal Šmída told Práva. However, according to him, the company had been negotiating with an alternative card supplier for several months and on Monday began sending out new ones.
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Wirecard payment cards are blocked from Friday. The company has been insolvent since the revelation of large-scale revenue counterfeiting since Friday, and the British regulator has revoked its banking license. It was then disconnected from its systems by key card companies Visa and MasterCard worldwide.
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Due to Wirecard, the system of electronic records of eKasa sales from O2 also has a problem. According to Lucie Jungmannová, spokeswoman Wirecard informed the operator of eKasa O2 that the services of accepting card payments used by some clients will be suspended. “We are dealing with the situation intensively,” the spokeswoman said. In total, about 20,000 entrepreneurs use eKas, but not all of them have a payment terminal.
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51 billion have disappeared
Fidoo’s company cards, which belong to Direct pojišťovna and manage approximately 900 company accounts, were also completely out of order.
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Clients in France, Britain and other countries face similar problems. “Throughout Europe, millions of people have their cards blocked due to the fall of Wirecard,” commented Czech Fund economist Lukáš Kovanda.
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The collapse of Wirecard began last week when its auditors stated that the company lacked 1.9 billion euros (51 billion crowns), which it reported in its accounts.
Some German politicians are demanding the departure of the head of the financial regulator BaFin due to a scandal. The German Ministries of Finance and Justice want to terminate the contract with the DPR auditor due to his failure. Brussels is also calling for an investigation into the case.
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Last week, German police released former Wirecard boss Markus Braun, who is suspected of fraud. According to his lawyer, the manager deposited five million euros (134 million crowns). Braun police suspect that he overestimated the company’s income and lied about its real condition in order to make the company more attractive to investors. The prosecutor’s office is now trying to detain the former operations director, Jan Marsalek. He recently stayed in the Philippines, from where, according to local authorities, he was to travel to China.
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Wirecard owes a total of about 3.5 billion euros (almost 94 billion CZK). Of this, 1.75 billion euros were borrowed by the company from fifteen banks and also sold bonds for about 500 million euros.
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Creditors are preparing to write off the entire amount. In Germany, the company was considered a promising player in the fast-growing financial services market and set a model for domestic success.
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On the other hand, the British hedge fund manager Crispin Odey may be satisfied. He earned up to 30 million euros (800 million crowns) for speculation on the fall of Wirecard shares, said the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
However, after a dramatic slump last week yesterday, Wirecard’s shares strengthened significantly thanks to speculation about those interested who could take over some parts of the company.
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