Suspended ePayments platform will relaunch without crypto

The ePayments online money transfer platform is restarting services following a seven month suspension – and notably absent this time around is support for cryptocurrencies.

ePayments is a global money transfer service that boasts over 1 million accounts and has issued 75,000 debit cards. According to their regulator filings, the firm made profits of $US23.2 million in 2019. The company has announced that it is preparing to “start working again” but as cryptocurrency accounted for one fifth of its business, relaunching without it is notable.

We are getting ready to start working together again. Please visit our blog to read the latest news: https://t.co/5Agdtij7OI

— ePayments (@myepayments) September 14, 2020

The United Kingdom-regulated electronic money institution was suspended in February 2020 following a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) review that highlighted issues with the firm’s anti-money laundering systems and controls.

ePayments took action to suspend all online payments, block pre-paid cards and it froze around a million customer accounts, after “agreeing” with the financial watchdog. At the time, there were reports that crypto was unlikely to be related to the cause of the crackdown.

However some have linked the suspension to suspicious activity involving ePayments partner, Mike Scott, who was embroiled in the OneCoin pyramid scam. An email, in which the now on the run OneCoin founder Ruja Ignatova, contacted Scott implicated him in laundering $400 million for the Ponzi scheme.

There has been no official confirmation regarding this connection from the UK financial regulator.

The latest announcement from ePayments stated the company will be introducing biometric authentication processes and changing the way that individuals can make payments and get paid.

“Individuals will only be able to get paid by companies and will only be able to send money to their own account.”

In other words, there will be no peer-to-peer payments provision in fiat or crypto.

ePayments has yet to announce a date when its customers will have access to their accounts and services, however, when they do they will be on a very limited basis, highly monitored, and without any support for digital assets.