The German Financial Intelligence Unit only sent a fracture of warnings about Wirecard’s finances to the police and the public prosecutor’s office.
Broadcaster NDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung made the claims on Tuesday, reporting that roughly 1,000 reports were made about Wirecard, Deutsche Welle reported. Of those, 97 were found to potentially offer information regarding the collapsed FinTech giant, but only a small fraction was sent to the authorities.
In fact, a spokesperson from the Munich public prosecutor said that “only two reports from the FIU were received” before June this year.
The FIU has said that it has passed on information on 50 suspicious reports. It is re-examining the evidence in light of the new information.
The FIU has also faced criticism for failing to discover crimes in the reports or to have forwarded them too late.
The regulator is not alone in being accused of falling short on its due diligence when scrutinising Wirecard.
BaFin has also received its fair share of bad press for its part in the collapse of the German payment service provider.
Wircard filed for insolvency in June after Ernst & Young (EY) refused to sign off on the financial statements of 2019 after banks in the Philippines told it that €1.9bn ($2.1bn) of Wirecard’s balances were “spurious”.
Since then it has become clear that the Wirecard scandal could have long-lasting effects on the FinTech sector.
In the aftermath, regulators have been called to double down in their scrutiny of the FinTech sector, several top executives have been arrested or are wanted by authorities, and the businesses using Wirecard’s solutions found themselves momentarily unable to provide their services after the Financial Conduct Authority ordered Wirecard UK to freeze all of its assets and regulated activities. Most of them has since been able to resume operations.
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