Case Study_ payment Institutions

Acquirers are liable for enabling the Wolf of Sofia´s scams

Why are acquirers to be held accountable for illegal activities The digitalization pushed by governments worldwide and praised for its benefits in efficiency and productivity comes with high risks for consumers. Online fraud is by now the most commonly experienced crime. In England and Wales, fraud accounts for approximately 41%

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The European Court of Justice did a landmark ruling!

As of March 23, 2023, the European Court of Justice published its judgment in the case GAL BARAK against the Bamberg public prosecutor´s office (Case C-365/2). The court ruled in favor of the German authority.  In addition, the European court provided the German court with elements of interpretation of EU

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We need efficient and effective anti money laundering enforcement in Europe!

EFRI`s open letter to the European Authorities in charge of anti-money laundering. Based on our findings of the activities of some European licensed Payment Institutions  and e-money institutions in the online  fraud industry (in specific Payvision B.V., Wirecard Bank AG, Moneynet Int LTD)  we formulated some recommendations and established an

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Holding credit card companies accountable

Holding VISA accountable for processing illegal transactions!

EFRI always was convinced that payment companies like PAYVISION or Wirecard willingly and knowingly process illegal transactions for Cybercriminals are to be held accountable. The European supervisory authorities massively fail to do this job. So victims have to go legally against the fraud-enabling payment processors. EFRI supports victims that  filed

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Supervised financial institutions facilitating scams

Supervised financial entities showing up in criminal files

Over the last decades, the world has witnessed increasingly massive cybercrime attacks across borders. These crimes are very often facilitated by supervised financial entities, crypto exchanges. With the European financial supervisory authorities being very reluctant to take decisive action against payment companies involved in fraud scams, the harm done continues

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DSA Article 5.3

The New Digital Services Act – a Missed Chance!

During the past four years, the European Commission worked on legislative initiatives to upgrade the EU’s digital services rules: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The Digital Services Act is aimed to establish a new set of obligations for hosting services, marketplaces, and online platforms

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Popular crypto scams

Most popular crypto scams and how to avoid them!

Crypto scams are a plague Although we are in a crypto winter with the crash on the markets also driving down the crypto valuations, we still receive emails from victims about scammers trying to convince them to invest in promising crypto ventures. So, crypto scams are still a plague, and

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ING is phasing out PAYVISION

Another Open Letter to ING and DNB about PAYVISION!

The phasing out process of PAYVISION ends today (June 30, 2022)! On October 28, 2021, ING announced that it would start phasing out the business activities of its subsidiary PAYVISION as a payment service provider (PSP) and acquirer. According to the announcement, this was done after a thorough evaluation of

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CySEC announcement regarding Maxigrid

CySEC takes action against Maxigrid Ltd and initiates compensation for clients!

Administrative fines and bans for Maxigrid Ltd Finally, on June 17th 2022, The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) took action against Maxigrid Ltd. It announced administrative fines totalling € 210,000 and bans against four exercising directors for management functions in Cyprus Investment Firms (C.I.F.s). In specific, CySEC imposed the

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