The U.K. fintech Wise is being investigated over “indications of non-compliance with anti-money laundering legislation, particularly due to a lack of proper identification of clients and their activities,” the Brussels public prosecutor’s office told several publications.
The Belgian prosecutor said the probe was opened last year after Wise accounts turned up in hundreds of requests for cross-border help in criminal proceedings from more than 30 countries across Europe, according to London-based The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Roughly €500 million ($582.6 million) worth of transactions is under investigation.
In a statement Monday, Wise said it is working to “respond to queries about our business, as we routinely do with regulators and law-enforcement authorities.”
The investigation is at an advanced stage but nearly complete, prosecutors said.
“No specific findings have been shared with us to date,” Wise said in its statement. “As such, it would be speculative for us to comment on any allegations.”
The alleged money laundering is “linked to various underlying offenses, including fraud, corruption and drug trafficking,” the prosecutor’s office said, according to the Financial Times. “In this context, it is being examined whether Wise Europe’s services were used by international criminal organizations.”
This wouldn’t be the first time AML concerns have been raised to Wise. The fintech agreed last July to pay $4.2 million and bolster its investments in programs to counter money laundering and terrorism financing, after six U.S. states found deficiencies in how the company addressed certain compliance requirements.
European regulators put Wise in a remediation plan in 2024 after the National Bank of Belgium found evidence that it lacked a proof of address for hundreds of thousands of customers, the Financial Times reported.
In its statement Monday, Wise defended its customer-vetting practices.
“We start by verifying customers before they open an account and continue monitoring hundreds of data points in real time as customers use our products, with teams reviewing transactions, offboarding customers when needed, and proactively reporting suspicious activity to law enforcement,” the fintech said Monday. “Like every financial institution, we face the reality of increasingly sophisticated bad actors attempting to exploit our platform, and we continually invest in tech-enabled systems and teams to stay ahead of ever-evolving threats.”
Wise noted that roughly one-third of its global team “is dedicated to protecting our customers from financial crime, and this focus is shared across all of our teams.”
News of the investigation spurred tumult in Wise’s share price. The company’s stock fell nearly 19% during trading Monday before rebounding to a roughly 7% loss, according to Yahoo Finance.
“All financial institutions are expected to respond to requests for information from law enforcement agencies and submit suspicious activity reports to the relevant authorities,” Wise said Monday. “These are a normal part of operations and are not, in themselves, indicative of non-compliance with anti-money laundering requirements or of any wrongdoing.
“Combating financial crime is an industry-wide challenge that Wise takes extremely seriously,” the company said.
AML isn’t the only area in which Wise has landed in hot water. The company agreed to pay nearly $2.5 million last year over alleged “illegal remittance practices,” including advertising inaccurate fees and failing to properly disclose exchange rates.
It was among the last penalties the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau handed out during the Biden administration – and was later cut to a $45,000 fine and roughly $450,000 in redress to affected customers.
