Wirecard rocked as auditor EY refuses to sign off accounts over missing

Auditor EY has refused to sign off the accounts of payments company Wirecard over €1.9bn of cash for which it could find no evidence.

The German payments processor, which has provided the financial backbone for countless fintech companies including Monzo, Revolut, Loot, Curve, Funding Circle, Atom, Tandem and Pockit, said Ernst & Young’s Munich office had told it “no sufficient audit evidence could be obtained so far of cash balances on trust accounts”.

The payments company warned that a failure to publish its certified account by Friday would mean roughly lenders could call in €2bn of loans.

“There are indications that spurious balance confirmations had been provided from the side of the trustee,” Wirecard said, adding that this has been “in order to deceive the auditor and create a wrong perception of the existence of such cash balances or the holding of the accounts for to the benefit of Wirecard group companies”.

A report published last month by KPMG into allegations of fraud at the company between 2016 and  2018, accountants said they had been unable to verify the existence of €1bn euros in revenue booked through partners.

Germany’s financial regulator, Bafin, has since launched investigations into the payments company.

Wirecard has a banking license in Germany and is able to issue cards from Visa and MasterCard, which has been used by fintech startups to help issue cards, process payments and sublet its banking license.