Latest Payments News: Crypto Under Microscope In Australian Financial Crime Priority List, and more

Catch up on some of the stories our payments compliance analysts have covered lately, and stay up-to-date on the latest news.

Crypto Under Microscope In Australian Financial Crime Priority List

Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC, has released its regulatory priorities for 2025–26, outlining an ambitious crackdown on financial crime risks, including both crypto-assets and cash.

The priorities reflect AUSTRAC’s two overarching strategic objectives: improving the management of money laundering, terrorism financing, and proliferation financing (ML/TF/PF) risks through stronger controls; and enhancing its intelligence capabilities through higher-quality reporting by regulated entities.

The move also signals AUSTRAC’s shift towards more targeted, risk-based supervision ahead of major reforms to Australia’s anti-money laundering (AML) regime.

AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said that “this year marks a regulatory shift”.

This is “from regulation that primarily checks for compliance to one focussed on substantive risks and harms.”

“AUSTRAC will look at risk and behaviour at an industry and sector level rather than focussing solely on individual entities,” he said.

As part of the plans, digital currency exchanges and virtual asset service providers (VASPs) will come under tighter scrutiny in the year ahead.

For example, AUSTRAC plans to register only those businesses that can demonstrate strong systems and controls for managing risks, with a June 2026 compliance target set across the board.

The agency will also intensify its regulatory focus on firms that are indifferent to these risks or complicit in financial crime, following growing concerns about the misuse of crypto-assets to move illicit funds across borders.

Turkish Competition Authority Launches Investigation Into Mastercard And Visa

The regulator’s formal investigation into Mastercard and Visa and their alleged anti-competitive practices in the global card payments market is the latest challenge to the card networks’ operations.

The Competition Board has announced that it launched the probe in June 2025 under decision number 25-23/552-M. It aims to assess whether the companies and their Turkish operations have violated Article 4 and/or Article 6 of Türkiye’s Competition Act No. 4054.

The investigation targets Mastercard Europe SA and its Istanbul Liaison Office, both of which are ultimately controlled by Mastercard Incorporated, and Visa Europe Limited, Visa Europe Services LLC and their Türkiye Representative Office, all ultimately controlled by Visa Inc.

According to the regulator, the investigation will examine whether the companies and their affiliates restricted competition by obstructing the activities of payment service providers (PSPs) offering international payment solutions.

Specifically, the case concerns allegations that Mastercard and Visa prevented overseas firms from accessing payment and point-of-sale (POS) infrastructure provided by Turkish banks regulated under the Banking Law No. 5411.

Vixio approached both entities for comment, with a spokesperson for Visa stating that the firm “always fully cooperates with any regulatory process and upholds the highest ethical, legal and regulatory standards everywhere we do business.”

Bank of Lithuania Revokes KogoPay Licence, Seeks Bankruptcy Proceedings

The central bank has revoked the firm’s electronic money institution licence, effectively barring it from offering any financial services after significant regulatory breaches.

Founded in early 2021, KogoPay was created to expand services from its UK-based parent, KogoPay UK Ltd, which had been operating since 2015.

The company aims to provide services to travellers and businesses operating between the EU, the UK and South-East Asia, offering mobile wallet solutions and multi-currency transactions. However, this licence revocation marks a dramatic fall from its initial promise.

In its first- and second-quarter reports for 2025, KogoPay failed to meet mandatory equity capital requirements and missed deadlines for submitting financial statements.

The company’s liabilities now exceed its assets, rendering it insolvent and unable to meet its financial obligations on time.

According to the Bank of Lithuania, KogoPay has acknowledged its insolvency and stated that restoring operations depends on securing a new investor.

However, it provided no concrete evidence of any imminent investment capable of covering its capital shortfall or resolving its financial obligations.

The firm’s troubles with the Bank of Lithuania seemingly began in June 2024, when the regulator fined it €30,000 for failing to properly safeguard customer funds, delaying the approval of its annual financial statements and committing other regulatory breaches.

UK Agencies Announce Joint Priorities To Tackle Economic Crime

The National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have published nine economic crime priorities, with a strong focus on combating fraud and its enablers.

Backed by the Home Office and HM Treasury, the priorities aim to drive collaboration between law enforcement, regulators and the private sector across the UK’s financial system.

“A single set of UK-wide priorities gives firms, and the wider system, helpful clarity,” said FCA financial crime chief Steve Smart.

The initiative has also been welcomed by UK Finance, the banking and payments lobby group.

“This new approach to prioritising our key threats and ensuring we use public and private sector collective capabilities in a more effective way has the potential to be a game changer for efforts to combat Economic Crime,” said Ben Donaldson, the organisation’s chief executive.

“We fully support a way of working that enables the financial services sector and the public sector to be better aligned and ensures maximum impact for our society.”

Fraud is a key area of concern, particularly in relation to high-harm schemes such as payment fraud, investment fraud and romance scams.

A key challenge is that more than 70 percent of fraud targeting UK victims is assessed to originate or be enabled from overseas, including jurisdictions such as Ghana, Nigeria, India, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

In response, the authorities in the UK now plan to strengthen intelligence sharing on jurisdictions of risk and identify how criminal networks exploit legal systems, technology and recruitment channels.

Money mule networks are also an area of focus for the authorities, with more than 39,000 UK bank accounts flagged in 2022 as likely linked to mule activity.

The agencies have proposed industry-wide data sharing, targeted public awareness campaigns and coordinated customer treatment strategies to disrupt this method of laundering.

FCA’s Barclays AML Fines Underscore Push to Tackle Financial Crime

The UK financial watchdog’s decision to fine Barclays heavily for failing to conduct appropriate money laundering checks demonstrates a renewed focus on compliance in this area.

Last week, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Barclays Bank UK PLC and Barclays Bank PLC a total of £42m for separate failings in financial crime risk management, one relating to WealthTek and one relating to Stunt & Co.  

In the first case, the regulator fined Barclays Bank UK PLC £3.1m for opening a client money account for WealthTek without adequately assessing the money laundering risks.

“One simple check it could have done was to look at the Financial Services Register before opening the account. Had it done so, it would have seen that WealthTek was not permitted by the FCA to hold client money,” the FCA said.

Without the appropriate information about WealthTek and how the account would be used, there was an increased risk of misappropriation of client money or money laundering, the watchdog added. Clients went on to deposit £34m into the account.  

The FCA separately charged WealthTek’s principal partner with money laundering and fraud offences in December 2024.

Barclays agreed to make a voluntary payment of £6.3m to WealthTek clients who have a shortfall in the funds they have been able to recover.

In the second case, the regulator fined Barclays Bank PLC £39.3m for money laundering risk management failings related to its provision of banking services to Stunt & Co. failed to collect sufficient information or carry out proper ongoing monitoring, the FCA said, and in just over a year, Stunt & Co received £46.8m from Fowler Oldfield, a multimillion-pound money laundering operation.

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