.svg)
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service has imposed fines of €150,000 and €180,000 on two former directors of payment service provider Payvision for failures in relation to anti-money laundering (AML) obligations.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service accused the directors of years of structural violations of money laundering and terrorism financing laws.
The criminal cases have now been settled out of court with a penalty order.
The criminal investigation was started following a report by the Dutch Central Bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), against Payvision, alleging that it may have violated its compliance requirements.
This declaration and the substantiating report were grounds for further investigation by the Public Prosecution Service, as well as the country’s Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD).
This investigation found that Payvision had conducted inadequate customer due diligence between 2016 and April 2020, in contravention of the Dutch Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act (Wwft).
The payment service provider had failed to sufficiently investigate and determine the identity, ultimate beneficial owner, purpose and intended nature of its business relationships. It was also found to have had no constant monitoring of relationships.
Payment service providers play an important role as gatekeepers in protecting the financial system against money laundering and terrorist financing, the prosecutor said in a statement. “The Public Prosecution Service therefore strongly blames the former directors for the fact that Payvision BV, under their responsibility, has failed in its gatekeeper function.”
As it stands, Payvision is in a state of dissolution and no longer has a licence to provide payment services.
Payvision’s services were wound down in 2021 after it became a subsidiary of ING. ING had originally acquired a 75 percent stake in the company to grow its presence in merchant acquiring.
However, Payvision’s links with pornography and gambling made for negative headlines and prompted one source to refer to it as “a problem child” for the bank.
The payment service provider was even branded the “Wirecard of the Netherlands” by the European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI), a non-profit organisation that recovers funds for victims of scams.
In 2019, the EFRI wrote to the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) accusing Payvision, as well as ING, of being involved in “several fraudulent investment scams damaging thousands of European consumers by more than EUR 250 million”.
This escalated further in July 2021 when the EFRI wrote to EU-level institutions requesting that they mandate the European Banking Authority to initiate a breach of law investigation against the Dutch National Bank for its failures to investigate Payvision under the EU’s money laundering rules.
