Worldline’s scramble to restore trust shifted gears this week as the company confirmed it has hired an external audit firm, Accuracy, to conduct a full review of its portfolio of high-risk clients. Simultaneously, consulting heavyweight Oliver Wyman has been brought in to review internal controls, a clear, public attempt to signal that the company is taking its compliance allegations seriously.
The findings from Accuracy’s review are due to be published alongside Worldline’s next earnings on July 30, according to Chairman Wilfried Verstraete, speaking to Les Echos. The move follows a brutal few weeks for the French payments giant, after coordinated reports led by the European Investigative Collaborations accused the group of systematically ignoring fraud risks and regulatory warnings, claims that triggered a market collapse wiping Worldline’s valuation from €24 billion to below €1 billion.
The revelations, which included allegations of knowingly processing payments for illegal casinos, high-fraud merchants, and adult content sites, prompted not only shareholder flight but also the attention of regulators across Europe. The Brussels Public Prosecutor has since opened an investigation into Worldline’s Belgian operations, and Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority has summoned the company for urgent meetings.
Meanwhile, CEO Pierre-Antoine Vacheron continues to characterize the media coverage as an “orchestrated attack” and has signaled possible legal action.
The decision to hire external auditors raises a deeper issue: can this really be framed as a legacy glitch, or an isolated compliance failure tied to Payone GmbH — a company whose troubles has been blamed in some quarters since the beginning of this crisis?
Payone was not some fringe fintech experiment; it was the formal successor to B+S Card Service, Germany’s largest payments processor at the time. AML failures. GDPR violations. Pension law breaches, all at Payone GmbH over the last few years — including the extraordinary act of deducting contributions from an employee salaries for a pension scheme that didn’t even exist at the time. This isn’t borderline regulatory risk it’s core legal failure at the most basic operational level of a financial entity namely Payone.
Some hold the view that Payone was simply a “bad apple.” But the idea that serious AML breaches like those exposed by BaFin in September 2023, can be dismissed under the convenient “bad apple” theory grows thinner by the day. When Germany’s largest payments processor reveals failures this systemic, it forces a sharper question about the health of the orchard itself and in that sense Worldline are right to open itself up to scrutiny. It is unclear whether the audit covers Payone itself or just Worldline operations outside of it’s Frankfurt based subsidiary.
Whether Tier 1 and Tier 2 retailers similar in nature to the likes of Aldi, Marks & Spencer, LVMH, TK Maxx, Uber, and Subway accept any concluding narrative, remains to be seen. It is obvious the headlines of recent days are not doing wonders for the reputation of the parent firm let alone Payone. Their concern is likely to be do we want our brand associated with a payments partner under investigation in Belgium, regulatory supervision, and media scrutiny regardless of the cause?
For some retailers, the threshold isn’t whether this was fraud, negligence, or just sloppy governance. It’s whether being linked to this company now carries reputational risk at the checkout counter. Some may say that it does not matter and some may be of the view that it does matter.
All media outlets will surely be keen on understanding the details and outcome of the reort on 30 July 2025.
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This article is for journalistic and analytical purposes only. It does not constitute legal, financial, or investment advice. All information is derived from publicly available sources, believed accurate as of the date of publication, and subject to change without notice. Loopline Media assumes no liability for reliance on its contents.
