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by sixhobbits 2183 days ago
Anyone know if Transferwise Global debit cards are impacted by this?
4 comments

TransferWise worked with Wirecard for a short time between February 2017 and September 2018 as its debit card issuer in the UK and Europe. The partnership was terminated in September 2018 and has since obtained its own issuance license for cards through Mastercard. TransferWise has no business ties to Wirecard today
the Wirecard Bank is a subsidiary, that has not filed for insolvency. (disclaimer: they are checking if they need to file for the subsidiaries as well - though my guess is they are trying to minimize the impact on the operations and bank transactions, to save the future of the product).
scratch that.

Bafin (german bank watchdog) just froze the accounts, incl. cards of Boon, which is a wirecard subsidary.

I doubt it will. Wirecard powers too many transactions. It’s going to go into administration and someone is going to pick it up.
Too big to fail

You realize that they probably have literally zero money?

That’s irrelevant. They have customers with complex integrations who can’t move. That’s worth a lot of money. Someone will want to acquire that.
I'd tend to believe your take on it. Pulling the rug from all the companies using Wirecard to process payments could cause mayhem.

Though when it comes to a buyer, hard to tell how they'll be able to get to a fair valuation given the fairytale numbers they have in their books.

> Though when it comes to a buyer, hard to tell how they'll be able to get to a fair valuation given the fairytale numbers they have in their books.

I always pictured the court auctioning off assets in a firesale to the highest bidder. Is that not how it works?

I am not sure, I suppose an administrator may want to tear the guts out of the business and try sell off the parts of value.

Was just thinking of the people that rely on Wirecard for transactions at the moment, switching them off doesn't seem sensible for any outcome.

That really depends on the level of debt that charges the company. If it's very high you won't get that before the bankruptcy court finishes their job.

The fact that you need something doesn't mean you'll get something.

Another big one is Payoneer.
Rushing my balance out as of now, just in case.