I know a lot of people use Curve – to tie their credit card to a payment card that allows you to earn cash back, or pay 0% fees when travelling.
However, there’s a major problem, which has forced Curve to stop accepting transactions as they were using Wirecard on the processing end.
Here’s the email I got earlier:
Dear Curve Customers,
Your Curve card and all associated Curve transaction and money transfer services will be temporarily suspended with immediate effect. Please be assured, we expect to be up and running again shortly but it may take a few days. Your money and card details held at Curve are safe and secure.
This has happened because the Financial Conduct Authority has this morning suspended its permission for Wirecard Card Solutions Limited (the company who currently issues Curve Cards) to operate, without prior notice. This action is not related to Curve – but Curve currently depends on Wirecard for operation of the Curve card.
We are already well on the way to migrating away from Wirecard but have not fully completed this process. We are now working round the clock to achieve the migration as quickly as possible and therefore expect this disruption to last for only a limited period of time.
We will continue to communicate the details of what this means for you during this interim period.
For now, please carry a backup card.
Wirecard has been in the news when it announced over €1.9 billion was missing – resulting in a share crash, and the company filing for insolvency.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority has published its advice at https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/requirements-imposed-wirecard-authorisation.
In addition, those who have cards issued by Wirecard UK (other than Curve) will be stuck too.
If you’re impacted, it time to use another card for now or change a funding source (for example, I use Curve as a source for the Apple iTunes store… and when I was travelling, so I’ll have to re-point these at my “source” credit cards again).
For now, if you have anything due to go via Curve, I’d be changing the funding source for it for some time until they can sort their e-money issuing authority.
As for other providers who use WireCard on the back end, you will need to contact them to find out your next steps.
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