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Here is the response to my message to the FCA :
Thank you for contacting the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
I understand that you’ve contacted us today in relation to ePayments Systems Limited. You’ve stated that you have an account with the firm and that the account has been blocked. I can appreciate how difficult and alarming this matter must be for you. Please see below for guidance.
What we do
I thought it’d be useful for me to give you an overview of our remit and what we do. We’re responsible for regulating firms in the UK who provide financial services and products in relation to regulated activities (the term we give to the business we allow a firm to do) with regards to their conduct. We’re tasked with regulating the UK financial markets and to do this we must remain impartial. This means we are unable to investigate or intervene in individual matters and we don’t have dispute resolution powers for individual complaints. Although we don’t have the resolution powers for individual complaints, what I can do is let you know where we are at with ePayments Systems Limited.
ePayments Systems Limited
I’ve conducted a search of our financial services register (a database of all the firms/individuals we authorise) and can confirm that ePayments Systems Limited is an authorised Electronic Money Institution firm. This means the firm have been given specific permissions in order to provide financial services/products within the United Kingdom.
I can see from the register that the firm have permissions to issue electronic money. You can access this information on our register by following this link. Please be aware that if you wish to conduct business with the firm or make a complaint about the firm, I’d strongly suggest contacting ePayments Systems Limited using the details we hold on our register.
This is to make sure that you’re dealing with the legitimate firm as sometimes individuals use details of firm found on our register to suggest they work for the genuine firm. We call this a cloned firm and typically it’s part of a scam.
Why did the FCA take this action now?
It is within the FCA’s power to take supervisory action in certain cases where there may be harm and it is desirable to protect the interests of customers. Following supervisory discussions and concerns identified around the firm’s financial crime controls, Epayments submitted a voluntary application for the imposition of a requirements. As a result, the full requirements have been published on the FCA register which you can find here.
Although these requirements are in place, Epayments continues to be regulated by the FCA. Epayments must apply to the FCA to remove those requirements once it can satisfy the FCA that the concerns around its financial crime controls have been remediated.
What should I do if I have money with Epayments?
Customers should contact the Epayments directly if they are concerned, have questions or for any updates.
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding is a key consumer protection measure within the Electronic Money Regulations (EMRs) and Payments Services Regulations (PSRs). The purpose of safeguarding is, to protect customer money if a firm fails.
Safeguarding requires firms to protect customers’ funds received in exchange for e-money or payment services, by either holding it separately from all other money held by the firm in an appropriate account, or by having an insurance policy/comparable guarantee covering the value of customer funds that would pay out if a firm enters insolvency.
A firm’s ability to effectively safeguard customers’ funds is critical to help ensure that customers’ money is protected if a firm fails.
These safeguarding requirements applied to Epayments and were a condition of Epayments authorisation.
Are my funds protected by FSCS?
No. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) only applies to certain types of activity. This does not include issuing electronic money or payment services.
Under the EMRs and PSRs, there are rules on how customers’ money should be protected and these requirements are known as ‘safeguarding’.
What happens next?
We are working with the firm on their remediation plan to address the deficiencies identified. Epayments must apply to the FCA to remove those requirements once it can satisfy the FCA that the concerns around its financial crime controls have been remediated.
The above information is all we can share with you at the moment as we must remain impartial. You may wish to contact the firm directly to let them know that the funds in your account are for an operation. They may be able to provide you with guidance in this matter. I hope this information has been of use to you. If you have any further queries please don’t hesitate to contact us by replying directly to this email.
How was your experience with us
To help us improve our service, I’m interested in finding out about your experience with the Contact Centre today.
I’ll send you a link to a survey and I’d appreciate it if you could take a few moments to share your feedback on the service you’ve received from me.
Yours sincerely
Joe Karim
Supervisor / Supervision Hub / Supervision - Retail and Authorizations
Financial Conduct Authority
12 Endeavor Square, London, E20 1JN
Telephone: 0800 111 6768
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.fca.org.uk
Thank you for contacting the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
I understand that you’ve contacted us today in relation to ePayments Systems Limited. You’ve stated that you have an account with the firm and that the account has been blocked. I can appreciate how difficult and alarming this matter must be for you. Please see below for guidance.
What we do
I thought it’d be useful for me to give you an overview of our remit and what we do. We’re responsible for regulating firms in the UK who provide financial services and products in relation to regulated activities (the term we give to the business we allow a firm to do) with regards to their conduct. We’re tasked with regulating the UK financial markets and to do this we must remain impartial. This means we are unable to investigate or intervene in individual matters and we don’t have dispute resolution powers for individual complaints. Although we don’t have the resolution powers for individual complaints, what I can do is let you know where we are at with ePayments Systems Limited.
ePayments Systems Limited
I’ve conducted a search of our financial services register (a database of all the firms/individuals we authorise) and can confirm that ePayments Systems Limited is an authorised Electronic Money Institution firm. This means the firm have been given specific permissions in order to provide financial services/products within the United Kingdom.
I can see from the register that the firm have permissions to issue electronic money. You can access this information on our register by following this link. Please be aware that if you wish to conduct business with the firm or make a complaint about the firm, I’d strongly suggest contacting ePayments Systems Limited using the details we hold on our register.
This is to make sure that you’re dealing with the legitimate firm as sometimes individuals use details of firm found on our register to suggest they work for the genuine firm. We call this a cloned firm and typically it’s part of a scam.
Why did the FCA take this action now?
It is within the FCA’s power to take supervisory action in certain cases where there may be harm and it is desirable to protect the interests of customers. Following supervisory discussions and concerns identified around the firm’s financial crime controls, Epayments submitted a voluntary application for the imposition of a requirements. As a result, the full requirements have been published on the FCA register which you can find here.
Although these requirements are in place, Epayments continues to be regulated by the FCA. Epayments must apply to the FCA to remove those requirements once it can satisfy the FCA that the concerns around its financial crime controls have been remediated.
What should I do if I have money with Epayments?
Customers should contact the Epayments directly if they are concerned, have questions or for any updates.
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding is a key consumer protection measure within the Electronic Money Regulations (EMRs) and Payments Services Regulations (PSRs). The purpose of safeguarding is, to protect customer money if a firm fails.
Safeguarding requires firms to protect customers’ funds received in exchange for e-money or payment services, by either holding it separately from all other money held by the firm in an appropriate account, or by having an insurance policy/comparable guarantee covering the value of customer funds that would pay out if a firm enters insolvency.
A firm’s ability to effectively safeguard customers’ funds is critical to help ensure that customers’ money is protected if a firm fails.
These safeguarding requirements applied to Epayments and were a condition of Epayments authorisation.
Are my funds protected by FSCS?
No. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) only applies to certain types of activity. This does not include issuing electronic money or payment services.
Under the EMRs and PSRs, there are rules on how customers’ money should be protected and these requirements are known as ‘safeguarding’.
What happens next?
We are working with the firm on their remediation plan to address the deficiencies identified. Epayments must apply to the FCA to remove those requirements once it can satisfy the FCA that the concerns around its financial crime controls have been remediated.
The above information is all we can share with you at the moment as we must remain impartial. You may wish to contact the firm directly to let them know that the funds in your account are for an operation. They may be able to provide you with guidance in this matter. I hope this information has been of use to you. If you have any further queries please don’t hesitate to contact us by replying directly to this email.
How was your experience with us
To help us improve our service, I’m interested in finding out about your experience with the Contact Centre today.
I’ll send you a link to a survey and I’d appreciate it if you could take a few moments to share your feedback on the service you’ve received from me.
Yours sincerely
Joe Karim
Supervisor / Supervision Hub / Supervision - Retail and Authorizations
Financial Conduct Authority
12 Endeavor Square, London, E20 1JN
Telephone: 0800 111 6768
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.fca.org.uk
Last edited:
Following fabrice34 message, i get it. I know what the FSA is talking about.
They have a process in place where someone in a company can contact the FCA and ask for an audit. So, I guess that an insider at Epayments called on epayments to perform an audit. Maybe, the british director (Mr CourtNeidge) at epayments who resigned is at the source of this process. There are two russian directors.
Unfortunately, this confirms what martin said previously. I may also be wrong. Mr courtneidge was maybe only a nominee. Nevertheless, I am convinced something is wrong.
EPAYMENTS SYSTEMS LIMITED - Officers (free information from Companies House)
The problem is worse than what I expected since they don't mention anything related to KYC/AML. They mention problems related to fund deposit. This is the worse case scenario. The FCA may not be aware of everything that happens in Epayments since their is no financial police investigation.
Personnally, I lack trust in Epayments now. I will look at my cashflow set-up today.
I think that we can get an answer to our problem, if we can contact the former director Robert Edmund Courtneidge and ask him two questions:
Will will see our money again?
Can we trust Epayments?
Mr Courtneidge is orginally a solicitor. He is not likely to be the player in the story.
I was thinking about Epayments and the Courtneidge case. I forgot to tell you the following:
In the UK, there is a common practice: a Lawyer may be also a director so that he can file a complaint at the police against a 3rd party.
This is the lawyer of the company who decided to resign following the suspension of epayments. It is really not a good sign.
@void you should not be mistaken the FCA is here to protect customer's money. I think that the problem really comes from some people at Epayments. They are the ones that are not in compliance. Many other EMI have a UK licence and they don't have any problems with the FCA: Revolut, Epayservice, Advcash...
They have a process in place where someone in a company can contact the FCA and ask for an audit. So, I guess that an insider at Epayments called on epayments to perform an audit. Maybe, the british director (Mr CourtNeidge) at epayments who resigned is at the source of this process. There are two russian directors.
Unfortunately, this confirms what martin said previously. I may also be wrong. Mr courtneidge was maybe only a nominee. Nevertheless, I am convinced something is wrong.
EPAYMENTS SYSTEMS LIMITED - Officers (free information from Companies House)
The problem is worse than what I expected since they don't mention anything related to KYC/AML. They mention problems related to fund deposit. This is the worse case scenario. The FCA may not be aware of everything that happens in Epayments since their is no financial police investigation.
Personnally, I lack trust in Epayments now. I will look at my cashflow set-up today.
I think that we can get an answer to our problem, if we can contact the former director Robert Edmund Courtneidge and ask him two questions:
Will will see our money again?
Can we trust Epayments?
Mr Courtneidge is orginally a solicitor. He is not likely to be the player in the story.
I was thinking about Epayments and the Courtneidge case. I forgot to tell you the following:
In the UK, there is a common practice: a Lawyer may be also a director so that he can file a complaint at the police against a 3rd party.
This is the lawyer of the company who decided to resign following the suspension of epayments. It is really not a good sign.
@void you should not be mistaken the FCA is here to protect customer's money. I think that the problem really comes from some people at Epayments. They are the ones that are not in compliance. Many other EMI have a UK licence and they don't have any problems with the FCA: Revolut, Epayservice, Advcash...
ohh yes, FCA is here surely to protect customer not for surveillance and control...
protection of customers would give us an option to transfer our money immediately away while epayments is trying to comply with whatever they require
Agreed. I was in a shitty situation with Revolut which is - surprise surprise - also regulated by FCA. My account was blocked three times, three times I was asked same absurd questions (source of funds, why I'm making international transfers, tax return etc etc.).
With ePayments again I'm asked these annoying private questions some of which are completely absurd - I made withdrawal to my own account, why am I doing that? I received transfer from a stock broker, why am I trading stocks?
Monese immediately closed my account when I made a 100€ transfer to a crypto exchange, again regulated by FCA.
I understand they operate with electronic money licence but this is getting ridiculous.
No mainstreet bank asked me such questions and blocked my accounts.
fabrice34: Imho any messages or complaints to FCA are completely useless, they will only reply with law-speak that they are the regulator and they can regulate. It is like complaining to your ISP that your internet is s**t; they know it and they won't do anything about it.
If you want to complain, you can file a complaint to Financial Ombudsman Service, however that is organization that has no power so unfortunately you are wasting time with any complaints, reports or even lawyers.
This reminds me of the good old days where everyday there was popping up new Payment Service Providers to offer credit card processing. Sometimes you could learn about two companies a day. After that, and some time later on the BIG SCREAMING started. Everyone was complaining their accounts got frozen, the PSP went bankruptcy, they just took my money and vanished. There were endless reports on the forums about that.
15 years later no one never hear about this any longer.
The story looks like it repeats with the EMI's and small banks - it is exact same picture!
I hope all of you don't lose any money.
15 years later no one never hear about this any longer.
The story looks like it repeats with the EMI's and small banks - it is exact same picture!
I hope all of you don't lose any money.
You are absolutely right, as I have already said in this forum the FCA is a real s**t as a regulatory organism. They don't care about customer protection and will never get help from them.
The FCA only cares that regulated companies apply their financial rules, but when there is a problem there is no help for the customer.
If there was real protection for the consumer, why doesn't the FCA require companies with suspended licenses to reimburse customers? For example Ipagoo.com which was suspended in July 2019, none of the clients was still reimbursed today with audit pretexts without any sense on the part of the new administrators, and the FCA does nothing to get customers to get their money back.
At least when Leopay or Mistertango (regulated by another organism) had problems, the customers were reimbursed very quickly. This is why the FCA in my opinion is not at all a guarantee for the customer.
I don't have a good feeling about how this will end.<..>
Some social media commentators have questioned those numbers in the wake of the FCA incident. “It amazes me, two days since ‘one million’ accounts went frozen, and [the internet] is silent,” one of the allegedly affected users wrote, referring to the lack of financial mainstream media coverage and stressing that ePayments has just over 2 thousand subscribers on Twitter:
“They have only a few thousand followers on Twitter. Makes me think that [the] majority of those accounts were not real.”
<..>
https://cointelegraph.com/news/fca-keeps-epayments-on-lockdown-crypto-unlikely-at-fault
Gediminas, that may be truth and may not be a truth.
My expirience is, since I am member of 20 affiliate networks, who has thousands of affiliates and them as paymenth method, that epayment is serious player. I mean those companies worth 10-100 million aprox wouldn't choose them as payment option if they are not serious... just my 2 cents, maybe I am wrong...
Not all networks but 6-7, and 2 are realy, realy serious players on that market.
I don't know would you understans, since we are all here from various type of busines, I mean, I supose, but here, people in affiliate marketing will understans what I am talking about, since they probabbly know player in affiliate marketing business and here is who have rhem as paymenth method
https://www.affpaying.com/affiliate-networks?filters=pm:ePayments
My expirience is, since I am member of 20 affiliate networks, who has thousands of affiliates and them as paymenth method, that epayment is serious player. I mean those companies worth 10-100 million aprox wouldn't choose them as payment option if they are not serious... just my 2 cents, maybe I am wrong...
Not all networks but 6-7, and 2 are realy, realy serious players on that market.
I don't know would you understans, since we are all here from various type of busines, I mean, I supose, but here, people in affiliate marketing will understans what I am talking about, since they probabbly know player in affiliate marketing business and here is who have rhem as paymenth method
https://www.affpaying.com/affiliate-networks?filters=pm:ePayments
@amateur
I think that you can replace epayments with an EMI that provide an IBAN like Perveskdotcom/payoneer. If those affiliate networks accept SEPA transfer. You can fill the SEPA details with IBAN to EMI, not real bank. Payoneer also provides account holders an IBAN, a US wire transfer details and GBP transfer so that when you are an Amazon affiliate member like me, you can send all your commissions to 3 payoneer accounts. Then, Payoneer can send you a Mastercard in EUR or GBP if you are not located in the US.
For payoneer there is only one exception, your business should not be adult
Last edited:
<..>
Some social media commentators have questioned those numbers in the wake of the FCA incident. “It amazes me, two days since ‘one million’ accounts went frozen, and [the internet] is silent,” one of the allegedly affected users wrote, referring to the lack of financial mainstream media coverage and stressing that ePayments has just over 2 thousand subscribers on Twitter:
“They have only a few thousand followers on Twitter. Makes me think that [the] majority of those accounts were not real.”
<..>
How many of their customers actually live in EEA and how many live in Russia out of interest?
Maybe Russian language users are out there but not in English speaking sites. After all they are a Russian EMI in UK
.
I wanted to add somethig. In the past I was a business analyst. I am a specialist of processes. I used to create processes in a very big company. Then, representatives PWC would come to audit it. I have never received any government agents. Based on this knowledge here is what I have to say. Compliance problems are much easier to solve than Technical problems in majority of cases. With the PWC audit, it took me one week to solve problems of the company on my own. So, if we ask 50 people to work on compliance, this should be fixed very quickly.
My rant about Epayments
I think that Epayments is not serious because they should have allocated all their resources to fixing all the problems in their company. This is a life or death question for epayments company. So, people should work overtime and they should may be hire people to solve the problem. They should communicate with the customers everyday. They should not snob their customers. Now they play with us. If you have a $50,000 balance, (hopefully not my case), they tell you "it is fine, no worries, we are making headways". A financial institution should not communicate like this. They sound like a startup. I guess people left money on their account. It should be a serious business.
They don't want to disclose the real problems of compliance. This means that they have something to hide. It is not a normal situation.
When we deposit money at Epayments, it is our money. They should do everything in their power to let us access our money. However, they don't do it and they don't communicate about it. I find them disrespectful towards their customers. In a previous comment I said that I would wait until the end of the month before taking action, but I have decided to change my deadline to next wednesday. Some automated incoming payments are on hold. I have to redirect my incoming payments to a different platform. I ll use paxum and pervesk but i am not happy about this solution.
Imagine yourself lending money to someone and this individual would tell you, "i have compliance problems with the authority, you can't access your money". This would not work. For sure, in this regard, the FCA is a useless administration. It would be better to have no administration at all, because they should not make people believe that the FCA protects their money.
My rant about Epayments
I think that Epayments is not serious because they should have allocated all their resources to fixing all the problems in their company. This is a life or death question for epayments company. So, people should work overtime and they should may be hire people to solve the problem. They should communicate with the customers everyday. They should not snob their customers. Now they play with us. If you have a $50,000 balance, (hopefully not my case), they tell you "it is fine, no worries, we are making headways". A financial institution should not communicate like this. They sound like a startup. I guess people left money on their account. It should be a serious business.
They don't want to disclose the real problems of compliance. This means that they have something to hide. It is not a normal situation.
When we deposit money at Epayments, it is our money. They should do everything in their power to let us access our money. However, they don't do it and they don't communicate about it. I find them disrespectful towards their customers. In a previous comment I said that I would wait until the end of the month before taking action, but I have decided to change my deadline to next wednesday. Some automated incoming payments are on hold. I have to redirect my incoming payments to a different platform. I ll use paxum and pervesk but i am not happy about this solution.
Imagine yourself lending money to someone and this individual would tell you, "i have compliance problems with the authority, you can't access your money". This would not work. For sure, in this regard, the FCA is a useless administration. It would be better to have no administration at all, because they should not make people believe that the FCA protects their money.
To be fair its not unique to epayments to ignore customers when problems happen. Most banks treat their clients with the same contempt and ignore them. I have been through worse situations with banks and all had a common factor of a Russia connection as root cause of failure. So never again will I go through touching any bank or EMI with Russia connection and that includes other Russian EMI's in UK like Revoult.
Dear Martin, I was myself already impacted by the Russian culture. Hopefully it was not about a big amount of money. 2500 euros. A bank of moscow held my money of my former estonian company and I had to hire a Russian lawyer to get back these 2500 euros. it took me 11 months to get it back minus the lawyer fee.
For those who are not aware, There is a cultural problem in Russia with money scams. Sometimes, it is half a scam.
Some people may think that we are into conspiracy but read and you will see:
https://www.ft.com/content/340eff24-177d-11ea-8d73-6303645ac406
Even the bank of russia has a page on Russian scams in english!!
Fraud in the financial market | Bank of Russia
I have investigated about epayments. it looks like the Russian CEO hired many Russian employees.
All the UK EMI are not ran by Russians.
Example: Epayservice officers:
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05899168/officers
@amateur while my money is still blocked at Epayments, I moved my incoming payments to Epayservice and Paxum.
I have now a verified account at ADVcash as well. I also applied to pervesk.
People start to wake up on Twitter. I guess that if they continue like this for 2 weeks. People will leave Epayments and in the future they are likely to get bankrupt.
People start to complaint everywhere : trustpilot, twitter and even google maps:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/e...736c5ec!8m2!3d51.5119863!4d-0.1416179!9m1!1b1
I have now a verified account at ADVcash as well. I also applied to pervesk.
People start to wake up on Twitter. I guess that if they continue like this for 2 weeks. People will leave Epayments and in the future they are likely to get bankrupt.
People start to complaint everywhere : trustpilot, twitter and even google maps:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/e...736c5ec!8m2!3d51.5119863!4d-0.1416179!9m1!1b1
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