On February 11, the ePayments payment system suspended all operations on its customer accounts after the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) audit.

“This decision was taken following a review, by the FCA, of ePayments anti-money laundering systems and controls, which identified weakness that required remediation,” the statement said.

According to one of the ePayments customers, the company did not send out any warning letters before restricting operations.

“There was no anу preliminary warning. A message regarding account freezing can be only seen in the web version of your personal account. A letter about funds blocking did wasn’t even sent to the mail. When trying to transfer funds, even inside the system, it displays a large red button. Of course, everything is unexpected and unpleasant. It was a convenient service for converting crypto to fiat, ” commented one of the users.

The support service stated that it would take several days to formulate new rules for working with AML. At the same time, platform representatives assure that the user’s funds are “being safeguarded as normal”.

“We know this will be a very frustrating time for our customers. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and are working tirelessly with the FCA to ensure improvements are made and accounts can be reactivated as soon as possible. During this improvement process, we want to assure customers that their funds are being safeguarded as normal,” the company stated on its website.

ePayments is licensed by the UK FCA to issue e-money for its clients and their customers. The company has permissions to open IBAN accounts, issue prepaid cards for individuals, businesses and online merchants.

In July 2018, ePayments became the first company to use the Passport authorization service from the Telegram messenger.