SHOPPERS have been shocked to discover that they were unable to use their gift cards due to the collapse of German financial services company.
Mahon Point shoppers in Cork found that gift cards for the shopping centre were not being accepted.
Wirecard, the issuers of the gift vouchers, had its licence suspended by the UK financial regulator.
A spokesperson for the Cork shopping centre said: “Mahon Point Shopping Centre can confirm that our gift cards have been temporarily suspended until further notice.
“This is because Wirecard, who are the issuers of our card, had their licence suspended by the UK financial regulator.”
The spokesman told the ‘Cork Beo’ news website that the centre was informed last Friday that the gifts cards were frozen.
Last week British authorities shut down the scandal-hit German payments company Wirecard, which is the issuer of the An Post Money Currency card.
It was told to halt its business after news that €1.9bn was missing from the accounts of the company.
×
Wisecard’s British operation was the issuer of prepaid Mastercards which were used as gift vouchers in this country and by An Post as currency cards.
Today the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, said it was now close to lifting restrictions on Wirecard, which would allow 50,000 An Post customers here to use their currency cards and shoppers to use their gift cards.
The British regulator said: “We have been working closely with Wirecard UK and other authorities over the last few days to ensure that the firm was able to meet certain conditions required to lift the restrictions we imposed on it. We are now in a position to allow Wirecard to resume operational activity.
“This means customers will now, or very shortly, be able to use their cards as usual.”
Meanwhile, fintech Revolut admitted it had been using Wirecard to allow customers to top up their Revolut debit cards.
Revolut, the issuer of Mastercard debit cards to one million people in Ireland, said it now stopped doing business with the collapsed German company.
Consumer advocate Brendan Burgess pointed out that the one million users of Revolut here are not protected by the deposit guarantee scheme.
Revolut sources insisted customer funds are securely held in ring-fenced accounts in top tier global banks.
Additionally, all Revolut customer card transactions are processed by the Mastercard, Maestro, or Visa network and are protected by their rules, sources said.