Recently, the Paris Criminal Court in France ruled that the global payment giant Worldpay failed to perform due diligence obligations on customers in an international foreign exchange investment fraud case, resulting in the payment system being used by the fraud gang for illegal foreign exchange transactions and money laundering. It was fined 200,000 euros (approximately 1.56 million yuan).
At the same time, the court also ordered Worldpay to bear joint and several liability for civil compensation to some victims.
This is a transnational financial fraud case that lasted for more than ten years and involved a total amount of tens of millions of euros.
From 2011 to 2014, a fraud gang with French-Israeli dual nationalities as its core built a large number of fake foreign exchange (Forex) trading platforms on the Internet, and used high returns as bait to lure many investors into financial transactions through online advertising and telemarketing.
However, the funds deposited by the victims were quickly transferred to the Seychelles, Ukraine and other jurisdictions with weak regulations, and then disappeared.
The core focus of the case is the role played by Worldpay, a global payment platform.
The court found that Seroph, a company registered in Cyprus in the case, was associated with multiple fraudulent online trading platforms, and Worldpay was Seroph’s payment service provider.
Between 2011 and 2014, Worldpay processed more than €16.8 million in financial transactions for Seroph.
If this kind of fraud “launders” funds through formal payment channels, it will greatly increase the difficulty of supervision and recovery of stolen goods.
Based on this, the court found that Worldpay was guilty of “conspiracy to illegally operate payment services” on the grounds that it failed to fulfill its investigation obligations as a payment service provider and failed to remain vigilant enough about abnormal capital flows, which objectively provided a financial channel for fraud gangs.
This also sends a clear signal that payment service providers cannot be exempted from liability on the grounds of “technology neutrality”.
When a payment channel is used to handle obviously abnormal or suspected illegal fund flows, the payment platform has compliance obligations to proactively identify, report and cut off the channel.
In recent years, as financial crimes such as online investment fraud, fake foreign exchange platforms, and cryptocurrency pyramid schemes have been staged “borderlessly” around the world, regulatory agencies in various countries are gradually extending their regulatory reach to the payment channel level.
For example, the French Financial Market Authority has continued to warn about the risks of false investment platforms for many years and has actively promoted the crackdown on fraud through payment channels; the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission have repeatedly initiated lawsuits against third-party institutions that provide payment services for fraudulent platforms in recent years; under the EU’s “Digital Operations Resilience Act” and the framework of new anti-money laundering regulations, the compliance responsibilities of payment service providers have also continued to increase.
It is understood that Worldpay was formerly the payment business department of Royal Bank of Scotland. After years of development, it has become the world’s leading cross-border payment service provider, with business covering dozens of countries and regions around the world.
It is worth noting that Worldpay completed a major equity change not long ago this year.
In January 2026, the American technology company Global Payments announced the completion of its acquisition of Worldpay, with the total transaction consideration exceeding US$24 billion.
This time Worldpay was punished for a foreign exchange investment fraud case, which undoubtedly brought certain challenges to its future development and also sounded a compliance alarm for the entire cross-border payment industry.
