Plus500 struggles to verify accounts
TROUBLED Plus500 has unfrozen only a third of its UK customers’ accounts after being required to test them for money laundering.
The spread-betting firm was forced to suspend all of its UK trading accounts after regulators ruled its money laundering checks were woefully inadequate.
It has drafted in extra staff to recheck customers but has managed to process only 8,457 out of some 23,000 – with just two weeks to go until its self-imposed deadline for getting them all back online.
Yesterday it also revealed that some 1,690 customers had been processed but whose accounts were not unfrozen – raising questions about the scale to which customers took advantage of its lacklustre checks. Of those who have seen their accounts unblocked, around 5pc have withdrawn all of their funds – many of whom are likely to have moved to a rival broker less likely to be pulled up by the regulator.
Chief executive Gal Haber said it was likely that ‘a majority’ of its customers’ accounts would be cleared by the deadline of later this month. The group has also begun contacting inactive traders who have accounts but have not logged on since May. Many of its customers only use the service infrequently.
The company last year said it had 105,000 customers, and estimates that 50pc of its revenues comes from the UK.
Plus500 was also criticised after offering any UK traders the chance to open fresh accounts in Cyprus, where they will only face the bare minimum of scrutiny over where their money comes from and where it goes.
Plus500’s directors are set for a £160m windfall having agreed to sell the business.
A 400p-a-share offer for the firm from gambling technology group Playtech placed a price tag on the company of around half its market value last month, before it was forced to disclose huge shortcomings in its money-laundering checks.
Shares in the group have fallen by a third in the space of the past year, and most sharply in the past month, and yesterday they were down again by 1.75p to 369.75p.