Daily Mail

Revolut in spotlight over missing £70k

Police look into rogue payment at digital bank

- by James Burton

ONLINe bank Revolut is facing mounting scrutiny after details of a missing £ 70,000 payment were passed to police.

The firm, which has 3m customers after years of breakneck growth, is in the spotlight over cash which was meant to be paid into a business account belonging to the wife of former foreign exchange trader Paul Carlier, but never arrived.

Carlier has now complained to fraud authoritie­s.

This is just the latest issue to hit Revolut, founded by Nikolay Storonsky. It also faces a probe over money laundering controls, and finance chief Peter O’higgins quit last week amid growing concerns over the way the business is run. Revolut said the missing cash has now been returned.

It is understood the money was initially mistakenly paid to someone else after the sender entered the wrong details. Carlier has complained to Action Fraud, an independen­t body which collects data on alleged wrongdoing, about the length of time it took to resolve the issue.

Action Fraud has given details of the complaint to the Metropolit­an Police, and officers are looking into whether an offence has been committed. Details have also been given to the National Fraud Intelligen­ce Bureau, which is run by City of London Police.

The bureau can pass informatio­n on to detectives but not every complaint that it receives will trigger a full-blown criminal investigat­ion.

A Revolut spokesman said: ‘ Our team have proactivel­y engaged with the customer and our payments partners to resolve the case and to ensure that the funds were located. We understand that the customer escalated his dissatisfa­ction to the police by submitting a non-fraud complaint via the Action Fraud portal – this organisati­on has no police investigat­ory powers.

‘We would like to make it abundantly clear there is no fraud investigat­ion under way, and we have not been notified of any other investigat­ion by police.’

Revolut was founded in 2015 to offer currency transfer services at ultra-low rates. The firm is now valued at £1.3bn. Its rapid growth has been driven by cut-price currency exchange at rates available on internatio­nal banking markets.

however, there are now growing concerns over whether it has followed City rules in its pursuit of growth. Revolut is being quizzed by the Financial Conduct Authority watchdog over claims that for three months last year, an anti-money laundering system it used was switched off.

Storonsky said: ‘ At no point during this time did we fail to meet our legal or regulatory requiremen­ts.

A Met Police spokesman said: ‘On 7 February Action Fraud referred an allegation of fraud relating to a financial transactio­n made on 24 January.

‘ The central north basic command unit is reviewing the allegation to ascertain whether any criminal offences have been committed.’

Revolut said O’higgins’ exit was not linked to the probe.

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