“Employees of the Bank of Lietuvos will check every Foxpay payment order and allow only those related to services to the Lithuanian public sector to be executed,” the central bank’s statement released on Tuesday reads.
According to LB, such a decision was made after it was established during inspections that Foxpay continued to carry out payment transactions between private individuals and legal entities, including entities classified as a higher risk group for money laundering and terrorist financing.
In order to ensure that public sector customers are not inconvenienced and possible delays are kept to a minimum, the authority is promising to allocate additional resources to controls.
In June, LB announced that it had partially restricted Foxpay’s rights to issue payment instructions and receive orders through the CENTROLink payment system. These restrictions did not apply to Foxpay payments related to services provided to the public sector under public procurement contracts.
A month ago, LB instructed the company not to provide financial services to clients related to the institution’s shareholder Ieva Trinkūnaita and classified as a higher risk group for money laundering and terrorist financing.
ELTA reminds that the Bank of Lithuania (LB) previously announced that it had restricted the activities of the financial technology company “Foxpay” and appointed a temporary representative to oversee the institution’s activities. The institution “Foxpay” ordered not to establish new business relations and not to provide financial services to those related to the institution’s shareholder I.Trinkūnaita, classified as a higher risk group for money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as clients providing investment, gambling, information technology, marketing and virtual currency services.
In order to protect clients’ funds, ensure the execution of mandatory instructions and the proper provision of information to LB, the audit company “Grant Thornton Baltic” has been appointed as a temporary representative of the institution. As the authority explains, any decision of the company’s managers related to the activities of Foxpay will require the approval of this manager.
Such decisions were made on the basis of establishing during the LB inspection that Foxpay during the 2022 September 30 – in 2024 March 20 during the period, the requirements of legal acts on the prevention of terrorist financing and internal control in this area, protection and control of customer funds and information security were not properly implemented.
It was also established that I. Trinkūnaitė does not meet the requirements of an impeccable reputation, and in addition, a person closely related to her was included in the activities of Foxpay.
After receiving detailed explanations from Foxpay, LB will fully assess the results of the inspection and make a final decision on the measures to be applied for the detected violations.
In addition, during the inspection, the company LB provided inaccurate, incorrect and incomplete, and in some cases, contradictory information related to the institution’s clients.
In response to such a restriction, I. Trinkūnaitė sold part of Foxpay’s shares to the company’s current director Saulius Galatilčis and businessmen Narimantas Bloznelis and Georg Kotomin. Such an action was taken in order to ensure the continued operation of the company.
2024-08-14 02:35:48