FCA Seizes UK Payments Firm Over Allegations of Facilitating Billions in High-Risk Transactions
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has taken decisive action, placing Euro Exchange Securities UK Ltd. into administration due to grave concerns that the payments firm was facilitating billions of pounds in transactions for high-risk clients, potentially enabling money laundering. The move underscores a heightened regulatory focus on the integrity of the UK’s payments sector.
Court filings reveal that Euro Exchange Securities reported processing over 20,000 payments totalling £2.1 billion within the 12 months preceding August. Significantly, nearly the entirety of this substantial value was handled on behalf of a mere 14 clients, all of whom the firm itself had identified as posing a “high risk” of money laundering. This revelation emerged as the FCA moved to seize control of the firm, citing “significant risks of financial crime” and “unacceptable money-laundering risks to the UK financial system.”
The FCA’s intervention follows a protracted period of supervisory engagement. According to High Court filings, the regulator had been monitoring weaknesses in the company’s controls for six years prior to the administration. Euro Exchange Securities, an authorised electronic-money institution (EMI), is owned by businessman Luis Gasparini, who did not respond to requests for comment. EMIs, regulated by the FCA, are permitted to hold client funds, process payments, and issue e-money. While scores of such firms have been authorised in the UK, the FCA has recently expressed growing concern over widespread fraud and inadequate anti-crime controls within the sector.
Matthew Long, director of payments and digital assets at the FCA, stated in an interview that this action is “part of a wider effort to clean up parts of the payments sector” and that the regulator has “significantly stepped up our work to move bad actors out of the UK market.”
Euro Exchange Securities operates as part of a larger financial services group with international operations, including entities in Florida and Italy, and Banex International Bank, a Puerto Rico-based lender. US court filings indicate Banex has been a significant customer of Euro Exchange Securities by volume.
The FCA initially authorised Euro Exchange Securities as an EMI in 2018. However, concerns regarding “perceived weaknesses and inadequacies” prompted the watchdog to initiate “sustained supervisory engagement” just two years later. A formal probe into the firm’s controls commenced in May 2024, during which FCA officials interviewed Mr. Gasparini and concluded he “appeared not to demonstrate an understanding of the requirements” of UK money laundering regulations.
A feedback letter issued by the FCA in April 2025 highlighted the firm’s lack of “adequate systems and controls, specifically in relation to the onboarding and ongoing monitoring of clients,” warning of a “heightened and ongoing risk” of the firm being used to facilitate financial crime.
Evidence suggests Euro Exchange Securities functioned more like a correspondent bank, acting as an intermediary for other lenders, rather than a conventional payments firm. Its 14 largest clients, all operating within the financial services sector, were predominantly based in the Americas, with one exception in Cambodia.
While FCA redactions obscure some client identities, details of concerning transactions have been disclosed. One client, newly incorporated with minimal share capital and a single director, exhibited a monthly turnover of €500,000 despite its stated business being the “sale of refrigeration, commercial kitchen and ventilation equipment,” with incorporation documents listing its primary activity as “computer programming.” This entity lacked a website, maintained only a virtual presence in Poland, and its owner was Latvian. Lawyers for the FCA noted in filings that it was “unclear why a Poland-based catering equipment company, with an alleged operational focus on the Baltic nations, would require an e-money account with a UK financial institution.”
