Wirecard Seeks Buyer in Singapore

The firm was ordered to cease payment services in the country in October, and to return all customers’ funds, amid an investigation into missing funds.

Payments services provider Wirecard is seeking a buyer for its Singapore entity and has at least one party interested in acquiring the business, according to a report on Tuesday.

The company has lost about one-third of its staff since it was ordered to cease its core business activities in Singapore, where it provided payment processing services to 1,900 companies, a report said.

At its peak, Wirecard employed more than 350 people in Singapore, where it has a call center, sales deployment team, regional commercial team, and project management office. As of October, it still had 250 people, including 180 locals, on its payroll, who are working from home and supporting its businesses in Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Wirecard is at the center of one of the region’s biggest corporate accounting scandals in recent years, having admitted that €1.9 billion ($2.25 billion) is missing from its financial accounts.

Its parent company in Germany has filed for insolvency, and its CEO Markus Braun as well as other top executives have been arrested, while former operating chief Jan Marsalek remains missing.

So far, one Singaporean has been indicted – a director of a local accounting firm that allegedly helped Wirecard falsify letters about the funds held in its escrow accounts.