As those of you subscribed to our status page – if you’re not you should – will already know we had an issue with our payment provider last week resulting in payments being rejected and returned to customers. This has now been resolved, but results in new bank details.
We have dealt with AirWallex since 2022 for international and domestic payment receipts and their ability to send a webhook on payment receipt drove our ability to offer 24×7 automated topups. They were never our bank, that is Lloyds, but payments sent to Lloyds enjoy no API and thus need processing manually when someone with banking access checks the account and notices them. In short: ballache.
On Friday, AirWallex, after a routine payment from a customer, disabled our account. We’re not sure what about that payment caused such offence, or whether it was something else (perhaps us accepting stablecoins to derisk us from such bullshit), but they immediately began bouncing incoming payments. This was extremely disruptive for customers who rely on us processing payments immediately on receipt and have details stored for rapid use.
So far they have provided zero explanation why the account was blocked. All they will say is “compliance issue” which is deeply unhelpful. We find fintechs seem to hide behind KYC/AML to a far greater extent than actual banks, and act in ways they’d scream about if actual banks treated them that way. The account remains locked and we suspect will be so for several more days before they conclude we’re not an international drugs cartel, and our customers are legitimate businesses just trying to get by despite the headwinds of such nonsense. If we were the cartel, we wouldn’t need API access and would be dealing far higher up the food chain with those who have proved their expertise in such matters over many investigations and fines, rather than some lowly fintech!
Naturally, any funds locked in AirWallex are our problem and payments received before this action were processed normally. Payments since have been returned automatically by them – a process we’ve verified.
We have opened an account with a new payment provider, who can similarly offer us the mutli-currency support and the webhook functionality. New details have been published. Remember, we will not email you these – they’re shown on new invoices, and are available in our support portal behind a customer login. Please use these new details as soon as possible.
We are actively restoring automated top-ups on payments to the new accounts – just waiting on the new provider to configure sending a webhook for us – and already seeing incoming payments coming this route. However, as the new payment provider and their underlying banks have yet to learn the pattern of your payments, we anticipate increased latency in the early days as we respond to KYC/AML enquiries. Please bear with us as we work through this process.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused and strongly recommend any customers who might have followed us in using AirWallex find an alternative. We’re happy to share recommendations as they’re not the first fintech we’ve parted ways with!
Life will be so much easier when the world of commerce moves more fully to stablecoins and Bitcoin for instant low-cost payments without a bully-boy in the middle – little surprise Bitcoin is hitting an all-time high as I write this, buoyed by the US Government driving this change. Thank you to those of you who have already embraced this for making the world better!
