Payoneer a popular payment platform mainly used by freelancers in Africa earning from online freelance work has frozen its prepaid Mastercard® Cards. This comes after the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ordered Wirecard Mastercard Cards Solutions Limited, a UK company with reference number FRN 900051 to stop all its regulation financial activities, in addition to some other restrictions.
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Wirecard AG filed for insolvency on Thursday. So Payoneer took the step to freeze all Prepaid Mastercard® Cards issued by its subsidiary, Wirecard Card Solutions Limited (WCSL) in the UK. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which regulates WCSL, issued requirements on WCSL, freezing all prepaid card activity for the time being. Payoneer has assured its clientele that cardholder funds are properly safeguarded and that the freeze will be temporary.
The FCA has communicated that they have taken these measures with the primary objective of protecting the interests and money of Wirecard customers. Pending further actions from the FCA, Payoneer customers will temporarily be unable to withdraw the funds on their card, nor receive new payments onto their card until the issue has been resolved.
It should be noted that any funds that are in excess of the maximum balance of the Payoneer customer’s cards are held by Payoneer and are therefore not impacted by the FCA’s temporary freeze.
Payoneer to Bank withdraws is still an option
Any future payments that Payoneer customers receive from marketplaces, platforms, and clients will not be affected by the freeze. The company has advised its clients to sign in to their accounts to view their funds and add their bank account for the withdrawal of their future incoming payments. In an email to their clients they said;
We are actively working on offering additional options for you and your patience and understanding are highly appreciated. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and we’ll update you with more information as soon as we have it.
Platforms that pay into Payoneer cards include Freelancer, Fiverr, gettyimages, upwork, 99designs, peopleperhour, topcoder, envato, crossover, Tunga, Pond5, among others.
