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1 July 2020 By Liam Proud Follow @liamwardproud

Clients of the collapsed group’s British arm had their accounts frozen while the watchdog tried to pin down its cash balances. That hurt blameless retail customers. Supervisors urgently need a way to monitor payments firms more closely before they get into trouble.

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Britain's Financial Conduct Authority on June 29 said it would lift restrictions on the UK arm of German payments company Wirecard, allowing it to resume operations.

The watchdog had on June 26 banned Wirecard UK from conducting any regulated activities, including making payments on behalf of customers, and disposing of assets.

"We have been working closely with Wirecard UK and other authorities over the last few days to ensure that the firm was able to meet certain conditions required to lift the restrictions we imposed on it," the FCA said.

Several British technology companies, who used Wirecard’s e-money services to process their payments, were forced to suspend services following the FCA's restrictions.

Wirecard’s German parent company on June 27 said that its business operations would continue even as it filed for insolvency, following the revelation that 1.9 billion euros of its cash may never have existed.

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