The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has Sensible in the UK with about a fine of $ 2 million For what it described as ‘a series of illegal actions’.
These actions include advertisement inaccurate reimbursements and the incomplete disclosure of exchange rates and other costs, the CFPB claims. In particular, the agency claims that the fintech company has misled customers in the United States about its ATM costs and has not announced any other reimbursements. It also claims that when people sent money that did not arrive on time, Wise did not reimburse the transfer costs in the time frame that is required by law. This led to “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in damage to the consumer, the CFPB charged.
The office has made public Wise To pay around $ 450,000 in recovery to damaged consumers and a fine of $ 2,025 million civil money.
“By misleading customers, Wise gave himself an unfair advantage over other competitors in the transfer market,” said CFPB director Rohit Chopra in a written statement. “New technology can help make money cheaper and more convenient, but companies must be truthful and make long -term legislation.”
The company does business in the US through a complete subsidiary, tell us. It recently has one Expansion to Mexico.
In a statement to Techcrunch, a wise spokesperson said that between June 2020 and May 2021, the CFPB had carried out a “routine investigation of Wise US Inc. for compliance with various US laws with regard to financial providers.”
The CFPB then emphasized certain issues in February 2022, whereby it claims that “it accidentally operated in ways that the desk considered needed to tackle.”
Wise said that “proactively and voluntarily fully compensated”, the affected customers a total of $ 450,000. It also says that it “collaborated fully with the CFPB and immediately worked to tackle all identified problems”, whereby the majority was resolved in November 2022.
The company said that it reached an agreement with the agency on January 30, and added: “At Wise we continuously invest in our compliance program and processes to ensure that we maintain a robust framework, also in the US where we we Our teams have strengthened and built substantial tooling. “
This is the latest example of fintech companies that are fined for misleading practices. Block, the parent company of Cash App, has recently been agreed To pay a fine of $ 80 million As part of a settlement with regard to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti-money laundering practices (AML) instructions.
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