The Financial Conduct Authority has lifted restrictions on FinTech Modulr.
The London firm – on our FinTech 50 ranking last year – behind embedded payments infrastructure had been prevented from onboarding new ‘partner’ customers in the UK – specifically agents and distributors – since October 2023.
That move was due to changes to regulations around consumer duty, push payment fraud reimbursement and a ban on incentive marketing for high-risk assets such as cryptocurrency.
The FCA has now lifted those restrictions, as long as Modulr gives the regulator warning when planning to onboard once more.
Modulr provides payments infrastructure to more than 200 top-tier customers including Revolut, Wagestream, Sage and BrightPay. It holds an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) in the UK from the FCA and in Europe from De Nederlandsche Bank.
Backed by PayPal Ventures, Blenheim Chalcot, Frog Capital and Highland Europe, it handles over £100 billion of annualised payment volume and on average 30 API calls per second.
“The firm has agreed with the Authority that it will not without providing prior written notification to the Authority of at least 10 business days, on-board any new agent and/or distributor,” said the FCA.
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Modulr stated: “Following a temporary pause in onboarding new Agent & Distributor (A&D) Partners in the UK, we have made a number of enhancements to our A&D Partner onboarding and oversight processes.
“Having now implemented these changes as well as undertaking extensive internal and external testing and assurance, we have agreed with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to recommence new A&D Partner onboarding subject to providing advanced notice of each A&D Partner.”
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