Wise Faces Belgian Fraud Probe Over €500m in Suspicious Flows

The probe, opened last year, centres on Wise's European operations managed out of its Brussels office. Investigators are examining whether the fintech failed to comply with anti-money laundering (AML) laws, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's reporting. The Financial Conduct Authority has not confirmed any parallel UK investigation or whether it is assisting European authorities.

For the thousands of UK small and mid-sized businesses that route cross-border payments through Wise, the case is not simply a share-price story. It is a live test of counterparty risk, vendor due diligence, and the limits of outsourcing treasury operations to a single fintech platform.

What Belgian prosecutors allege

Prosecutors in Brussels discovered that Wise accounts had been flagged in hundreds of international criminal requests spanning more than 30 European countries, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The transactions within scope amount to roughly €500m (£432m), City AM reported.

The investigation is specifically examining whether illicit proceeds from fraud, corruption, and drug smuggling were funnelled through Wise accounts. It does not directly target Wise's 3 million UK users, according to the Bureau's reporting; the focus is on the firm's European operations.

Wise said it is "currently working with the Brussels prosecutor to respond to queries about our business, as we routinely do with regulators and law-enforcement authorities," according to City AM. The company added that around a third of its staff were "dedicated to fighting financial crime."

No charges have been filed. The investigation remains at an early stage, and Wise has not been accused of deliberate wrongdoing.

A pattern of compliance shortfalls

The Belgian probe does not arrive in isolation. In July 2025, Wise's US subsidiary paid a $4.2m penalty to settle investigations with six state financial regulators over AML compliance deficiencies, as reported by City AM. That multi-state action cited failures in investigating and reporting suspicious activity, alongside issues with transaction monitoring data integrity.

Taken together, the two episodes suggest a pattern rather than an anomaly. AML compliance is not a regional function that can be siloed; it reflects an organisation's global risk culture, its investment in monitoring systems, and the priority the board assigns to regulatory obligations.

The scale of the Belgian allegations, involving hundreds of criminal requests across dozens of jurisdictions, raises questions about whether Wise's compliance infrastructure kept pace with its rapid international expansion. The company was founded in 2011 and has grown to serve millions of personal and business customers worldwide.

What this means for businesses using Wise

UK SMEs and scale-ups that rely on Wise for cross-border payments face a practical set of questions.

First, service continuity. A formal enforcement action by Belgian authorities could, in theory, result in restrictions on Wise's European licence or operational conditions that slow transaction processing. No such action has been taken, but finance directors should understand the range of possible outcomes.

Second, counterparty due diligence. Many businesses adopted Wise because it offered lower fees and faster settlement than traditional banks. Those advantages do not eliminate the need for ongoing vendor risk assessment. Any firm that lists Wise as a critical payment provider in its own compliance documentation should be reviewing that assessment now.

Third, regulatory contagion. If a business's payments flow through an entity under active criminal investigation, its own compliance position may attract scrutiny from auditors, banking partners, or sector regulators. This is particularly relevant for firms in regulated industries such as financial services, legal, or property.

None of this means businesses should abandon Wise. It means they should treat the probe as a trigger for the kind of vendor review that best practice demands but day-to-day operations often defer.

Diversifying payment rails

The broader lesson is structural. Concentrating cross-border treasury operations on a single platform, whether Wise, a challenger bank, or a traditional correspondent banking chain, creates a single point of failure. Firms with material international payment volumes should maintain at least one alternative channel tested and ready to activate.

Governance questions after the listing move

The Belgian investigation lands at a moment when Wise's governance arrangements are already under strain.

Earlier this year, Wise moved its primary listing from London to New York, downgrading its London Stock Exchange presence. The shift triggered a public clash between co-founders Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus, as reported by City AM.

Hinrikus said he was "deeply troubled" over plans to change voting rights as part of the listing move, accusing Käärmann of a "lack of transparency." He objected to combining an extension of super-voting share rights with the listing change, calling it "entirely inappropriate and unfair to wrap these distinct issues together," according to City AM.

Käärmann prevailed. More than 90 per cent of Class A shareholders and 84.6 per cent of Class B shareholders approved the deal, which included a ten-year extension of super-voting shares held by a handful of inside investors, City AM reported.

The result is a governance structure in which a small group of insiders retains outsized control, the primary listing now sits in a different regulatory jurisdiction, and the company faces a serious criminal investigation in Europe. For board members and institutional investors, the combination demands close attention.

Super-voting structures are not inherently problematic, but they concentrate accountability. When compliance failures surface across multiple jurisdictions, the question of whether the board has sufficient independent oversight becomes harder to set aside.

The wider fintech compliance question

Wise is not the first payments firm to face AML scrutiny, and it will not be the last. The sector's growth has consistently outpaced its investment in compliance infrastructure, a tension regulators across Europe and the United States have signalled they intend to address.

For UK businesses, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Fintech platforms offer genuine efficiency gains for cross-border payments, but they carry the same counterparty risks as any other financial intermediary. The Wise probe is a reminder that those risks require active management, not passive trust in a brand name.

Wise shares closed at 796.00p following the 15 per cent drop, according to City AM. The company's next scheduled update to investors will be closely watched for any further detail on the scope of the Belgian investigation and the resources being committed to its response.