Is Wirecard Discontinued? What Happened? Scandal

Wirecard started in Munich in 1999 as a payment processor for online businesses that regular banks didn’t want. Its early customers were pornography sites and gambling platforms. That beginning shaped the company’s next 20 years. Wirecard built a business around handling money and transactions that were hard to verify or track.

In 2002, Markus Braun became CEO. He tried to turn Wirecard into a shiny tech company. He wore Steve Jobs-esque black turtlenecks, spoke at big conferences, and talked about the future of global finance. Jan Marsalek, who joined the company young and rose quickly, became chief operating officer in 2010. Together, they built Wirecard into one of Europe’s most famous fintech brands.

On paper, it looked unstoppable.

But behind the scenes, the company was hiding a huge fraud.

Wirecard claimed that three partner companies in Dubai, Singapore, and Manila handled its Asian business and brought in more than half a billion euros a year. The money tied to that business was supposedly sitting in trust accounts. Almost all of it was fake. Forged documents and friendly middlemen helped keep the story alive. EY, Wirecard’s auditor for more than ten years, signed off on the numbers without checking whether the cash actually existed.

Reporters at the Financial Times started digging in 2015. They found odd addresses, strange accounting, and signs that the Asian business was not real. Instead of investigating Wirecard, Germany’s financial regulator went after the journalists and short sellers. In 2019, the regulator even banned short selling Wirecard stock for two months, which protected the company from more pressure.

Wirecard’s stock kept rising anyway. By 2018, the company was worth more than 24 billion euros and had joined Germany’s DAX 30 index. SoftBank invested 900 million euros in 2019, giving Wirecard even more credibility.

The collapse came fast. A special audit couldn’t confirm most of Wirecard’s reported profits. EY refused to sign the 2019 accounts. In June 2020, Wirecard admitted that 1.9 billion euros supposedly held in Philippine banks did not exist. The CEO resigned and was arrested. The company filed for insolvency days later.

Marsalek fled the country and was later linked to Russian intelligence. As of 2026, he is suspected of living near Moscow, but still hasn’t been found.

Wirecard’s failure shook Germany’s financial system and led to major changes in how regulators and auditors are supervised. It remains one of the biggest corporate scandals in Europe’s history.