Worldline Woes draws credit Agricole staff inquiries on the importance of 2024 | Company Business News

(Bloomberg) – The allegations of the fraud enclosing French payment firm Worldline SA asked questions from employees at Credit Agricole SA, who want to know why managers agreed last year to approach the ties with the payment firm, according to people who are familiar with the case. Some employee representatives wrote ‘NE -mail to Credit Agricole’s management, questioning the firm’s decision to take a 7% stake in Worldline early last year, one of the people said and asked not to be identified about the private information. The representatives want to know if the bank performed appropriate checks at the time. A representative for credit Agricole declined to comment. Credit Agricole and Worldline formed a joint venture in 2023 to replace the French money shooter’s previous payment partnership with Wirecard AG, which collapsed in 2020 and became the country’s largest accounting scandal ever. Worldline’s shares closed 38% on media reports on Wednesday that the company allegedly covered fraud by some of its customers. A series of articles supervised by the European Journalism Network EIC claimed that the firm had previously ignored warnings and still did business with prohibited and other high -risk clients, which could effectively continue some fraudulent transactions. The interest in Worldline taken by Credit Agricole in early 2024 was partly intended to help stabilize the payment partner after it announced in October 2023 that it had announced ties with some German clients following the decision of the country’s financial watchdog Bafin to set serious restrictions on the local subsidiary for failure to prevent credit card fraws. Pierre-Antoine Vacheron, CEO of the World Line, said at a conference call with analysts late Wednesday that the company was “attacked by the media” and said: “There is nothing new” in the media reports. Developments increase the risk of re-evaluating their partnerships JV partners, “Jefferies analysts said in a note. Credit Agricole entered into an agreement with Wirecard in 2018, although it interrupted the development of joint projects amid concerns about the firm. that the Credit Agricole Partnership, called Cawl, is expected to be “fully operational during the first half.” The payment firm owns 50% plus 1 share in the JV, it reads.