16 October 2019

Wirecard AG: Statement on Financial Times article

Aschheim (Munich). Wirecard categorically rejects the Financial Times' allegations of impropriety. Yesterday's article by the Financial Times is a compilation of a number of false and misleading allegations, which the Financial Times had raised before in a series of defamatory articles, and which were already fully refuted before.

• All of Wirecard's more than 300,000 contracted customers are connected to Wirecard's technology platform. All revenues and associated profits therefore relate to the services provided by Wirecard's platform.
• Wirecard's subsidiaries in Dubai, Card Systems Middle East FZ LLC and Wirecard Processing FZ LLC, employ nearly 200 staff and constitute one of Wirecard's global product and service delivery hubs, operating local data center facilities and holding contractual agreements with customers as well as various partners. Revenues generated from customers contracted via Dubai contributed nearly 32% of global revenues in FY2018.
• As part of the audit of the consolidated financial statements of Wirecard AG the reporting of the two subsidiaries in Dubai is subject to audit procedures which are defined and performed by the group auditor Ernst & Young GmbH, Germany.
• In FY2018, slightly more than half of Wirecard's transaction volumes were processed via financial institution licenses held by Wirecard. Slightly less than half of Wirecard's transaction volumes (especially in regions such as North- and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia where Wirecard usually does not hold its own licenses) were processed in the backend via Wirecard's network of over 100 third-party financial institutions and payment acceptance service providers. The single largest of such partners contributed backend services for around 12% of Wirecard's transaction volumes in FY2018.
• Al Alam is one of multiple such independent partners Wirecard is working with in the United Arab Emirates. It is a mid-size payment technology and services company, providing access to a multitude of payment methods. Wirecard relies on such partners for the processing of transactions requiring particular payment methods or the involvement of locally licensed financial institutions.
• Wirecard acts as a platform integrating the services of the various partners involved in the payment value chain. Often those service providers are active in the background. This approach is a standard industry practice.
• The 34 company names mentioned by the Financial Times refer to labels of customer clusters created for reporting and reconciliation purposes, each containing hundreds of individual genuine merchants. The conclusions drawn by the Financial Times are therefore not correct.
• Wirecard's group auditor Ernst & Young GmbH, Germany, confirmed that they have complied and will comply with all statutory and professional audit standards.

Wirecard contact:

Wirecard AG
Iris Stoeckl
VP Investor Relations/ Corporate Communications
Tel.: +49 (0) 89-4424-1424
E-Mail: iris.stoeckl@wirecard.com
http://www.wirecard.com
ISIN DE0007472060
Reuters: WDI.GDE
Bloomberg: WDI GY

About Wirecard:

Wirecard (GER:WDI) is one of the world's fastest growing digital platforms in the area of financial commerce. We provide both business customers and consumers with a constantly expanding ecosystem of real-time value-added services built around innovative digital payments by using an integrated B2B2C approach. This ecosystem concentrates on the areas payment & risk, retail & transaction banking, loyalty & couponing, data analytics & conversion rate enhancement in all sales channels (online, mobile, ePOS). Wirecard operates regulated financial institutions in several key markets and holds issuing and acquiring licenses from all major payment and card networks. Wirecard AG is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (DAX and TecDAX, ISIN DE0007472060). Visit us on www.wirecard.com, follow us on Twitter @wirecard and on Facebook @wirecardgroup.