The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority blocked Euro Exchange Securities UK Limited from all regulated electronic money and payment services on June 4, citing systemic weaknesses in the firm’s financial crime framework and safeguarding arrangements. A UK court, acting on the FCA’s application under the Payment and Electronic Money Institution Insolvency Regulations 2021, placed EES under interim managers the same day.
Duncan Perring and James Bennett of Teneo Financial Advisory Limited are now court-appointed officers overseeing EES’s affairs. The FCA’s concerns run deeper than process failures: the regulator flagged “high-risk” customers, alleged “widespread breaches” of anti-money laundering rules, and cited problems with the firm’s ownership and governance structure.
EES doesn’t operate only in the UK. The company has operations in the US and Spain, and the FCA moved in US federal court to have the UK proceedings recognized stateside. That cross-border step signals the regulator isn’t confident the UK action alone will contain the risk.
The EES freeze fits a pattern the FCA has built in recent months. In 2025, the regulator fined Monzo £21 million for deficient financial crime controls and fined Barclays £42 million for financial crime control lapses. The EES case represents an escalation: instead of a fine, the FCA went straight to court-supervised administration, suggesting the regulator judged a monetary penalty insufficient to stop the harm.
EES appears before the court on June 11. The court can lift the current order or place the firm into special administration, effectively ending its operations.
James Okafor