The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reportedly agreed with Fintech Modulr to place customer onboarding restrictions until the service provider adheres to applicable regulatory guidelines.
At the start of this month, the FCA had placed a restriction for the firm, which prevents it from working with additional partner clients, like agents as well as distributors who aim to leverage its payments infrastructure for supporting payment cards or accounts.
Modulr provides payments infrastructure for more than 200 clients, such as Revolut, Wagestream, Sage and BrightPay, and presently handles transaction volumes of over £100 billion on a yearly basis.
Modulr’s management confirmed that they’ve decided to temporarily suspend onboarding certain new clients operating in the United Kingdom, because of updated UK regulatory requirements coming into effect this year and as we move into 2024.
These changes include regulatory updates like the new UK consumer duty, along with certain adjustments to push payment fraud reimbursement schemes, and a restriction on incentive marketing for “high-risk” assets such as cryptocurrencies.
Modulr started to inform its new clients that they may not be able to onboard additional customers until Q1 2024, but the company refused to share detailed comments regarding the upcoming deadline.
As covered earlier this month, Hastee claims that it is disrupting a rigid monthly pay cycle that’s no longer “fit for purpose” by giving employees early access to part of their earned pay.
This ensures employees can cove themselves “for financial emergencies without the risk of borrowing funds they may not be able to pay back.” Now, collaborating with Modulr, employees “receive payments just seconds after they request an advance, while hours of reconciliation work is being spared for Hastee’s team each week.”
By bringing payments in house with Modulr, Hastee can now “pay out advances in under 10 seconds 24/7/365.”
This is down to Modulr’s direct access “to the UK’s Faster Payments scheme, and API-first access to SEPA Instant in the EEA.”
As noted in the update:
“Right now, an employee can finish their day at work, fill their car up with petrol, realise they don’t have enough money, request an earned wage advance and have it hit their account before they’ve even stepped inside the petrol station. Bringing an end to these stressful ‘strapped for cash’ moments is what Hastee was set up to do, and our collaboration with Modulr makes it a reality.”
