Wise is facing a Belgian investigation over money laundering control concerns as prosecutors examine whether its European accounts may have been used to move illicit funds, the BBC reported.
The probe focuses on Wise Europe, the company’s Belgium-based entity serving customers across the European Economic Area. Wise’s UK business is not directly part of the investigation.
Belgian prosecutors told AFP the investigation is nearing completion.
The case follows reporting by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which first reported that authorities were examining around €500 million in suspicious transactions linked to Wise accounts across more than 30 European countries.
Wise accounts reportedly appeared in hundreds of cross-border judicial assistance requests across Europe.
Prosecutors are looking at whether Wise accounts were used for criminal purposes and whether the company complied with anti-money laundering rules.
Their concerns include alleged failures to identify customers and understand their activities.
Wise Faces Fresh Compliance Scrutiny
Wise has maintained that it is cooperating with the Brussels prosecutor’s office and has not received any specific findings or allegations so far.
The company framed such requests as a routine part of financial services operations rather than evidence of wrongdoing.
Wise has more than 19 million customers globally and processes about 4.7 million transactions a day.
Its shares fell sharply after the investigation was reported, dropping as much as 19 percent at one point in London trading.
The latest scrutiny follows earlier regulatory action against the company. In 2024, the Financial Times reported that the National Bank of Belgium, which supervises Wise in Europe, had placed the company under a formal remediation plan following a 2022 review that found it lacked proof of address for hundreds of thousands of customers.
That plan reportedly required Wise to contact affected customers and freeze accounts where the required documents were not provided.
Wise was also ordered to pay US$4.2 million under a 2025 settlement with six US states over anti-money laundering compliance issues.
The settlement also required the company to strengthen parts of its compliance programme.
In 2022, Wise was fined US$360,000 by Abu Dhabi’s financial services regulator.
The company maintained that it had addressed regulators’ concerns in those cases.
The investigation comes shortly after Wise moved its primary stock market listing to Nasdaq while retaining a listing in London.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by pe_jo via Magnific