From inside its grey corporate headquarters in Aschheim outside Munich, Wirecard projects an image of one of Germany’s leading business success stories, a fintech champion to rival software giant SAP. After a decade of breakneck growth, Wirecard has become a favourite among investors, with a market capitalisation greater than Deutsche Bank, placing the company in the prestigious Dax 30 index.
Yet Wirecard’s seemingly irresistible rise has been plagued by intermittent controversy about its accounting and business practices. Earlier this year, white-collar crime investigators raided Wirecard’s offices in Singapore multiple times in connection with allegations that sales and profits were invented at numerous subsidiaries across Asia. Edo Kurniawan, the company’s head of international reporting, was named among six suspects.
In response, Markus Braun, Wirecard’s Austrian chief executive, dismissed the problems as a local difficulty with scant financial impact. He blamed the payment processing company’s fast growth and outlined a dozen measures to improve compliance, including the appointment of a new chairman of the supervisory board in 2020. Wirecard’s stock price, which initially fell 40 per cent to €97, has since recovered to about €140, giving it a €17bn market capitalisation.