FinTelegram has issued several alerts against broker scams in recent months in which we discovered the payment processor Mercuryo as a facilitator. The German BaFin investigated Mercuryo, which is said to have ended favorably. The lawyers of MoneyTea Ltd d/b/a Mercuryo have again requested FinTelegram to make additional statements, which we do below. Moreover, we would like to point out that the crypto and payment services provider Mercuryo is still heavily engaged in Russia, according to the latest SimilarWeb data.
Key Data
| Trading style | Mercuryo |
| Domain | https://mercuryo.io https://gateway-provider.com |
| Legal entities | MoneyAmber UAB, Lithuania MoneyMaple Tech LTD, Canada (MSB registration number: M21565803) MoneySwap OÜ, Estonia (licensed crypto payment processor) MoneyTea LTD, UK (agent of FCA-registered Cauri LTD) Monetley Ltd, UK (FCA-licensed EMI) as principal of MoneyTea Ltd Cauri Ltd, UK (FCA-licensed Payment Institution) as principal of MoneyTea Ltd |
| Related individuals | Petr Kozyakov (Russia) Aleksandr Vasilev (Russia) Antons Blohins (UK) |
Short Narrative
Mercuryo offers its services via several legal entities in various jurisdictions. According to its website, Mercuryo services are provided by
- MoneyAmber UAB,
- MoneyMaple Tech LTD,
- MoneySwap OÜ, and
- MoneyTea LTD, registered by the UK FCA as PSD Agent of Cauri LTD, an authorized Payment Institution with FCA firm reference number: 683817, and Monetley, authorized by the UK FCA as an Electronic Money Institution.
The Russian Petr Kozyakov controls the English MoneyTea Ltd and is the company’s CEO.
The Payment Processor
Austrian lawyers for MoneyTea d/b/a Mercuryo have contacted FinTelegram and want us to stop calling the company a payment processor. Well, we find it surprising that a UK-registered and FCA-regulated company is communicating through Austrian lawyers with a Delaware-registered company in the first place. But that’s just a side note.
It is an indisputable fact that MoneyTea, as one of the operators of Mercuryo, is also a licensed PSD (payment) agent. In other words, it officially acts as a payment processor (in whatever concrete form). It is also a fact that Mercuryo receives, processes, and pays out FIAT money. In our understanding, all companies that are processing FIAT or crypto transactions in whatever form are payment processors.
Therefore, we can very well call MoneyTea or Mercury a payment agent.
The Russian Data
The Western Alliance has imposed sanctions against Russia and Belarus as per Regulation (EU) 833/2014 (sanctions against the Russian Federation) and Regulation (EU) 765/2006 (sanctions against Belarus). According to the latest SimilarWeb data (June 2022), Mercuryo‘s primary market is Russia, followed by the USA and Belarus.
We are not a regulator, nor do we have law enforcement powers, but we find it worth noting that a financial company licensed by Western regulators is so massively involved in Russia and Belarus. It is not up to us to decide whether or not this might violate sanctions. FinTelegram is a financial intelligence service and can therefore only interpret existing data.
Since the lawyers of MoneyTea and Mercuryo constantly confront us with requests for clarifications that we consider absurd, we try to present as accurate a fact-based picture of MoneyTea d/b/a Mercuryo as possible.
Share Information
If you have any information about Mercuryo, its operators, partners, or customers, please let us know through our whistleblower system, Whistle42.
