Finally Some Good News From Wirecard – Partnership With TON Labs

The German FinTech and DAX heavyweight Wirecard continues to find itself amidst a fundamental discussion about its business practices. While the respected Financial Times is publicly sticking to the results of its journalists’ research into Wirecard‘s accounting and payment manipulations, the German watchdog BaFin has filed criminal charges against these Financial Times journalists. The regulator is charging them with manipulations connected with the short selling of Wirecard shares. Somehow, this seems to be a battle between the UK and Germany or a sideshow of Brexit over the dominance of the European capital market.

Partnership With TON Labs Of Telegram

Against this background, the partnership announced by Wirecard with TON Labs is a welcome story on the potential future of the Wirecard business. TON Labs are part of the Telegram messenger service network. Almost a year ago, Telegram raised some $1.8 million from dozens of investors via an ICO and private token placement. This partnership with TON Labs could give Wirecard access to both blockchain projects and a new generation of (decentralized) payment services. In the press release, Wirecard and TON Labs do not give any guidance on the specific scope of the partnership or details on scheduled projects (if any).

Let us hope that the announcement is not only intended to finally counter the many bad news about Wirecard with a positive one. Strategically, this partnership could make sense if it is revived with meaningful projects. In fact, the place of blockchain-based payment services is hotly contested and certainly not a self runner. However, TON Labs of Pavel and Nikolai Durov are certainly heavyweights in the blockchain scene and, with more than 200 million users of the Telegram messenger service, also have access to potential customers.

The Telegram Open Network (TON) is said to be launched anytime soon. According to a Cointelegraph report published in February 2019, the TON project was almost ready to be launched. Hence, Wirecard could be one of the payment services partner of the TON ecosphere. Let’s wait and see.