The Dutch Andre Valkenburg became Payvision CEO as of 1.5.2020 after the founders and directors Rudolf Booker, Gijs van de Weegh, and Cheng Liem Chi resigned after the company was acquired by ING in 2018. According to (checked) information available to FinTelegram, he is still the managing director of Payvision, which ING ordered to go out of business. According to some US lawsuits, he is also said to have continued Payvision‘s high-risk business during his CEO tenure.
U.S. Lawsuits
According to information from lawsuits in the U.S., Payvision B.V. continued as a facilitator for high-risk merchants from the multi-level marketing (MLM) and drugs segment after the ING acquisition, even under the tenure of Andre Valkenburg. This even though ING had officially announced that it was divesting itself of these illegal or unethical Payvision customer segments. At the time, ING was also said to have been aware that a significant part of Payvision‘s merchants did business, which was illegal, at least in some jurisdictions.
This Payvision approach continued at least until Mai 2021, according to the U.S. lawsuits. This is alleged by the plaintiffs in the U.S., where Payvision operated through partners such as T1 Payments LLC. the latter’s clients – high-risk merchants – accuse T1 Payments and its partner Payvision of fraud and money laundering. They allegedly withheld funds without authorization and applied a sham company approach to enable the Dutch acquirer to process questionable US high-risk merchants. The very same approach Payvision applied when they processed binary options schemes in Europe. When Gal Barak, the so-called the Wolf of Sofia, was arrested Payvision withheld around € 4,0 million of stolen money.
T1 Payments Confirmed
FinTelegram spoke with T1 Payments founder and CEO Donald Kasdon and had some WhatsApp communications. He confirmed in September 2021 that ING, as the new owner of Payvision, was “of course” aware of these high-risk transactions and that Payvision‘s related business continued after ING‘s acquisition.
The contractual relationship between Payvision and T1 Payments continued under Valkenburg’s leadership until May 2021, according to the U.S. lawsuits.
Kasdon told FinTelegram in September 2021 that he had a lot of money to get from ING or Payvision, but it was currently frozen. We do not know at this time if T1 Payments has settled with ING or Payvision.
Stay tuned. As we already suggested, this ING and Payvision case is far from over. In October 2021, ING announced that it would close down Payvision.
