When Commerzbank terminated the account of the porn company Manwin, Wirecard was on the spot. The German fintech did business with the porn industry for longer than ex-CEO Markus Braun portrayed it to the outside world. Wirecard found its first customers in the gambling and porn industries. Over the years, however, long-time CEO Markus Braun tried to shed the smut image of the early years as best he could.
Two years ago, Der Spiegel asked him in an interview whether porn and gambling had been his hobbyhorse. He replied, “Nice try.” In the early 2000s, he said, these were simply the first online payment offerings – with correspondingly large market shares. However, the erotic sector “no longer plays a role.”
As early as 2008, Braun emphasized to the FAZ that Wirecard’s revenues were primarily generated with consumer goods and that only ten percent of the company’s processing volume was accounted for by online dating. He did not even mention the porn industry.
His message was clear: Wirecard only partners with reputable companies. But research by Finance Forward now shows that Wirecard had no fear of contact with prominent customers from the porn industry, even years later.
In 2012, the Luxembourg-based porn empire Manwin (later Mindgeek) lost its account with Commerzbank. The reason for termination: “reputational risks” – in addition to the fact that Manwin earned its money with sites like Pornhub or Youporn, the head of the company was also involved in a tax scandal at the time.
At Wirecard, however, the German offshoot of the porn company was “welcomed with open arms.” From then on, the account details at the Wirecard bank were emblazoned on the official letters of the critical German Mindgeek offshoot. According to the insider, Wirecard remained the house bank until at least 2015. It is said that the account manager responsible in Aschheim has made many things possible for Manwin that other banks would have waved off for compliance reasons. Mindgeek and Wirecard do not comment on the business relationship.
Wirecard was still processing payments for 4,000 porn and dating websites even in 2017. It achieved such high margins in the process that experts suspected this could be money laundering.
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