(Bloomberg) -- Transactive Systems Ltd., a UK electronic-money company that rapidly became one of the biggest players in European payments, is shutting down after regulators pulled one of its licenses because of money-laundering concerns. 

“We have no intention of operating the business going forward,” Chief Executive Officer Daniel Edwards wrote in an emailed response to Bloomberg questions. “The abrupt freeze to client accounts made it impossible to service clients properly or for us to generate income to continue to operate the business.”

The Ipswich-based firm had a license from the Bank of Lithuania, but this was revoked last year after regulators reviewed its operations. Now, Transactive will also surrender its license with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, according to Edwards.

The FCA register says the company “applied to cancel” its permissions as of February 9. A spokesperson for the regulator didn’t immediately comment. 

At its height in 2022, Transactive was processing more than €1 billion ($1.1 billion) of payments every month. The firm was emblematic of the troubled rise of lightly-regulated electronic-money institutions, or EMIs, across Europe. Regulators doled out licenses to hundreds of firms in recent years but are now concerned that the sector is rife with fraud and poor anti-crime controls. 

A Bloomberg investigation in 2023 revealed how Transactive had obtained its licenses despite multiple senior employees previously working at a company accused by the US of being the “payments processor of choice” for fraudsters — including one compliance official who faced ongoing criminal charges in Nevada. A founding investor had been jailed for a separate $1 billion health-care fraud in Florida. 

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