(Bloomberg) -- Germany’s top financial regulator on Monday said he accepts criticism of how his institution handled allegations of accounting irregularities at Wirecard AG, after the fintech acknowledged that 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) of its assets probably don’t exist.

“It’s a complete disaster we’re looking at,” Felix Hufeld, head of financial regulator Bafin, said Monday on a panel discussion. “It’s a shame that something like that happened.”

“It starts with looking at complete failure of a senior management, despite many, many hints to discover the facts,” he said. “It goes on to the scores of auditors who couldn’t dig up the truth and it goes on with a whole range of private and public entities including my own who have not been effective enough to prevent something like that happening.”

Bafin has come under criticism for its role after it responded to the allegations in the Financial Times last year by temporarily banning short selling of Wirecard, a step it had never taken for an individual company. The German regulator also investigated possible market manipulation by short sellers and journalists, and whether Wirecard failed to meet its disclosure obligations.

Hufeld on Monday defended the ban on short sales, saying the law was clear in that respect. He also said that, as a technology company, Wirecard wasn’t considered a financial institution directly supervised by Bafin.

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