The Bank of Lithuania has imposed a €245,000 penalty on Mistertango, UAB, a payment system popular among CIS businessmen, for its breach of AML/CFT laws. As a preventive measure, certain restrictions have also been put in place for the company. This is the third time Mistertango is penalized for violating the AML/CFT requirements – the payment system was also fined in 2016 and 2018.

During its audit the Bank of Lithuania’s Supervision Service found that in certain cases the company was not able to duly identify its customers or was negligent in assessing the individual client risk; KYC (Know Your Customer) information was insufficient to disclose the purpose and nature of relations, was not updated in due course or was incomplete; the customer transaction monitoring processes were managed only nominally, without any provisions for their actual implementation. Mistertango, UAB did not assure an adequate company-wide risk assessment, did not implement proper internal audit procedures and did not conduct the AML/CTF audit over the examined period.

The Bank of Lithuania has imposed temporary restrictions on the company’s operations – for now it can only provide payment services to lowest risk customers and only after updating their KYC information in the system. All the deficiencies identified by the regulator must be addressed by January 31, 2020, and Mistertango must provide the Bank of Lithuania with its prospective action plan within 20 business days.

What should the payment system clients do? ​

Customers holding funds in the payment system whom the company will be no longer able to service due to the restrictions in force need to apply to Mistertango for the transfer of their funds to another bank account or an account with any other credit, payment or online institution. If you have not got an alternative account with other banks or payment systems, we will help you set up one. You will be able to make SWIFT, SEPA and e-wallet transfers. Professional advice we always give our clients: diversify your funds, which means having several bank accounts. Whenever one of them is closed, you can move the funds to another account without any delay.