Some links to products and partners on this website will earn an affiliate commission.
If you are a Curve Card user, you will need to take a backup card with you for the time being as all Curve transactions have been “temporarily suspended”.
Curve emailed customers earlier today:
Your Curve card and all associated Curve transaction and money transfer services will betemporarily suspendedwith immediate effect. Please be assured, we expect to be up and running again shortly but it may take a few days. Your money and card details held at Curve are safe and secure.
This has happened because the Financial Conduct Authority has this morning suspended its permission for Wirecard Card Solutions Limited (the company who currently issues Curve Cards) to operate, without prior notice. This action is not related to Curve – but Curve currently depends on Wirecard for operation of the Curve card.
We are already well on the way to migrating away from Wirecard but have not fully completed this process. We are now working round the clock to achieve the migration as quickly as possible and therefore expect this disruption to last for only a limited period of time.
We will continue to communicate the details of what this means for you during this interim period.
Bottom line
I know a lot of InsideFlyer readers have a Curve Card, so please do remember to take a different card with you until the situation is resolved. Hopefully Curve can complete the migration quickly, but there are still likely to be some awkward issues, like what happens to regular pre-approved payments and refunds in the meantime.
Not just Curve. Dozens and, ahem, at least another dozen providers have been left in the lurch by the Wirecard debacle.
Pretty surprising none of them saw it coming when it’s been all over the FT for ages.
Yep, plenty of others too. As you say, it is a bit surprising that they weren’t better prepared – although I wonder how much scrabbling around has been going on in the background recently.
I’ve never ‘relied’ on Curve. It’s not been accepted in many places that I’ve travelled to, especially around the USA.
Always travel with at least 3 cards.
This could not come at a worse time, I am expecting refunds coming through from Sri Lankan & eventually Virgin 120 timeframe is up within 2 weeks..
Any ideas if this will cause problems with wiring back refunds to original cards?
Curve emailed late last night that it will be back up and running this morning!