eMerchantPay is certainly no stranger to the scene of high-risk payment processors and scam facilitators. Gal Barak‘s collapsed cybercrime organization has already laundered money through it. The FCA-regulated eMerchantpay Ltd, via its eZeeWallet scheme, is a prominent payment facilitator in the online casino segment. The company’s auditor resigned in 2023 due to significant doubts about accounting and governance.
eMerchantPay Key Data
| Trading names | eZeeWallet eMerchantPay |
| Business activity | E-Money Institution Digital wallet provider |
| Domains | www.ezeewallet.com www.emerchantpay.com |
| Legal entity | emerchantpay Ltd Emerchantpay Group Limited EMPPay Limited JLF Enterprises Ltd |
| Jurisdictions | United Kingdom |
| Authorization | FCA with Ref No: 900778 |
| Related individuals | Jonas Reynisson Alex Robinson Stephen Ross Dickson Alan Richard Goslar |
| Payment services | e-Wallet Services |
| Trustpilot | 2.8-star rating with “Poor” Trust Level |
| PayRate42 rating | Red Compliance (PR42 profile) |
| Known clients | Dama Group E&G Bulgaria (Gal Barak) |
Short eZeeWallet Narrative
The FCA-regulated e-Money Institution eMerchantPay Ltd d/b/a eMerchantPay and eZeeWallet is controlled and managed by Jonas Reynisson from Iceland and Stephen Ross Dickson from the UK.
The FCA-regulated payment processor operates with major online casino providers such as Curacao-registered Dama Group. Many of their platforms do not have the required licenses for the jurisdictions in which they operate. This also poses a problem for the payment processor, as it is obliged to check the legitimacy of its clients’ activities.
In the 2022 financial year, the company reported revenue of around $137 million and a profit of more than $5 million. This was a significantly worse result than the previous year.
As eMerchantPay is primarily active in high-risk segments via the eZeeWallet brand, it needs to be flexible in its dealings with merchants. Evidently, the company’s auditors, Grant Thornton UK LPP, could not audit the company’s transactions and accounting. They accused the company of serious governance problems. These were so significant that they resigned from the mandate in March 2023, as the filing at UK Companies House shows.
[…] Following this process, which resulted in an absence of sufficient, appropriate audit evidence,we have been unable to conclude whether the accounting for the transactions is appropriate and whether there has been a breach of applicable accounting laws and regulations.
Grant Thornton resignation letter
The resignation of the mandate comes as no real surprise. The only surprise is that it happened so late, given the history of eMerchantPay.
Notorious Scam Facilitator
The FCA-regulated EMI has a long history of scam facilitation. Between 2017 and 2019, eMerchantPay worked alongside Payvision as a payment processor for Gal Barak‘s cybercrime organization, E&G Bulgaria. The latter was sentenced to several years in prison for investment fraud and money laundering in 2020. No action has yet been taken against eMerchantPay by the authorities.
Read our reports on Gal Barak here.
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If you have any information about the eMerchantPay Group, its people, and its activities, please let us know via our whistleblowing system, Whistle42.
