The Wirecard Fraud - How One Man Fooled all of Germany

Summary by Krater

This video investigates the rise and fall of Wirecard, tracing its growth from an online payment startup to a DAX 30 company, and its eventual collapse following accounting scandals and missing funds.

From the video

Answers: What caused the collapse of Wirecard?

• Wirecard scandal
• financial fraud
• accounting manipulation
• short-selling
• Fintech industry

What it concludes

• Wirecard's collapse was driven by systemic accounting fraud, fake transactions, and fabricated bank accounts amounting to billions of missing euros.
• The missing 2.1 billion US dollars, equivalent to the entire company's operating profit, likely never existed.
• Regulatory bodies such as BaFin failed to investigate the fraud effectively and instead targeted journalists and short-sellers raising concerns.
• Wirecard used third-party acquiring partners in countries like Singapore, Dubai, and the Philippines to falsely inflate transaction volumes and profits.
• Following an independent audit by KPMG that could not verify profits, Wirecard shares crashed, leading to insolvency, executive arrests, and investigations into criminal activity.