Belize-regulated announced on Friday via its website that it will be unable to facilitate fund withdrawals through Visa in euros and dollars until March of this year.
The broker did not say exactly what has gone wrong, instead using non-specific language to highlight the problem.
“Please be informed that due to technical reasons, funds withdrawals in EUR and USD via Visa are unavailable until March 2019,” said the broker in its statement. “We will inform you again once normal service has been resumed.”
Though Visa withdrawals will be unavailable, the company did note that its Mastercard services would be running as usual.
Alongside its Visa and Mastercard solutions, Alpari does offer a swathe of payments options to its different clients.
Nonetheless, a substantial proportion of the broker’s clients likely make deposits and withdraw cash using Visa.
The reason for this is both practicality and cost efficiency. Most people will have a Visa card of some description and, when taking money out of an Alpari account, it offers the lowest commission fees, alongside Mastercard, for USD and EUR withdrawals.
Even Alpari not immune from PSP problems
Though Alpari isn’t likely to bit badly hit by its problems with Visa, many companies in the wider retail trading industry are both banking services and payments providers that would allow them to operate a brokerage.
Speaking to Finance Magnates at the end of last year, Leverate’s Chief Executive Officer, Yasha Polyakov, noted that though regulation is held up as being the biggest hurdle to pass for brokers, it is actually payments providers who are for companies today.
Whether Alpari’s inability to provide Visa withdrawals for the next couple of months is due to some technicality or because the payments provider doesn’t want to work with a broker, it’s indicative of the fact that even larger firms can feel the pain when it comes to payments.
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