The City regulator is on alert for an emergency restructuring of Railsr, one of the UK’s most prominent fintechs.
Sky News has learnt that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is monitoring the situation at Railsr – a banking-as-a-service provider formerly known as Railsbank – which was among the companies to snap up assets from the collapsed German group Wirecard.
City sources said that Railsr was progressing plans to sell its regulated operations to third parties following the termination of takeover talks with Flutterwave, the African payments technology business.
Restructuring experts at Alvarez & Marsal are overseeing the sale process.
It remained possible that the entire business would be sold through a solvent transaction, although an administration of Railsr’s parent company has also been one of the options under consideration in recent days, according to insiders.
A spokesperson for the FCA said it “does not comment on individual firms”.
One person close to the process said Railsr’s board, chaired by the respected businessman Rick Haythornthwaite, anticipated there being an outcome from the sale process as soon as this week.
He only joined the business in the last two months.
A consortium consisting of several existing Railsr investors had also been vying to acquire the company, which specialises in so-called embedded finance solutions such as banking services, credit cards and digital wallets.
Railsr’s travails have deepened amid expectations of consolidation in the fintech sector as companies struggle to access sufficient standalone funding to survive.
Railsr itself raised a bridge funding around late last year which was designed to provide enough capital to see it through to a sale.
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