Hello, welcome back. This is M-Mex's weekly podcast covering regulatory affairs. I'm James Panicki

from M-Mex's Asia-Pacific team, and it's great to be back in your feed. Today we're off to

Europe for what is shaping up as one of the continent's biggest financial scandals of the past few

years. Payment processor wirecard had been hailed as a German superstar in the world of financial

services with the company listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and apparently

destined for greater things. Then came in investigation by the Financial Times suggesting

that all was not well at the company, and as things stand, wirecard has collapsed with its

infamous 1.9 billion euro accounting black hole, becoming emblematic of the failure of regulation and

oversight, with these concerns centering on Germany's financial regulator Baffin.

The scandal has also placed the work of financial auditors under the spotlight, and it's not

the first time that the independence of the big four accountancy firms has been called into

question. The Wirecard scandal has a long way to run yet, but we thought we'd give you

a state of play as Europe adjourns for the summer holidays. Among those covering the scandal

for MNX are Jack Schickler, our Senior Financial Services Correspondent in Brussels, and Annie Robertson, one of our

London-based bribery and corruption reporters. And I'm pleased to say that both of them are with me now.

Jack, firstly, walk me through this story. What exactly was Wirecard? How did it wind up with such an

extraordinary hole in its balance sheet?

So, wirecard is one of Germany's share success stories, really.

It grew from basically nothing to become one of the shares traded on the Dax 30,

which is kind of the main stock exchange index, one of the 30

largest stock in issuers in Germany. So it's become a big company with an international

footprint, a lot of business in Asia, Singapore, mainly doing processing payments, and it runs

...