Banned in Europe—Saved by Offshore Rails
Geo-Blocks & Payment Freezes
The second quarter of 2022 saw changes in regulation in the EU which deemed their fantasy sports games to be ‘high risk gambling’. Thereafter, practically overnight, their major payment processor froze EUR 387,000 in various merchant accounts, with the rolling reserve of 45 days set on a brink of ‘compliance review’. Meanwhile, the fail safe processor withdrew at once from the operator’s ability to take deposits in EUR from Germany, France, and Italy, which together made up 68% of their player base. Reports show that gross monthly active users fell by 42% in the next 60 days, due to blocked payment channels. Additionally, in the chaos of payments, fraudsters took advantage chargebacks were already at 18%, with gangs flooding the site using stolen cards, knowing the operator was in disarray and would not be able to run adequate checks on fraud. The trinity of frozen assets, disappearing payment rails, and unbridled disputes posed an existential threat: the CFO had given five months for finding a solution till bankruptcy would kick in.
Currently, IBANs have been set offshore in Mauritius and St. Vincent to allow for EUR payments again without any local banking restrictions. Thanks to AI fraud detection, chargebacks were minimized to only 2%, while automated dispute proof retrieval took back $62,000 in previously lost revenue. The ability to process payments across twelve countries without so much as a hitch speaks for itself. An example of how planned offshore infrastructure could salvage a business denied opportunities; These results show that high-risk businesses need not operate at the fringes of financial services. With our dual-layer protection system (regulatory compliant authentication + adaptive fraud scoring) and offshore treasury solutions, merchants gain the stability required for long-term planning. In summary, the case study client now enjoys what mainstream businesses take for granted: predictable settlements, scalable volume, and freedom from sudden account reviews-all while operating in a strictly monitored vertical.