Wi­pay Group CEO and founder, Ald­wyn Wayne, has dis­put­ed a no­tice is­sued by the Grena­da Au­thor­i­ty for the Reg­u­la­tion of Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions (Garfin) that the li­cence grant­ed by the body to the re­gion­al pay­ment ser­vices was re­voked.

Garfin's no­tice of the re­vo­ca­tion of the Wi­pay li­cence is dat­ed Ju­ly 3, 2024 and it was signed by Den­nis Fe­lix, Garfin's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor.

"“In ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tion 33 (1) (a) of the Mon­ey Ser­vices Busi­ness Act Cap 198A, the Grena­da Au­thor­i­ty for the Reg­u­la­tion of Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions (Garfin), as the Au­thor­i­ty re­spon­si­ble for Mon­ey Ser­vices Busi­ness, here­by re­vokes the li­cense of Wi­Pay Grena­da Ltd with im­me­di­ate ef­fect," the no­tice states.

“The gen­er­al pub­lic, in­clud­ing per­sons in­ter­est­ed in do­ing busi­ness with this en­ti­ty, are asked to note the con­tents of this no­tice and be guid­ed ac­cord­ing­ly.”

The li­cence to Wi­pay was to es­tab­lish an over-the-counter, mon­ey trans­mis­sion (re­mit­tance) ser­vice in Grena­da from a phys­i­cal lo­ca­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day morn­ing, Point Fortin-born Wayne said: "That is to­tal­ly un­true. The facts are that in Oc­to­ber 2022, Wi­pay paid Garfin for a one-year, re­new­able li­cence to pro­vide an over-the-counter re­mit­tance ser­vice in Grena­da.

"But up un­til Oc­to­ber 2023, when the li­cence would have come to an end, Wi­pay had not op­er­a­tionalised it. In fact, we wrote to Garfin in Ju­ly 2023 in­di­cat­ing that Wi­pay had no in­ter­est in re­new­ing its li­cence with them be­cause it was for an over-the-counter, re­mit­tance ser­vice from a phys­i­cal lo­ca­tion, that we sim­ply did not pro­vide.

"The best way to de­scribe the sit­u­a­tion, there­fore, is that our li­cence ex­pired in Oc­to­ber 2023 and was not re­newed. The li­cence was not re­voked. It came to an end in Oc­to­ber 2023, and we opt­ed not to ex­tend it."

Wayne said by Ju­ly 2023 Wi­pay had put in place arrange­ments to pro­vide its re­mit­tance ser­vice di­rect­ly to the bank ac­counts of Grena­di­ans, through a bank­ing part­ner in the East­ern Caribbean. That di­rect-to-ac­count re­mit­tance ser­vice is reg­u­lat­ed by the East­ern Caribbean Cen­tral Bank.

"The Garfin li­cence re­quired a phys­i­cal lo­ca­tion in Grena­da that would have made pay­ments in cash. Our mod­el has al­ways been cash­less and dig­i­tal, and there­fore we did not need a Garfin li­cence," said Wayne.

Con­tact­ed at his of­fice in Grand Anse in Grena­da Fri­day morn­ing, Fe­lix said: "Wi­pay had a li­cence in Grena­da to car­ry out mon­ey trans­mis­sion. It nev­er start­ed its op­er­a­tions be­cause it did not sat­is­fy all of its start-up re­quire­ments to al­low it to do so. Af­ter a num­ber of op­por­tu­ni­ties giv­en to Wi­pay to do so, and giv­en its fail­ure over time, we pro­ceed­ed to ter­mi­nate the li­cence."

The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Garfin said he did not know ex­act­ly when the Wi­pay li­cence was grant­ed, but he said it was a "cou­ple of years now."

Fe­lix said a li­cence fee was paid for 2023, but Wi­pay did not start up the mon­ey trans­mis­sion busi­ness as Garfin ex­pect­ed.

"Fees have not paid been for 2024 and those fees are ex­pect­ed in Jan­u­ary of each year, so in Jan­u­ary 2024, Wi­pay should have paid the fees if it in­tend­ed to car­ry out the busi­ness," said the Garfin boss. He said the an­nu­al li­cence fee for the mon­ey ser­vice busi­ness is EC$10,000 (US$3,700).

Sec­tion 33 1 (a) of Grena­da's Mon­ey Ser­vices Busi­ness Act al­lows Garfin to re­voke a li­cence if the li­censee fails to com­mence op­er­a­tions with­in a pe­ri­od of three months fol­low­ing the grant­i­ng of the li­cence.

Asked if the rea­son Wi­pay's li­cence was re­voked be­cause of Wi­pay's fail­ure to start op­er­a­tions with­in three months of the grant­i­ng of the li­cence was , Fe­lix said the li­cence was grant­ed based on cer­tain con­di­tions Wi­pay should have sat­is­fied.

"It has not done so to date, in­clud­ing the ob­ser­va­tion you just made (about start­ing up with­in three months).

Sec­tion 33 (3) of Grena­da's Mon­ey Ser­vices Busi­ness Act states: "Be­fore re­vok­ing a li­cence un­der sub­sec­tion (1), the Au­thor­i­ty shall give the li­censee con­cerned no­tice in writ­ing of its in­ten­tion to do so, spec­i­fy­ing there­in the grounds up­on which it pro­pos­es to make the re­vo­ca­tion and shall re­quire the li­censee to sub­mit to it with­in a spec­i­fied pe­ri­od be­ing not less than thir­ty days, a state­ment of ob­jec­tions to the mak­ing of the re­vo­ca­tion and there­after, the Au­thor­i­ty shall ad­vise the li­censee of its de­ci­sion."

Wayne said he did not re­ceive a no­ti­fi­ca­tion from Garfin of its in­ten­tion to "re­voke" Wi­pay's li­cence in Grena­da.

Asked whether Garfin had giv­en Wi­pay no­tice in writ­ing of the au­thor­i­ty's in­ten­tion to re­voke, Fe­lix said: "The process was fol­lowed...I am say­ing that Wi­pay was giv­en suf­fi­cient no­tice and warn­ing. A num­ber of dis­cus­sions were held with the prin­ci­pals of Wi­pay, with re­gard to sat­i­fy­ing the re­quire­ments un­der the Act."

He said Garfin has grant­ed be­tween six and eight mon­ey ser­vice busi­ness li­cences in Grena­da. He said six are in op­er­a­tion.

The Wi­pay founder said he has re­newed his com­mit­ment to part­ner with the Gov­ern­ment of Grena­da, for the third year in a row, in a back-to-school ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing up­ward of EC$5 mil­lion, us­ing the Wi­pay plat­form.