Russian director of UK payment company departs after FCA probe
The director of a UK payment company that was recently put under notice by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has left the firm.
Mikhail Nadel’s position as director of Dzing Finance was terminated on 20 November, according to Companies House documents.
Nadel (also known as Michael Strogonov), a Russian citizen, was once the chairman of the board of the largest commercial bank in Kyrgyzstan, AsiaUniversalBank. He held this position for over 11 years, up to 2010, until following an investigation of the activity of the bank.
He was convicted on fraud and money laundering and sentenced to 16 years imprisonment by the Kyrgyz court. According to Bloomberg, he has always denied any wrongdoing in Kyrgyzstan and suggested that claims against him were politically motivated.
Since then, he has been based in Israel and according to company filings, is also an Israeli citizen. On his LinkedIn it notes that he was working as an independent financial consultant for a Hungarian investment company. He joined Dzing Finance in November 2022.
The FCA placed restrictions on the Dzing Finance in October, ordering the company to not on-board any new retail customers or allow new incoming funds from retail customers without prior written consent of the FCA.
Dzing Finance was named in a Payment Systems Regulator report in the same month as being the company that received the highest volume of fraud per million transactions in the UK across 2022. The report highlighted that the London-based company had received 187,695 reports of APP fraud last year, this was 180,000 more than the company that came in second place.
The company only has one director left. Stuart Driver was appointed to the position last November.
The FCA declined to comment.
Dzing Finance and Mikhail Nadel were all contacted for comment.