Xoom falls victim to fraudulent money transfer

Online money-transfer provider Xoom has fallen victim to a scam costing the company $30.8 million and its chief financial officer.

The company reported that it had been the victim of criminal fraud in a regulatory filing on Monday, after $30.8 million in cash was transferred abroad. Xoom said that it had determined on December 30th that this was a fraudulent transfer, and launched an investigation with federal authorities.

An audit committee of Xoom’s board of directors is also reviewing the company’s controls and processes.

The incident is said to have involved employee impersonation and fraudulent requests targeting the company’s finance department, resulting in the transfer of $30.8 million in corporate cash to overseas accounts. Xoom believes that no customer data nor customer money was involved in the scam, and that their systems were not impacted.

“The company does not expect this incident to otherwise have a material impact on its business,” the release added.

Chief financial officer Matt Hibbard seems to have resigned over the matter, but the company says his departure was “not the result of any disagreement or dispute with the company.”

Ryno Blignaut, Xoom’s former CFO and chief risk officer, is acting as CFO and chief risk officer.

Xoom expects its fourth-quarter revenues to increase by 35 per cent from the same period last year to around $43 million. Its active customer base has increased 21 per cent to 1.28 million so far.

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