Moneybookers bought for 105 million euros

The UK e-money provider Moneybookers ( aff) will be bought by Investcorp Technology Partners, a leading private equity investor in small and medium-sized technology businesses in North America and Europe.

According to the official press release , the ammount paid for Moneybookers first UK electronic money provider was 105 millions EUR. Moneybookers is regulated by Financial Services Authorities and has almost 3 millions subscribers.

Moneybookers is present in a lot of european countries where Paypal does not provide its services and enables online merchants and e-commerce consumers to securely and instantaneously send and receive payments online through a Moneybookers‘ e-wallet facility.

Moneybookers is also very popular in the betting sector, facilitating payment to major online bookmakers such as Gamebookers (aff).

Dr. Nikolai Riesenkampff, Moneybookers’ Chief Executive, said: “We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Investcorp and are looking forward to this new partnership. The Investcorp team is committed to supporting us to develop and aggressively grow Moneybookers’ business and market share in Europe and has been quick to recognise and understand the huge opportunities in the online payment space.”

Hazem Ben-Gacem, Managing Director at Investcorp, said: “We are excited by the opportunity to partner with Moneybookers.com and team up with Nikolai and the rest of the management team to support Moneybookers as it continues to grow its market share. Our objective is to do what is necessary to create Europe’s largest e-wallet facility within the next two to three years.

Poland may restrict online betting

The Polish newspaper Warsaw Voice annnounced that the Polish government is still considering in imposing strict regulations to online gambling sites, despite the European Court of Justice decision in the Criminal proceedings against Massimiliano Placanica and Others.

Right now, even though betting on the Internet is illegal, the government can’t enforce it, so new legilslation is planned.

The European Court of Justice decided on 6 March 2007 that “a Member State may not apply a criminal penalty for failure to complete an administrative formality where such completion has been refused or rendered impossible by the Member State concerned, in breach of Community law. In consequence, Italy cannot apply criminal penalties to persons such as the defendants in the main proceedings for pursuing the organised activity of collecting bets without a licence or a police authorisation.”