More and more large financial service providers prefer not to be associated with Virus Truth anymore. After ING, the well-known payment services Wise and SumUp are now also cutting ties with the controversial action group. Foreman Willem Engel suspects that there is ‘a coordinated action’: “You cannot see this separately.”
It will be quite a task for Viruswaarheid to be able to participate in financial transactions in the near future. The Amsterdam court ruled last week that ING had rightly terminated a bank account of the foundation. An ING spokesperson is pleased with the verdict today. “We are satisfied with the verdict. With this verdict, the judge has given a clear picture of the situation and we have nothing further to add at the moment.”
Due to the court’s decision, Willem Engel’s foundation could run into financial problems, because no other bank is eager to do business with the foundation. Triodos Bank, for example, refused Viruswaarheid as a customer, because the action group ‘called for confrontations that are at odds with their values’.
Too big risk
The limited access to financial traffic is problematic for Virus Truth. At the moment, ten legal proceedings are still ongoing at the foundation, which, according to Engel, ‘all still have to be paid’. Engel found a tentative alternative in Wise, a Finnish app that allows users to quickly transfer money from one country to another. But the company ended the partnership today after 1.5 years. The activities of Virus Truth pose too great a risk for Wise, can be read in an e-mail addressed to the foundation.
Earlier, SumUp, an app that enables entrepreneurs to make card payments with their smartphones, also warned the foundation. This happened after a ‘full inspection’ of Virus Truth’s profile, the service reported in an email to the foundation. “As a regulated entity, we are subject to strict conditions. Our license is not unlimited and therefore we cannot support every business type.’
No way
Without payment services and without an ING bank account, Viruswaarheid – which depends on donations – has no place. The foundation is therefore appealing in the proceedings on the merits against ING. Experts estimate the chances of Virus Truth to be low, because banks are often allowed to decide for themselves with whom they want to do business on the basis of their freedom of contract.
Since 2016, consumers have a legal right to a bank account. This means that every adult is entitled to their own payment account for, among other things, receiving and transferring money. Such a legal right does not exist for companies or foundations such as Viruswaarheid. “You can therefore also be refused at a bank on other grounds,” says Frank ‘t Hart, lawyer and specialist in financial law. “Banks have a lot of freedom in this. If, for example, they believe there is a risk of reputational damage or of certain practices with which they would rather not be associated, then they are within their rights to say: we will not burn our fingers here.
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