LONDON — Kristo Käärmann, the billionaire CEO of money transfer firm Wise, was slapped with a £350,000 ($454 million) fine by financial regulators in the U.K for failing to report an issue with his tax filings.
Käärmann, who co-founded Wise in 2011 with fellow entrepreneur Taavet Hinrikus, was on Monday ordered by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to pay the sizable penalty due to a breach of the watchdog’s senior manager conduct rule.
The FCA said that Käärmann failed to notify the regulator about him not paying a capital gains tax liability when he cashed in on shares worth £10 million in 2017.
The watchdog found him in breach of its Senior Management Conduct Rule 4, which states: “You must disclose appropriately any information of which the FCA would reasonably expect notice.”
Käärmann’s name was added to HMRC’s public tax defaulters list. His tax liability for that year was £720,495, according to HMRC.
‘High standards’ expected
The FCA said Monday that, between February 2021 and September 2021, the tax issues were relevant to its assessment of Käärmann’s fitness and propriety as a senior director of a financial services firm.
Käärmann failed to consider the significance of the issues and notify the FCA despite being aware of them for over seven months, the regulator added.
“We, and the public, expect high standards from leaders of financial firms, including being frank and open,” Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and oversight, said in a statement Monday.
“It should have been obvious to Mr Käärmann that he needed to tell us about these issues which were highly relevant to our assessment of his fitness and propriety.”
Käärmann said in a statement Monday that he remains “focused on delivering the mission for Wise and achieving our long-term vision.” “After several years and full cooperation with the FCA, we have brought this process to a close,” he said.
“We continue to build a product and a company that will serve our customers and owners for the decades to come,” Käärmann added.
The chair of Wise, David Wells, said that the company’s board of directors “continues to take Wise’s regulatory obligations very seriously.”
Wise’s board found that Käärmann was “fit and proper” to continue in his role at the firm after an internal investigation in 2021.
As a result of that review, Käärmann was required by the board to take “remedial actions” to ensure his personal tax affairs were appropriately managed.
Less severe than feared
The value of the FCA’s fine is substantially lower than the potential maximum fine he could have faced.
Käärmann could have been fined as much as £500,000 for his tax failings, but qualified for a 30% discount because he agreed to resolve the issues.
News of the fine comes after Wise earlier this month reported a 17% increase in “underlying income,” which consists of cross-border revenue, card and other revenue, and interest income.
Wise reiterated its target of achieving an underlying profit before tax margin of 13% to 16% over the medium term thanks to investments in pricing, and added that meant it wouldn’t have to make “further material investments in reduced pricing” in the second half of the year.
In a note Monday, analysts at British investment bank Peel Hunt boosted their expectations for Wise’s full-year profit before tax by 15%. They have a £1,000 price target and a “buy” rating on the stock.
“While Wise made no changes to the guidance set in June 2024, we expect a significant near-term beat,” Peel Hunt analysts Gautam Pillai and Barun Singh wrote in the note.
Käärmann and Hinrikus, both Estonian tech entrepreneurs who immigrated to the U.K., took Wise from a scrappy startup to a payments disruptor now worth £7.4 billion.
They created Wise to offer a low-cost alternative to banks charging hidden fees for moving money across borders.
Check out the companies making the biggest moves midday: Petco Health — The retailer slumped 22% after losing 4 cents per share in the fiscal first quarter, twice the 2-cent loss that analysts had estimated, based on FactSet data. Revenue of $1.49 billion missed the Street’s $1.50 billion consensus, while same-store sales dropped 1.3%, worse than the 0.6% decline forecast by analysts. Tesla — The EV maker added more than 6%, a day after plunging 14% as CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump publicly feuded . Broadcom — Shares of the chipmaker dipped 2.7% on lackluster free cash flow for the second quarter. Broadcom reported free cash flow of $6.41 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for $6.98 billion. Still, several analysts covering the stock raised their price targets. ABM Industries — Shares fell 11% after the facilities management company reported mixed results for its second quarter. Its adjusted earnings of 86 per share was in line with expectations, while its revenue of $2.11 billion topped the FactSet consensus estimate of $2.06 billion. ABM Industries also reiterated its earnings guidance for the year. Circle Internet Group — The stablecoin company popped 38%, following its Thursday debut on the New York Stock Exchange. Circle soared 168% in its first day of trading . Lululemon — The athleisure company pulled back 20% after its second-quarter outlook missed analyst estimates. CFO Meghan Frank also said on a call that Lululemon plans on taking “strategic price increases, looking item by item across our assortment” to mitigate the impact of higher tariffs. G-III Apparel Group — The apparel company tumbled 15% on much weaker-than-expected earnings guidance for the second quarter. The company sees earnings per share in a range of 2 cents to 12 cents. Analysts had estimated earnings of around 48 cents per share, according to FactSet. DocuSign — The electronic signature stock plunged 19% after the company cut its full-year billings forecast. Billings for the fiscal first quarter also came in lower than expected. Braze — Shares of the customer engagement platforms provider fell 13% on disappointing guidance. Braze guided for second-quarter adjusted earnings of 2 to 3 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet called for 9 cents per share. Its first-quarter results beat estimates. Quanex Building Products — The maker of windows and doors and other construction materials soared 18%, the most since September, after earning an adjusted 60 cents per share in its fiscal second quarter versus analysts’ consensus estimate of 47 cents, on revenue of $452 million against the Street’s $439 million, FactSet data showed. Adjusted EBITDA also topped forecasts. Samsara — Shares shed 5% after the software company projected revenue growth to slow. Samsara guided for second-quarter revenue to increase between $371 million and $373 million, up from the $367 million in the first quarter. That would be a slowdown on both a sequential and year-over-year basis. Solaris Energy Infrastructure — The oil and natural gas equipment and service provider rallied 10% after Barclays initiated research coverage with an overweight rating and $42 price target. “Solaris is the leader in distributed power with almost 2 GW of capacity to be added by 2027 with 67% allocated towards data centers on long term contracts,” the bank said.
A sign in German that reads “part of the UBS group” in Basel on May 5, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images
The Swiss government on Friday proposed strict new capital rules that would require banking giant UBS to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital, following its 2023 takeover of stricken rival Credit Suisse.
The measures would also mean that UBS will need to fully capitalize its foreign units and carry out fewer share buybacks.
“The rise in the going-concern requirement needs to be met with up to USD 26 billion of CET1 capital, to allow the AT1 bond holdings to be reduced by around USD 8 billion,” the government said in a Friday statement, referring to UBS’ holding of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds.
The Swiss National Bank said it supported the measures from the government as they will “significantly strengthen” UBS’ resilience.
“As well as reducing the likelihood of a large systemically important bank such as UBS getting into financial distress, this measure also increases a bank’s room for manoeuvre to stabilise itself in a crisis through its own efforts. This makes it less likely that UBS has to be bailed out by the government in the event of a crisis,” SNB said in a Friday statement.
‘Too big to fail’
UBS has been battling the specter of tighter capital rules since acquiring the country’s second-largest bank at a cut-price following years of strategic errors, mismanagement and scandals at Credit Suisse.
The shock demise of the banking giant also brought Swiss financial regulator FINMA under fire for its perceived scarce supervision of the bank and the ultimate timing of its intervention.
Swiss regulators argue that UBS must have stronger capital requirements to safeguard the national economy and financial system, given the bank’s balance topped $1.7 trillion in 2023, roughly double the projected Swiss economic output of last year. UBS insists it is not “too big to fail” and that the additional capital requirements — set to drain its cash liquidity — will impact the bank’s competitiveness.
At the heart of the standoff are pressing concerns over UBS’ ability to buffer any prospective losses at its foreign units, where it has, until now, had the duty to back 60% of capital with capital at the parent bank.
Higher capital requirements can whittle down a bank’s balance sheet and credit supply by bolstering a lender’s funding costs and choking off their willingness to lend — as well as waning their appetite for risk. For shareholders, of note will be the potential impact on discretionary funds available for distribution, including dividends, share buybacks and bonus payments.
“While winding down Credit Suisse’s legacy businesses should free up capital and reduce costs for UBS, much of these gains could be absorbed by stricter regulatory demands,” Johann Scholtz, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note preceding the FINMA announcement.
“Such measures may place UBS’s capital requirements well above those faced by rivals in the United States, putting pressure on returns and reducing prospects for narrowing its long-term valuation gap. Even its long-standing premium rating relative to the European banking sector has recently evaporated.”
The prospect of stringent Swiss capital rules and UBS’ extensive U.S. presence through its core global wealth management division comes as White House trade tariffs already weigh on the bank’s fortunes. In a dramatic twist, the bank lost its crown as continental Europe’s most valuable lender by market capitalization to Spanish giant Santander in mid-April.
Check out the companies making the biggest moves in premarket trading: Tesla —The EV maker added nearly 5%, a day after plunging 14% as CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump publicly feuded . Broadcom — Shares of the chipmaker slipped about 2% before the opening bell, on the heels of lackluster free cash flow in the second quarter. Broadcom reported free cash flow of $6.41 billion, while analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for $6.98 billion. Broadcom stock has risen more than 12% year to date. Circle Internet Group — The stablecoin company popped nearly 14%, following its debut on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday. Circle soared 168% in its first day of trading . Lululemon — Stock in the athleisure company pulled back nearly 20% after its second-quarter outlook missed analyst estimates. Lululemon forecast earnings per share in the current quarter in the range of $2.85 to $2.90 per share, while analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $3.29. The firm also slashed its earnings outlook for the full year. DocuSign — The electronic signature stock plunged 19%. Despite beating Wall Street expectations on both lines for the first quarter, billings came in lower than anticipated, per FactSet. DocuSign also set current-quarter guidance for billings that was below analysts’ consensus forecast. Braze — Shares of the customer engagement platforms provider fell 6% following the company’s disappointing guidance. Braze guided for second-quarter adjusted earnings between 2 cents and 3 cents per share, while analysts polled by FactSet called for 9 cents per share. Its first-quarter results beat estimates. Samsara — Shares shed 12% after the software company projected revenue growth to slow. Samsara guided for second-quarter revenue to increase between $371 million and $373 million, up from the $367 million in the first quarter. That would be a slowdown on both a sequential and year-over-year basis. Rubrik — The stock gained about 4% following the cloud data management company’s top and bottom line beats for its first quarter. Rubrik lost an adjusted 15 cents per share, narrower than the 32 cent loss expected from analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue was $278.5 million, versus the $260.4 million consensus estimate. —CNBC’s Alex Harring and Brian Evans contributed reporting.
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