Sometime in the first half of 2021, the unregulated high-risk payment processor Paypound appeared on our radar. After the infamous iPayTotal collapsed and disappeared. There are rumors that former iPayTotal people made Paypound. Paypound is shabby. The first operator was dissolved via compulsory strike-off; the payment processor massively facilitates broker scams. We recommend merchants to be super-cautious with Paypound. At some point, the payment processor may be gone with the merchants’ money.
Key data
| Trading name | Paypound |
| Domain | https://paypound.ltd |
| Legal entities | Paypound Ltd (dissolved) I SELF PAY – UNIPESSOAL, LDA (Portugal) Self Pay IO Ltd (UK) Next Ring Llc (Island of Nevis) |
| Jurisdiction | United Kingdom |
| Related individuals | Amaranatha Puttana, India Alizee Ghislaine, France (resigned) Ana Raquel Ortega Arauz, Panama Tina Macnelly (LinkedIn) Mary Hill (LinkedIn) Nishi Thomas (LinkedIn) Arthur Jones (LinkedIn) Abram Xavier (LinkedIn) |
The narrative
The Paypound website lists SELF PAY IO LTD as the operator. The company was established on August 3, 2021, by Alizee Cannelle Ghislaine. She resigned in September 2021 and was succeeded by the Panamese Ana Raquel Ortega Arauz, a nominee director. Next Ring Llc, registered on the Island of Nevis, controls the company and resides in the Paypound offices in London. An archived version of the website lists I SELF PAY – UNIPESSOAL, LDA as the operator.
The Privacy Policy still lists Paypound Ltd as the operator. The Indian Amaranatha Puttana established the company in April 2018. It was dissolved via compulsory strike-off in September 2019.
SELF PAY IO LTD has only GBP 1,000 share capital. That is way too little for a financial services provider.
Until recently, the company’s location provided on LinkedIn was Povoa de Varzim in Portugal. Now it is London. The employees linked to Paypound on LinkedIn are also mainly in the UK. As an acquirer, Paypound uses OPay Digital Services Limited d/b/a OPay, licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, according to the information we have.
On Trustpilot, Paypound has a 4.5-star rating with a corresponding “Excellent” trust level. However, the 4- and 5-star ratings are almost exclusively from first-time raters. Some of them were invited. This smells of manipulated rating. We would probably only do business with Paypound as a high-risk merchant in great desperation, even if we would run a scam or fraud scheme. We advise merchants to be very careful with this scam-facilitating high-risk payment processor.
Share information
If you have any information about Paypound and the individuals and entities involved, we would be grateful if you could share it with our research team via our Whistle42 whistleblower system.
