PARIS, July 30, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - French payments firm Worldline said Wednesday it had lost 4.2 billion euros ($4.8 billion) in the first half as it wrote down assets, weeks after a media investigation alleged it had processed billions of euros of suspicious transactions.

Worldline, which earns commissions from both physical and online merchants for handling payments from their sales, also saw its turnover fall by 3.4 percent to 2.2 billion euros as consumer spending slowed.

The company has regularly revised down its financial forecasts in recent years and its collapsing share price saw it removed from the Paris Stock Exchange's benchmark CAC 40 index.

In late June, an investigation published by a consortium of journalists accused Worldline of processing billions of euros of suspicious transactions in risky sectors including online casinos, crypto-asset platforms, porn sites and even suspected money laundering networks.

The revelations caused its stock to plummet further.

Worldline CEO Pierre-Antoine Vacheron stated during a conference call Tuesday that, based on initial feedback from audits the company ordered following the news reports, "we now have a very healthy situation across all of our regulated activities."