'Boss Of Wirecard Left Philippines For China'

A former board member of collapsed German payments company Wirecard was briefly in the Philippines this week but left the country on Wednesday headed for China, Manila's justice minister said on Friday.

Marsalek, the former chief operating officer under suspicion in Germany over the firm's accounting saga, arrived in the Philippines on Tuesday and left on Wednesday via Cebu City bound for China, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said.

Wirecard collapsed on Thursday owing creditors almost US$4 billion after disclosing a gaping hole in its books that its auditor EY said was the result of a sophisticated global fraud.

Marsalek was fired on Monday after Wirecard said that the cash, purportedly held at two Philippine banks which have denied any links with the firm, probably did not exist.

The payments company filed for insolvency at a Munich court saying that, with 1.3 billion euros of loans due within a week its survival as a going concern was "not assured".

The financial technology company is the first member of Germany's prestigious DAX stock index to go bust, barely two years after winning a spot among the country's top 30 listed companies with a market valuation of US$28 billion. (Reuters)