Press release Paypolitan
Warning letter against the operators of the “luca app” by Paypolitan
16/02/2022 – Paypolitan, a European fintech company based in Estonia, is defending
itself with a warning letter against an extension of the so called “luca app” to include a
payment function within the app. Paypolitan will soon also introduce a payment
function for its app users and sees the conversion of the “luca app” as a major
distortion of competition due to the clear violation of competition and data protection
standards.

culture4life GmbH, as provider of the luca pandemic tracing app, is reacting with the
expansion to the fading out of the pandemic and the fact that in many federal states
the public health administrations stopped corona contact tracking, the most important
and original component of the “luca app”.
Now the makers of the app want to integrate a payment service into their app which
is provoking a reaction by data protectionists and competitors. “The problem is that
the ‘luca app’ would never had 40 million users without the pandemic,” says Nils
Tharandt Ortiz, CEO and founder of Paypolitan.

The app, or rather its active use, has been pushed and distributed by the federal and
state governments since 2021 with the sole aim, and major financial support, of using
contact tracking, especially for accessing restaurants and public events, as a
measure of fighting the pandemic. “Adding the payment function to the existing ‘luca
app’ will make any market entry of our company in Germany effectively impossible.
You can realistically assume that the ‘luca app’ is likely to gain a significant market
share in the contactless payment sector with at least 10 million users in a very short
time,” stated Marco Roemeth, CFO and also co-founder of Paypolitan, explaining the
reasons for the legal warning against culture4life GmbH as the provider of the “luca
app”.

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