The board of EML Payments has sacked Emma Shand, who was appointed chief executive of the struggling company in July last year, and dumped the strategic plan Shand announced in November in favour of a greater focus on remediation and cost management. The company announced yesterday that it has appointed Kevin Murphy, a former managing director of the Bank of Ireland, as interim CEO.  Shand will leave the company in July. Her departure follows the removal of chair Peter Martin, who was voted off the board at the company’s annual general meeting in November. The board has also appointed investment bank Barrenjoey to conduct another strategic review, which may result in the sale of all or parts of the business. EML’s Irish subsidiary, PFS Card Services Ireland Ltd, has been the subject of regulatory intervention since May 2021, when the Central Bank of Ireland reported that it was exposed to elevated risk of money laundering and terrorism financing as a result of the poor quality of its risk management framework and governance. After nearly two years, EML has failed to meet the regulator’s expectations. Earlier this month the CBI directed that growth in PFS payment volumes for the period from March 2023 to March 2024 be restricted to no growth above a 2022 baseline, after finding that the company had made limited progress with its remediation plan. The company has also had to deal with similar regulatory intervention in England. EML chair Luke Bortoli said in a statement to the ASX: “Kevin Murphy’s understanding on the Irish and broader European regulatory environments, previous interactions with the Central Bank of Ireland and deep experience in the payments sector are perfectly aligned to addressing the needs of our business today.” Shand’s background included 16 years with securities exchange Nasdaq, where her roles included global head of advisory services. She was a non-executive director of global cyber security company XM Cyber. When the company announced her appointment, it highlighted her work with “highly regulated capital market infrastructure operators” and the fact she had done “governance studies” at Harvard.  In November, Shand presented her strategic plan, which focused on getting the company in shape to deal with a changing payments landscape, including developments in open banking, digital wallets and embedded payments. Yesterday, Bortoli said the board’s first priority is remediation. It is establishing a board sub-committee to oversee the remediation program and is conducting a search for appointments to the sub-committee. In addition, it has started “an enterprise-wide cost optimisation program” and renewed its focus on current core business. Barrenjoey will work with Barclays, which had already been brought in to advise the company, “to consider all options available to the board, including a potential sale of all or parts of the business in order to maximise shareholder value”. In its December half accounts, EML recognised an A$86.2 million impairment expense to the carrying value of PFS, which was acquired in 2020 for $252 million. It also recognised a $35.1 million impairment expense to the carrying value of another overseas subsidiary, Sentenial Group, which was acquired in 2021