In 2002, Braun joined the management board of Wirecard AG and became CEO and CTO of the company. Wirecard is one of the world's largest digital platforms in the area of financial commerce and is headquartered in Germany. It was one of Germany's Top 30 most valuable companies on the German stock market and has been ranked in the “Top 100 Most Innovative Growth Companies in the World” by Forbes Magazine. In 2017, Braun was reappointed as a CEO of Wirecard. He responded to his reappointment by stating: "We will drive the digitization of payment processes using internet technology on a global level, and we will make Wirecard a global leader in this sector." Much of what Braun has said was questioned long before Wirecard has admitted fraud in June 2020. In 2017, for example, Braun told investors that Wirecard was using the latest artificial intelligence technology to analyze data. However according to third parties, staff were instead cobbling together spreadsheets of customer information. Braun owns more than 7% of Wirecard shares. In June 2020, Braun stepped down as CEO after a more than US$2 billion was found missing from the company accounts. On 22 June, Braun was detained by German police "on suspicion of accounting fraud and market manipulation" after he had turned himself in. On 23 June, he was released on bail, set at Euro 5 million.
Positions
Braun has more than 15 years of experience in the digital payment industry and is a regular speaker at industry related events as well as different national and international media. According to Braun, in the next decade, the entire retail payment infrastructure will be replaced by technology merging all payment streams into a single, fully digital system. Braun stated, that digitalization, if done right, would generate an increase in sales for the brick and mortar business similar to the expanding online commerce. He considers cash to become an exception and says, that technology can never be justified by itself and can only be successful when it delivers visible value-added for customers and merchants.
Controversy
In 2020, after Wirecard had delayed announcing its annual financial statements on a number of occasions and had been advised by auditing firm Ernst and Young that there was insufficient evidence to prove the existence of bank balances of over €1.9 billion in trust accounts, Braun resigned and vacated his position as CEO.
