UPDATE 1-Travelex says UK money transfer and wire services back online after hack

(Adds insurance source comment, details)

Jan 28 (Reuters) - Travelex's UK international money
transfer service and wire offering is fully operational again,
it said on Tuesday, almost a month after a crippling ransomware
attack forced staff to use pen and paper to calculate foreign
currency exchanges.

The cyber attack forced the company to take all its systems
offline, causing chaos for New Year holidaymakers and business
travellers seeking online currency services.

It is more than a week since the company, owned by Finablr
, said that the first of its customer-facing systems in
Britain was up and running again and a phased global restoration
of systems "firmly underway".

Despite saying at the time that an automated order placement
service used by a number of its British retail banking partners
was already live, travel money websites at Tesco Bank,
Barclays, HSBC and Virgin Money --
all Travelex customers -- were still offline when checked by
Reuters on Tuesday.

Finablr said last week that the Travelex cyber incident
would not impact 2019's results, nor was it expected to have a
material impact on the company's performance in the current
year.

Travelex, which was hit by ransomware called Sodinokibi, has
not said if it paid any money to the hackers. British media
reports, including from the BBC which said it had spoken with
the hackers, have pegged the ransom demand at $6 million.

However, Travelex's losses will be at least partly covered
by a cyber insurance policy arranged by broker Gallagher, three
insurance industry sources told Reuters.

Gallagher declined to comment, while Travelex did not
respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru and Carolyn Cohn
in London
Editing by David Goodman, Kirsten Donovan)