Zepz, Formerly WorldRemit, Cuts 20% Of Its Workforce, Shuts Down Operations in Kenya & Poland 🇬🇧
We're also covering Tabby hitting $3.3B 🇸🇦, Real Housewives star dumping UK fintech 🇬🇧, Argentina's president's crypto scam 🇦🇷, Revolut's Ukrainian push 🇺🇦 & Shopify's Nazi merch drama 🇨🇦
Quick heads up!
Next Wednesday, I’m going to email you something special: Global Fintech Insider's first-ever Top 40 Celebrity Fintech Investors ranking. I've spent the last few weeks digging into which celebrities are putting their money into fintech, and the findings are fascinating. Beyond just laying out these celebrities names and stories, I'll share my analysis of why we're seeing this surge in celebrity fintech investments and what types of celebrities are investing. If you find it interesting, I'd really appreciate you sharing it.
🇬🇧 Zepz, Formerly WorldRemit, Cuts 20% Of Its Workforce, Shuts Down Operations in Kenya & Poland
Zepz, the London-based remittance company formerly known as WorldRemit, is laying off 200 employees, which corresponds to 20% of its workforce. The 5 billion USD valued fintech, which announced a 267 million USD funding round last year, is also closing its operations in Kenya and Poland. "Following the successful completion of its replatforming efforts, bolstered by advanced automation and AI, Zepz has embarked on a strategic initiative to optimise operations," a company spokesperson told CNBC. This marks the third round of layoffs at Zepz since 2023, when it cut 420 employees (26% of staff) and later eliminated 30 additional roles in marketing and HR.
While Zepz frames the layoffs as the result of its “AI-powered replatforming efforts”, it is more likely a sign that the company is struggling to compete in the increasingly competitive international money transfer market. The timing is also notable, coming less than a month after HSBC closed down its own Zing cross-border payment app. With established players like Wise and Revolut offering very competitive rates and stablecoins threatening to lower international money transfer fees even more, these layoffs raises questions about the company's rumoured IPO.
Source: CNBC & Global Fintech Insider
🇬🇧 Real Housewives of Toronto Star Scraps UK Fintech Launch Over Tax Changes
Ann Kaplan Mulholland, the Canadian fintech entrepreneur and Real Housewives of Toronto star, has abandoned plans for a white-label loan origination platform in the UK. “You would apply for a loan but it would have funnelled through us as a middleman so companies don’t have to set up their own lending platform”, Ann Kaplan Mulholland told City AM, about the fintech business she won’t launch in the UK.
The founder of Canadian lending firm iFinance Canada is leaving Britain with her cosmetic surgeon husband Dr. Stephen Mulholland, and scrapping her plan for a new UK fintech venture in response to controversial reforms to the country's non-domiciled tax scheme, which will end in its current form on April 6, 2025.
Despite purchasing a €6 million (6.28M USD) castle in Kent in 2023, the couple will relocate to Milan, attracted by Italy's flat tax residence scheme for wealthy foreigners, which charges claimants €200,000 (209,400 USD) annually to avoid paying Italian taxes on their foreign assets and income.
Source: CityAm & Global Fintech Insider
🇺🇸 Fired CFPB Attorney Says The Agency's Axing Will Allow Billionaires to Continue Scamming US Consumers
In a LinkedIn post that went viral with nearly 5,000 like, former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) enforcement attorney Elizabeth Aniskevich revealed she was among approximately 70 probationary employees terminated in a mass firing at the consumer watchdog, whose operations were recently frozen and had four different directors in the last 16 days. Elizabeth Aniskevich argues that the agency has returned 21 billion USD to consumers without relying on taxpayer funding. "The CFPB fights for everyone," Aniskevich wrote, arguing that the staff reduction won't reduce the overall budget since the agency isn't funded by Congress. Instead, she warned that gutting the agency "will achieve the goal of ensuring entities run by powerful billionaires can continue to exploit and scam hardworking consumers as they try to navigate an increasingly complex financial marketplace." Aniskevich, who previously worked as a securities fraud litigator, is now looking for a new role that would allow her to keep fighting for financial justice and fairness.
Source: Global Fintech Insider
🇺🇦 Even As Revolut Officially Launches in Ukraine, Kyiv Post Journalist Cannot Transfer Funds to Revolut Account
Revolut has officially launched in Ukraine, making its services available to all Ukrainians with features like international transfers and a free translucent card bearing the colours of the Ukrainian flag. Revolut users outside of Ukraine can also get this limited edition card, but need to make a 5 euros (5.23 USD) donation to the Ukrainian cause to get it and Revolut will match donations up to £200,000 (209,400 USD).
When the Kyiv Post attempted to transfer a few dollars to a Revolut account from an Ukrainian bank card, the transaction was blocked, with the bank stating the transfer was denied as a result of foreign exchange restrictions imposed by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), which restrict capital outflows since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Despite these hurdles, Revolut already has 450,000 Ukrainian account holders, with 100,000 monthly active users.
"Revolut doesn't have the limits that exist in Ukraine since it operates as a European bank account. Any transaction limits are applied by Ukrainian banks," explained Dmytro Strelchuk, Revolut's Head of Expansion. Since Revolut is now seeking a full banking license in Ukraine, it will have to comply with the the NBU’s foreign exchange restrictions once it get its license.
Sources: Kyiv Post & Global Fintech Insider
🇸🇦 BNPL Giant Tabby Hits $3.3B Valuation, Now Eyes The UAE-India Remittance Market
Tabby, MENA's most valuable fintech, has raised 160 million USD in a Series E round at a 3.3 billion USD valuation, led by Blue Pool Capital and Hassana Investment Company. The Saudi-based BNPL provider, which supports over 40,000 merchants including Amazon and IKEA, has doubled its transaction volume to 10 billion USD annually and grown its user base to 15 million customers across Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait. "Customers used to rely on us only for e-commerce or [point-of-sale] spending. Now, especially in the UAE, they see Tabby as a tool to manage all their spending," explained CEO Hosam Arab (on the picture above). Beyond BNPL, Tabby is eyeing the lucrative UAE-India remittance corridor, with plans to differentiate itself by allowing users to split remittance payments over time. The company, which recently moved its headquarters from Dubai to Riyadh, is preparing for an IPO on the Saudi Exchange.
Source: TechCrunch
🇨🇦 Shopify Claims Fraud Risk Not Hate Speech Led to Kanye's Nazi T-Shirt Store Removal
Shopify has revealed that Kanye West's controversial store selling swastika T-shirts was removed due to potential fraud rather than its hate speech policies. According to a leaked internal Slack message from general counsel Jess Hertz obtained by The Logic, the company viewed the $20 swastika T-shirt as "a stunt" that wasn't "a good faith attempt to make money." While Hertz called the product "vile, disgusting and inexcusable," she emphasized that "opinion doesn't factor in here. What matters is our terms of service." The controversy, which erupted after West promoted the store in a Super Bowl ad, caused internal tension at Shopify. During Shopify's Q4 earnings call, where the company reported 2.81 billion USD in revenue, president Harley Finkelstein, who is Jewish, notably avoided answering an analyst's question about the controversy, focusing instead on discussing the company's AI initiatives.
Sources: The Logic & The Globe & Mail
🇺🇸 Banks Have Now Sold Most of X's $12.5B Debt as Platform Reports 40% Revenue Growth in 2024
Morgan Stanley and its partners have successfully sold a 4.7 billion USD slice of X's acquisition debt on Thursday, as investors gain confidence in the platform's growth trajectory. The debt sale comes as X sees significant financial improvement, with revenue jumping 40% in 2024, coupled with plans to launch its payment platform X Money later this year. These developments, along with Elon Musk's growing influence in the Trump administration, have attracted major advertisers back to the platform, including Amazon and Apple, and Musk is reportedly using this momentum to raise money for X at a 44 billions USD valuation. The banks, which had struggled to offload the 12.5 billion USD in debt from Musk's 44 billion USD acquisition of X in 2022, have now sold most of it, including 5.5 billion USD to a small group of investors last week and 1 billion USD to Diameter Capital Partners earlier this month.
Source: The New York Times & Reuters
🇮🇳 Coinbase Plots Return to India Following Binance Successful Reentry
Coinbase is planning its return to India, following the path of rival Binance which successfully resumed operations last August after a seven-month regulatory halt. The American crypto exchange is in talks with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), after its previous 2022 launch ended abruptly when India's National Payments Corporation forced it to suspend UPI payment support after just three days. Both exchanges' reentry efforts come after the FIU previously ruled they were "illegally" operating in India, requiring them to register and provide broader disclosures on user activities. The timing is notable as Indian exchange WazirX recently lost half its reserves in a heist, creating an opportunity in a market where Coinbase already backs leading local players CoinSwitch and CoinDCX.
Source: TechCrunch
🇦🇷 Argentina President Javier Milei Falls for Mega Crypto Scam Live on X
Argentina President Javier Milei faces political turmoil after promoting a suspicious cryptocurrency project through his 3.8 million followers X account. The $LIBRA token, launched on the Solana blockchain, saw its price skyrocket to $5 before crashing to cents within hours of Milei's endorsement. The cryptocurrency showed classic signs of a "pump and dump" scheme, with several wallets earning up to $87 million through the price manipulation. The token's website had been registered just hours before the president's promotion. While Milei quickly deleted the tweet and claimed ignorance of the project's details, the incident has prompted an investigation by Argentina's Anti-Corruption Office and calls for his impeachment from opposition parties.
Source: CNN
🇬🇧 Revving Raises $135M to Help UK Adtech Companies Bridge Payment Gap With Google & Meta
Revving, a UK fintech focused on solving cashflow issues in the digital advertising and affiliate industry, has secured £107 million (112 million USD) in funding, including £100 million (105 million USD) in debt financing from asset manager DWS. The company helps small digital businesses such as publishers, affiliate and other adtech companies caught between slow-paying advertisers and tech giants like Google and Meta that demand faster payments.
"The problem in adtech is particularly acute," explained CEO Chris Pettit. "SME digital businesses are often in a David-and-Goliath scenario: stuck in the middle waiting to be paid on ever longer payment terms from some of the largest advertisers and brands in the world, while having to pay companies like Google and Meta on ever tighter terms." Unlike traditional factoring solutions, Revving integrates directly with digital platforms to provide instant funding based on real-time transaction data rather than invoices. The company expects to provide 1.8 billion GBP (2.27 billion USD) in funding to UK digital businesses over the next three years.
Source: Tech Funding News
🇨🇦 Bloomberg Rival Thomson Reuters Launches $150M Fund to Back Early Stage Fintechs
Thomson Reuters has launched its second corporate venture capital fund, Thomson Reuters Ventures (TRV) Fund 2, with 150 million USD to invest in early-stage companies. The fund will target Series A investments in legal, tax, accounting, risk fraud, compliance, and fintech markets, with cheque sizes ranging from 4 to 7 million USD. "Particularly in the three areas of tax, legal, risk and fraud, those areas are perfect for AI," explained TRV managing director Tamara Steffens (on the picture above), who plans to make 20-25 investments over three years. The launch follows the success of TRV's first 100 million USD fund launched in 2021, which has made 23 investments, including Materia AI, which Thomson Reuters later acquired.
Source: BetaKit
🇬🇧 Bleap Adds 11% Interest Feature to Its Stablecoin Payment Card
Bleap, a crypto payments startup founded by former Revolut executives João Alves and Guilherme Gomes, has added a high-yield savings feature to its existing stablecoin payment card. The new feature, called Earn, allows users to generate approximately 11% interest on USD stablecoins and 5% on EUR stablecoins linked to their Bleap card. The interest-earning feature complements the company's existing card product, which lets users spend stablecoins at a 1:1 rate with free currency conversion. The startup, which aims to create "a bank account on the blockchain," is currently in beta and available to customers in the European Economic Area.
Source: Global Fintech Insider
Upcoming Fintech Events
🇳🇱 Banking Renaissance will take place in Amsterdam on February 19-20, 2025 (1,263 USD), with speakers such as Giorgi Shagidze, CEO of maib & Ivar Lammers, Global Head of Financial Crime at ING Bank.
🇬🇧 Finovate Europe will be held in London on February 25-25, 2025 (2,399 USD), with speakers such as Joris Hensen, co-lead of co-lead Deutsche Bank API Program & Joanne Phillips, managing director for Aviva Direct Wealth.
🇺🇸 The Bank Automation Summit will be held in Austin on March 3-4, 2025 (633 USD), with speakers such as Michael Lehmbeck, CTO at BankUnited and Koren Picariello, head of generative AI strategy for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
🇯🇵 The GFTN Forum Japan will take poace in Tokyo from March 3-7, 2025 (350 USD), with speakers such as Doug Feagin, President of Ant International & Kenneth Gay, Chief Fintech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
🇺🇸 Fintech Meetup will take place in Las Vegas on March 10-14, 2025 (2,800 USD), with speakers such as Leif Abraham, co-CEO of Public.com & Misha Esipov, CEO of Nova Credit.
🇨🇦 The Canadian Fintech Summit will be held in Toronto on April 8th, 2025 (221 USD), with speakers such as Darcy Tuer, CEO of ZayZoon and David Nault, GP at Luge Capital.
🇩🇪 FIBE Fintech Berlin will be held in Berlin on April 9-10, 2025 (1,204 USD), with speakers such as Dan Schulman, former CEO of PayPal & Hélène Falchier, partner at Portage Ventures.
🇺🇸 Stablecon will take place in New York on May 29, 2025 (1,295 USD), with speakers such as Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto at Visa and Edward Woodford, CEO & Co-Founder of Zero Hash.
Who Am I?
Hi, my name is Julien Brault.
From 2017 to 2024, I was the CEO of Hardbacon, a fintech I co-founded, which reached 400,000 unique visitors at its peak.
A Google update ultimately sealed the company’s faith and I started this newsletter to keep myself busy in the aftermath.
I’m now product manager for Beeye, an AccountingTech SaaS.
Why share this?
Because my goal is to use my experience as an economic journalist, fintech entrepreneur and product manager to present the most essential fintech news from around the world through the eyes of an insider.
If you like what I do, feel free to share this newsletter and follow me on Linkedin.