Top five stories of the week – 19 May 2023

Right here’s our decide of 5 of the highest information tales from the world of finance and tech this week.

Financial institution of England reportedly planning to reject Revolut banking licence

Financial institution of England plans to reject Revolut’s banking licence

The Financial institution of England is reportedly planning to reject fintech agency Revolut’s utility for a banking licence.

The UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) instructed the federal government in March, in keeping with The Telegraph, that it supposed to challenge a warning discover to Revolut over issues across the fintech’s steadiness sheet.

Revolut has reportedly claimed auditors’ issues had been about revenues, not the steadiness sheet.

In line with The Telegraph, the warning has not been issued and talks are ongoing to make sure the licence utility is profitable.

Revolut’s current companies won’t be affected whether it is refused a licence however the firm can be unable to supply mortgages and loans to UK clients.

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Ripple acquires Metaco in $250m deal

Crypto and blockchain options supplier Ripple has acquired Swiss-based digital asset custody and tokenisation tech agency Metaco for $250 million.

Ripple says the acquisition will allow it to develop its enterprise choices and supply its clients with the know-how to custody, challenge and settle any kind of tokenised asset.

In flip, the deal will allow Metaco, finest recognized for its digital asset custody and tokenisation infrastructure resolution Harmonize, to “dramatically speed up” its progress trajectory, the companies say, via entry to Ripple’s base of “lots of” of shoppers, new capital to handle demand and huge assets.

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Zepz reportedly axing 420 jobs as agency seems to be to streamline operations

Zepz is reportedly axing 1 / 4 of its world workforce

International cross-border remittance platform Zepz is reportedly shedding 420 workers, round 26% of its whole workforce, as the corporate seems to be to streamline its operations.

The cuts will fall largely on Zepz’s buyer care and engineering groups, CNBC reviews, with the agency planning to centralise these divisions.

Zepz, which is headquartered in London and has workplaces throughout the globe, presently has a headcount of 1,600 employees.

The cuts are reportedly a part of what the agency refers to as its “workforce optimisation” plans, eradicating duplicate roles which have arisen on the firm following the combination of Sendwave and WorldRemit.

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Binance set to withdraw from Canada citing new steering

Binance has grow to be the newest cryptocurrency alternate to exit the Canadian market citing new steering.

In an announcement launched on 12 Might, Binance stated it was “becoming a member of different outstanding crypto companies in proactively withdrawing from the Canadian market”.

“Sadly, new steering associated to stablecoins and investor limits offered to crypto exchanges makes the Canada market now not tenable for Binance at the moment,” Binance says.

“We delay this choice so long as we might to discover different affordable avenues to guard our Canadian customers, however it has grow to be obvious that there are none.”

The transfer follows crypto alternate OKX pulling out of Canada in March citing the identical causes, and US blockchain infrastructure platform Paxos saying its withdrawal from the nation in April.

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ZestMoney founders step down following failed acquisition by PhonePe

ZestMoney co-founders step down from their roles

The co-founders of Indian purchase now, pay later (BNPL) start-up ZestMoney have stepped down from their roles simply weeks after funds large PhonePe called off a proposed acquisition of the agency.

CEO Lizzie Chapman, CTO Ashish Anantharaman, and Priya Sharma, who served as each CFO and COO, are all set to depart the corporate.

“Over the previous few weeks, we’ve executed quite a lot of serious about the perfect path ahead for ourselves given the place the corporate is at,” Chapman writes in a LinkedIn put up.

“And while it has been very onerous for us to reach at this conclusion, we’ve determined that we’ll step again from our day-to-day working roles with ZestMoney,” says Chapman, including that every one three co-founders will proceed to be “important” shareholders within the firm.

A brand new management staff has been appointed of their stead, with the corporate’s vice chairman of finance and monetary operations Mohit Chhajer, chief banking officer Mandar Satpute, and SVP of progress Abhishek Sharma set to take the reins.

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