Money transfer group Zepz is laying off 420 employees, the company told CNBC exclusively, as the fintech sector grapples with a tough macroeconomic environment.
The London-headquartered company began informing employees of the redundancies on Monday, with individual staff being told by their managers before larger communications were issued. By Tuesday, the whole company had been told about the move.
Zepz, which owns the WorldRemit and Sendwave brands, has a total headcount of around 1,600, meaning the cuts translate to about 26% of its workforce.
The reductions will mainly impact Zepz’s customer care and engineering teams as Zepz looks to shift those operations from multiple countries to more centralized hubs, the company said.
The firm is headquartered in London but has regional offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Poland, Kenya, and beyond.
Zepz said it was implementing what it called “workforce optimization” to account for roles that had been duplicated following its combination of Sendwave with WorldRemit under one parent company.
Collectively, both money transfer services are used by more than 11 million users across 150 countries. Sendwave was acquired by Zepz in 2020 for an undisclosed sum.
It is the second time in just under a year that Zepz has laid off staff. In June 2022, Zepz implemented redundancies affecting around 5% of its workforce, according to Sky News.
Mark Lenhard, Zepz’s CEO, said the decision marked “an important and necessary step in transitioning from two vast, segmented teams to one dynamic organization under Zepz, and laying ambitious foundations towards our long-term strategic direction as a portfolio business.”
He added that the company took the decision to reduce its headcount due to a need to streamline its structure rather than macroeconomic pressures.
“Over the last year we have taken a serious look at how to optimize the organization to continue scaling in a mature fashion that sets up the business for long-term…
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