Fintech Bud cuts 20% of workforce
The fintech company behind HSBC’s open banking features has cut 20% of its workforce of about 100 as it strives to recruit different types of people.
Fintech Bud said the cuts are part of a process of refocusing its business. Mainly support staff will be reduced with continued investment in software engineers as if concentrates on developing open banking capabilities for its financial services customers.
The company, which is based in Old Street London, started life in 2016 as a B2C platform to help people improve their financial well-being, before moving into banking with a platform that allows banks to harnesses open banking.
This year received $20m Series it received funding from HSBC, Goldman Sachs, ANZ and Investec amongst others.
According to a statement from Bud its priorities have changed as a result of growth. “This results in a need to reconfigure businesses from time to time. In our case we need to focus on the core areas of the business that will help the company progress to the next stage of growth and become the market leading provider of open banking technology.
“We have made some changes to our company structure, primarily in the support functions of the business designed to ensure we can focus on the task at hand. We are continuing to hire in key areas where are to bolstering our proposition.” According to a report in The Telegraph fintech Bud continues to hire engineers
Bud’s flagship customer is HSBC. Bud worked with HSBC to develop a money management app, called artha, to help customers of First Direct, understand their spending from different providers through a single login. It also analysed their behaviour and make recommendations. This was later turned off with the best features integrated into the bank’s mobile app.
When I interviewed George Dunning, Bud’s CTO and a co-founder, at the beginning of this year the company had 70 staff, but he said this would double over the year.
The employees that were cut were mainly in Bud’s marketing department.
The advantage that fintechs have over banks is the fact they are small and agile and can change focus when required.
CEO Ed Maslaveckas told The Telegraph that part of being an agile tech business is that you can respond quickly to changes in the market.
“We’re adapting our strategy to focus 100% on delivering value to business customers and that means we need a different group of people to deliver it. For example, the strategy also means we’re hiring more in our sales and development teams.”