Fiinu Regulatory News (BANK)

12 July 2023

Fiinu Plc

("Fiinu", the "Company" or the "Group")

Operational & Strategic Update

Fiinu, a fintech group, creator of the Plugin Overdraft®, provides an operational and strategic update.

In the Company's RNS announcement on 28 April 2023, the Company outlined the challenges it had been facing in respect of raising the full amount of funding required to provide the exit capital for its subsidiary Fiinu 2 Limited (formerly Fiinu Bank Limited) to be able to exit its mobilisation period and commence operations without restrictions. As a result of these difficult market conditions, it also stated that it had submitted an application to the regulators to withdraw its banking licence with the aim of re-applying after a short period of two to three months once exit funding had been secured. The Company can confirm that the application by its subsidiary to withdraw its restricted banking licence was accepted by the regulators and, due to the continuing challenging market conditions and limited timescale, it has not yet been able to secure the necessary exit funding to consider seeking re-application.

Given the ongoing expense of maintaining and enhancing the development of the operationally ready banking technology by Group companies, the Company has now determined that the best course of action for its shareholders is for cost reductions to be initiated at its subsidiaries, Fiinu 2 Limited and Fiinu Holdings Limited, by various means including providing notice to reduce staffing levels, the re-negotiation or termination of agreements with suppliers. By reducing costs and satisfying all outstanding debts and liabilities of Fiinu 2 Limited and Fiinu Holdings Limited, the balance of resources available to the Company and across the Group will be optimised as the best way forward for shareholders is determined.

Unfortunately, due to the current circumstances the Company is unable to utilise the funding options announced on 15 March 2023 with Dewscope Limited and GEM Global Yield LLC SCS and GEM Yield Bahamas Limited.

As at 30 June 2023, the Group had available unaudited cash resources of approximately £4.3m. This represents enough funds to enable the Group to scale back its current operations in Fiinu 2 Limited and Fiinu Holdings Limited and continue to meet its financial obligations as they fall due.

Whilst Fiinu 2 Limited proceeds with the controlled scaling back of its operations, which may take a number of months, the Company will continue to review all its options in respect of the business, including trying to source the additional funding required for it to re-apply to the regulators to re-start its banking licence application, but also other options, which may include a change of strategy and/or a sale of the Group's technology assets. A change of strategy will include the Company's other subsidiary Fiinu Holdings Limited, which holds the intellectual property for the Group, and the Company.

The Company will make further announcements on progress and other developments as and when appropriate.

 Commenting on the proposals, Chris Sweeney, CEO of Fiinu, said:

"It is with deep regret that we have had to scale back operations in Fiinu 2 Limited and Fiinu Holdings Limited, following the successful completion of the technology build of the Plugin Overdraft®. The current general capital, and market specific conditions, are increasingly challenging for a business at Fiinu's current stage of development. 

"I would like to take the opportunity to thank our shareholders for their support and colleagues for the considerable efforts in developing the technology and the infrastructure to be in a position to launch the product into the market. I would also like to thank the PRA and FCA for their continued support during these challenging times."

Market Abuse Regulation ('MAR') Disclosure

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 ('MAR'), which is part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, until the release of this announcement.

ENDS

About Fiinu

Fiinu, founded in 2017, is a fintech group, that developed the Plugin Overdraft® which is an unbundled overdraft solution that allows customers to have an overdraft without changing their existing bank. The underlying bank Independent Overdraft® technology platform is bank agnostic, that therefore enables it to serve all other banks' customers. Open Banking allows Fiinu's Plugin Overdraft® to attach ("plugin") to the customer's existing primary bank account, no matter which bank they may use. Fiinu's vision is built around Open Banking, and it believes that it increases competition and innovation in UK banking.

For more information, please visit www.fiinu.com