British bank HSBC has decided to close its Zing app, which will mean up to 400 people will be made redundant, according to reports from Reuters. The Zing app premiered in January last year and was intended to compete with fintechs such as Revolut and Wise. The primary services available on Zing were foreign currency accounts and international transfers.

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The news of Zing's closure was announced in a statement by an HSBC spokesperson. - ‘Following a review of projects within the HSBC group, we have decided to close Zing and integrate its platform into the HSBC core system,’ the statement said. Meanwhile, a Reuters source said the decision will have implications for the Zing team, with 400 people working on the solution set to lose their jobs.

Reuters also reported that HSBC had lost enthusiasm for developing the Zing app after Georges Elhedere became the bank's CEO. He set himself to reduce costs and focus on the most profitable projects. Further investment in Zing was considered an inefficient use of capital, and the redundancies in the team responsible for this project are only part of the already implemented and planned measures resulting in staff reductions.

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HSBC is not the first major bank to recognize the threat of fintech, counter it by creating its own entity of this kind, and then acknowledge its failure in this field. Here, we can recall the story of the Finn project, a mobile bank for millennials created by JP Morgan and closed in 2019.