Remitly to wind down digital banking app Passbook
US remittance fintech Remitly has decided to shut down Passbook, its digital banking app for immigrants, with all services set to end on 1 May 2023.
Remitly to close down Passbook
The decision was announced by co-founder and CEO Matt Oppenheimer in an earnings call last week, citing strategic evolution and the company’s will to focus on other products and services as reasons for the closure.
“While Passbook was gaining traction with customers and was growing, it was ultimately outside our core customer segment,” Oppenheimer says. “We believe it makes sense to redeploy our resources to higher returning investments, targeted at our core remittance customer.
“We are taking the best of learnings from Passbook and integrating them into products or features to deliver greater value through innovative solutions that are directly relevant to our customers’ remittance needs.”
From 23 March, Passbook will not accept any new deposits, with the exception of MoneyBoost loan customers. The Passbook debit card will be disabled from 20 April, and after account closures on 1 May, any money not withdrawn will be mailed back to customers.
The neobank’s closure comes after Remitly expanded its core remittance services to the Middle East, with a new office in Dubai, UAE.
Launched in 2020, Passbook aimed to cater to US immigrants and provide them with digital banking services. It had partnered up with Minnesota-based Sunrise Banks to offer FDIC-insured deposit accounts.
