‘After the party, comes the hangover’
In a video interview with CNBC after his article was published, Son discussed this pivotal moment for the industry, summarising things succinctly: “After the party, comes the hangover”.
That does seems to have been the case for London’s fintech sector. Take neobank Monese as an example. Founded in 2015, it was regarded as having potential to be a future unicorn and received huge backing from HSBC in 2021, amid the flurry of fintech investment.
Since then it has made a series of losses, leaving its solvency in question. In 2023, HSBC wrote off its minority stake in Monese, just two years after so enthusiastically investing.
Thankfully, Monese has just been acquired by Pockit, another British fintech, which has swooped in to save the day.
So, while the British government and regulators are desperate to see more IPOs on the London Stock Exchange, many companies don’t see going public as a risk worth taking, especially when valuations and share prices are in such wild fluctuation.
Instead, we might see more deals in the vein of Monese and Pockit as fintechs look to bolster their financial health: mergers and acquisitions.