GoCardless Reduces Losses After 20% Job Cuts

Bank payments firm GoCardless says it lowered losses following a 20% reduction in staff.

Now, the company — which also shifted some workers to Eastern Europe — is hoping these moves will stabilize its financial situation, Bloomberg News reported Monday (Feb. 3).

According to the report, U.K.-based GoCardless posted a pretax loss of 35 million pounds ($43.8 million) for the 12 months through June of last year, compared to a loss of 78 million pounds the year before. Revenue climbed 41% year on year to 132 million pounds.

“During the last quarter of the previous financial year, management undertook an exercise to turn its focus to achieving profitability within the next few years,” said CEO Hiroki Takeuchi.

As Bloomberg notes, GoCardless moved several support teams to Latvia to reduce costs, with its overall headcount dropping to a little more than 600. The company announced a 15% reduction in staff in 2023.

The company’s available cash fell by more than a third to 86 million pounds, though it said this cash burn was in keeping with expectations and meant the business would have the resources to keep up operations until it’s profitable.

The firm aims to increase its cost discipline in order to be cash generating within the next two years, GoCardless President Paul Stoddart said in an interview with Bloomberg.

“We have already had the first month of EBITDA positive, which is a great step to get to that,” Stoddart told the news outlet.

Based in London, with offices in Paris and Melbourne, GoCardless handles payments for businesses, letting its 95,000 customers automate part of the process and without having to rely manual bank transfers.

Takeuchi said in November that the company, last valued at over $2 billion, was not ready to go public, despite at least one high-profile firm in the FinTech space — Sweden’s Klarna — doing the same. He said that he sees an initial public offering (IPO) as more of a landmark step on a longer journey, rather than the destination itself.

“The markets have been challenging over the last few years,” Takeuchi said, per a report by CNBC, which added that the CEO argues the company is focused on building a better business and “the rest will follow” if the company reaches that goal.