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Mark Lenhard, CEO of U.K.-based remittances platform Zepz.

Lukas Schulze | Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images

LONDON — British digital remittances company Zepz is laying off dozens of IT workers and is in the process of closing down business units in Poland and Kenya.

Roughly 200 staff members will be impacted by the redundancy measures, two employees who were made redundant told CNBC, asking to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter.

As of January, London-headquartered Zepz — formerly known as WorldRemit — had a global headcount of 1,000 people, meaning the redundancies affect around 20% of its total workforce.

The layoffs affect several IT functions at the company, including database administration, development operations and software engineering, the former employees said.

Zepz confirmed to CNBC that it was reducing headcount in order to “sustainably support the next phase of long-term strategic goals and continued growth.” The company declined to comment on the number of employees impacted by the layoffs, with a spokesperson explaining that the redundancy process was ongoing. 

“Following the successful completion of its replatforming efforts, bolstered by advanced automation and AI, Zepz has embarked on a strategic initiative to optimise operations across the organisation,” a Zepz spokesperson told CNBC by email.

“This transformation has reinforced the technology foundation and reduced the need for certain operational and technical capacities, prompting a proposed reduction in roles as part of the overall plan,” the spokesperson added.

Zepz has been touted as one of Britain’s fintech darlings. The company was founded by Ismail Ahmed, a Somalia-born British entrepreneur who fled the country during the Somali Civil War. Ahmed today serves as the company’s non-executive chairman.

The group was renamed Zepz following the acquisition of money transfer platform Sendwave in 2020, with the brand and WorldRemit coming under one parent company.

‘Difficult choice’

CNBC obtained a company memo announcing the cost-cutting measures shared by Zepz CEO Mark Lenhard internally in January.

“Today we are announcing a very difficult decision — proposed reductions in our team across all HQ functions, and most regions. And specifically we are proposing the closure of our Kenya and Poland employing entities,” Lenhard said in the memo.

Zepz touts itself as a “remote-first employer,” with regional offices in Kenya and Poland.

“This is a difficult choice, which impacts the lives of our colleagues and friends. This is also a choice which is critical to the success of our mission to serve immigrants everywhere. Both facts are true, at the same time,” Lenhard said.

“To be clear, this is not a change of strategy. We’re doubling down on our mission in an effort to expand our impact faster,” he added. “In some places, this will mean we’ll need to continue to ruthlessly prioritize. In others, we’re going to get more efficient. In many cases it will involve rethinking how we do things today.”

Zepz’s spokesperson insisted that the IT worker layoffs “will not impact customers in any region or market,” and added that the firm “remains committed to its mission of serving migrants worldwide, driving innovation, and delivering meaningful financial solutions to millions globally.”

This isn’t the first time Zepz has cut a spate of roles to save on costs. In 2023, Zepz laid off 420 employees, which accounted for about 26% of its global headcount at the time. Later that year, Zepz slashed a further 30 roles across its people and marketing functions.

Zepz has long been touted as a potential IPO candidate, but a timeline for this is unclear. Counting the likes of Accel, TCV and Leapfrog as investors, the startup was valued at $5 billion in 2021. The company announced a $267 million funding round last year.

Zepz faces competition from several notable digital payments players including PayPal, Wise, Revolut and Remitly.

WATCH: We now have ‘a whole generation’ of fintechs preparing for IPOs, says QED Investors’ Nigel Morris

We now have 'a whole generation' of fintechs preparing for IPOs, says QED Investors' Nigel Morris

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It’s a huge week for crypto in D.C. But the industry may not get everything it wants

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It's a huge week for crypto in D.C. But the industry may not get everything it wants

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 27, 2025.

Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters

It’s “Crypto Week” in Washington.

The cryptocurrency industry is set to notch a major win this week if the House can pass two bills that would set up a long-lobbied-for regulatory framework for digital assets.

The stablecoin bill, known as the GENUIS Act, has already passed the Senate and looks set to become the first standalone crypto measure signed into law should the House do the same.

But the real prize for the industry is a wider and more complex bill on market structure called the CLARITY Act, which faces a more difficult path to President Donald Trump‘s desk.

Seeking CLARITY

The CLARITY Act sets the rules for when an asset is considered a security and overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission versus when it’s considered a commodity that is overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC.

The act is likely to pass the House on Wednesday, given the bipartisan support when the bill cleared two committees. But the path in the Senate is murky, as Democrats could withhold their support over concerns about how Trump and his family are benefiting from crypto.

The Trump family’s growing crypto empire includes $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, a stablecoin, and a decentralized finance firm called World Liberty Financial, among other ventures.

Some lawmakers who backed the narrower stablecoin bill did so with the hopes of seeing the wider market structure package address conflicts of interest.

“President Trump’s crypto corruption distorts the digital asset marketplace,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., who voted for the stablecoin bill. “Writing a bill with a corruption caveat for the president sends a clear message — that Congress is not serious about addressing corruption, which we know undermines investors’ faith in capital markets.”

Pushing it to pass

Coinbase attempted to literally sweeten the deal on the CLARITY Act for lawmakers with an advertising push that included handing out about 5,000 chocolate bars around D.C.

The candy wrappers cited a Morning Consult poll that found about “1 in 5” Americans own crypto.

Coinbase, Ripple and other crypto companies are lobbying Congress to put their concerns aside and back the market structure package, anticipating that more regulatory certainty will encourage more investment in crypto.

“When consumers buy and sell and trade these digital assets, they want to know what they’re getting and they want to know that they’re using a reputable intermediary,” Coinbase Vice President of U.S. Policy Kara Calvert told CNBC. “And what this bill does is provide that construct to do that.”

Read more CNBC tech news

The Senate is set to introduce its own market structure bill this month that is expected to differ slightly from the House version.

Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., is working with Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and others on the measure.

Other Democrats are planning to work with Republicans on a bill, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who worked on previous market structure bills with Lummis.

“We have a lot of work to do, and we’re going to work on a bipartisan basis over the next month,” she told CNBC in a brief interview in the Capitol.

GENIUS and the Fed

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Coreweave stock pops after company announces $6 billion AI data center in Pennsylvania

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Coreweave stock pops after company announces  billion AI data center in Pennsylvania

CoreWeave Inc. signage in Times Square in New York, US, on Friday, May 9, 2025.

Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Coreweave stock climbed more than 9% on Tuesday after the company announced a $6 billion artificial intelligence data center project in Pennsylvania.

The commitment includes an initial 100 megawatt data center built in Lancaster, a city about 70 miles west of Philadelphia. The data center will be able to expand to 300 MW.

“The demand for high-performance AI compute is relentless,” said CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator in a release, “and CoreWeave is scaling a cloud purpose-built for AI to meet it and strengthen US leadership.”

The announcement comes as part of the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh hosted by Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Penn., where President Donald Trump, members of his administration and executives are meeting to discuss AI and investment opportunities in the state.

Read more CNBC tech news

Google announced a $25 billion data center and AI infrastructure deal Tuesday in conjunction with the summit, and pledged $3 billion to upgrade two hydropower plants in Pennsylvania.

CoreWeave, which rents out access to Nvidia AI chips, has been on a tear since it went public at the end of March. Shares opened at $39 and are up more than 250% since then.

The company announced a $9 billion acquisition of data center infrastructure provider Core Scientific last week, a deal that will boost CoreWeave’s access to power and real estate.

CoreWeave was already a major customer of Core Scientific and the deal will cut $10 billion in future lease commitments, according to the company.

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Tesla’s Model Y debuts in India priced at a hefty $70,000 as the EV maker ‘tests the waters’

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Tesla’s Model Y debuts in India priced at a hefty ,000 as the EV maker 'tests the waters'

In this photo illustration, logo of Tesla is displayed on a mobile phone screen in front of the Indian flag in Ankara, Turkiye on November 28, 2023.

Cem Genco | Anadolu | Getty Images

Tesla has made its long-awaited debut in India, where it will sell its electric SUV, the Model Y, starting at $69,770, a significant markup from other major markets, its website showed Tuesday. 

The sales launch comes the same day the American electric vehicle maker opened a showroom in Mumbai, its first in the country. 

Isabel Fan, Southeast Asia Director at Tesla, also announced that the company would soon launch a showroom in the Indian capital of New Delhi, according to a report from CNBC-TV18

The report added that Tesla would hire staff locally and set up experience centers, service centers, delivery systems, charging stations and logistics hubs throughout the country. 

There has long been speculation about when Tesla would enter India, the third-largest automotive market in the world by sales. However, the high price tag may come as a surprise to many. For example, the Model Y starts from $44,990 in the U.S.

Why are prices so high?

Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer, in April, confirmed the company’s interest in India but said it would take a careful approach to the market considering its 70% tariff on EV imports and about 30% luxury tax. 

These high taxes explain why Tesla was forced to set its prices so high in India, despite the country’s preference for EVs at much lower price ranges.

Experts told CNBC that this will see Tesla in India compete in the premium segment of the market with the likes of BMW, rather than with local EV companies like Tata Motors

“I won’t say that these prices are completely out of range because you will find buyers in India for all price points,” Vivek Vaidya, global client leader for mobility at research firm Frost & Sullivan, told CNBC’s “Inside India” on Tuesday.

“The question is whether they are going to threaten the mass market. The answer to that is no because the most popular selling cars probably sell at one-tenth of this price,” he added. 

Tesla's entry into India will not threaten domestic mass market: Analyst

Testing the waters

While the Model Y will struggle to be price competitive, Tesla is likely more focused on “testing the waters” than generating sales in India, Puneet Gupta, Director for the Indian automotive market at S&P Global Mobility, told CNBC.  

India first announced a new EV policy last year that promised to reduce duties for companies that commit to building up a local supply chain. While this could help Tesla push its prices down, the company has yet to commit to building any local manufacturing plants in India.

“The Mumbai showroom is a strategic ‘soft power’ move, not a full commitment,” Diwakar Murugan, automotives analyst at Canalys, told CNBC in a statement, adding that Tesla’s hesitation in India is pragmatic, as the market still lacks the demand to justify a large-scale manufacturing facility. 

“Shifting a significant portion of its production to India would require a major re-evaluation of its global manufacturing strategy, something it’s not ready to do while its primary focus remains on scaling production in its established markets,” he said. 

Murugan predicted that Tesla may only commit to full-scale Indian manufacturing between 2028 and 2030, with incentives like land subsidies and tax holidays, as well as the maturity of the local battery market expected to be important factors.

In the meantime, the Model Y will be a “niche, limited-volume product for wealthy, tech-savvy early adopters who seek a status symbol,” he added.

S&P’s Gupta noted that India’s tariffs on EV exports could also soon change as a result of ongoing trade negotiations between Washington and New Delhi, as well as further tweaks to its EV policy. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk spoke with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on topics including collaboration on technology and innovation in April.

“The Indian government has been very proactive in terms of pushing green, cleaner, electric cars, and I think that Tesla has a clear advantage due to the India-U.S. relationship,” Gupta said. 

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