The UK’s most valuable fintech firm today posted a £100 million loss as it blamed high inflation and a normalising of consumer shopping habits after the pandemic for its sluggish growth.
Checkout.com, which manages payments for e-commerce sites and attracted a valuation of $40 billion in a 2022 funding round, posted a net loss of $126.3 million (£100.6 million) for 2022, a more than quadrupling on the $25 million loss the previous year, while revenues slipped 5% to $246.3 million.
Checkout said it had “observed a shift in the macro environment and geopolitical backdrop in 2022, with rising inflation and reduced consumer spending/confidence having an impact on the growth of revenue.
“As Covid lockdown restrictions have been lifted the return of customers to physical retail has also had an impact on the company’s online commerce clients.
“Clients in the fintech sector have also been impacted by the macroeconomic conditions, with lower trading volumes observed particularly among emerging digital currency clients.”
The London-based company also said it had shifted some of its clients to contracts with another company in the group structure “as a result of Brexit.” It put the increased losses down to higher operating costs after it recruited 300 more staff during the year, which saw its headcount top 1,000. It has since part-reversed that hiring spree, with reports of around 80 layoffs in December last year.
Founder Guillaume Pousaz has a net worth of £10.3 billion, according to the Evening Standard Tech Rich List. The company
