HSBC is to shut down its app Zing, a currency conversion service which allowed customers to hold funds in over 10 different currencies, send over 30 currencies, and transact in over 200 countries and territories worldwide
Zing was launched a year ago by James Allan, HSBC’s head of FX and payments. It has partnerships with other fintech companies, including Visa, Currency Cloud, and Tink.
Reuters reported that the decision to shut down the business would result in 400 job losses.
An HSBC spokesperson said: “Following a strategic review of Zing within the HSBC Group and after careful consideration, we have made the decision to close Zing and integrate its underlying technology platform into HSBC.”
Zing was intended as a rival to Wise, a fintech set up in 2011. In November last year it had nearly 11.5 million customers, a growth of 25% on the same year previously.
It also claimed to have carried out £68.4bn of transactions and held £18.5bn of customers’ cash.
Ritesh Jain, a former chief operating officer at HSBC, told the fintech publication Finextra that Zing had copied rivals and did not have a future vision that would make it unique.
“In a market where consumers expect speed, transparency, and low-cost services, merely replicating existing offerings rarely works. Zing lacked a clear, innovative edge, and without that, no amount of marketing or expansion plans could help it succeed. Banks need to understand that in fintech, it’s not enough to compete in the present—you need to anticipate where the market is headed.”
Jain added: “Zing’s failure underscores a broader issue: it wasn’t just about launching a product. It was about building something new within a legacy framework, managing risk-averse investors, and complying with evolving regulations—all while competing with nimble fintechs that aren’t weighed down by such challenges.”
Zing was the first currency conversion and money transfer app to be launched by a high street bank.
Rival Wise partnered with Swift while Revolut had worked with Visa to develop a cross-border business platform.
Payments Journal reported that during its first two months, only 36,000 users in the UK downloaded Zing, according to app data intelligence platform Apptopia. In comparison, Revolut and Wise saw 1.1 million and 203,000 downloads, respectively, during that period of time.
HSBC Global Wallet, which offers a similar service to Zing, still continues to operate, it added.
