Harsh fintech that demanded office return hiked pay, cut heads
When fintech Checkout.com announced that its employees had to work from the office for three days per week in August 2023, it wasn't entirely gentle with it. CEO Guillaume Pousaz told the policy's critics, "if you don't like it, leave." Whether intentionally or not, some staff seem to have taken Pousaz up on his offer.
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Accounts only just filed with Companies House by Checkout.com for 2023 across its two entities show that average headcount fell from 1,242 employees in 2022 to 1,157 for the year ending 2023. This appears to only represent UK employees. Checkout told Finextra today that its global headcount was 1,700 at the end of 2023, and it increased by 200 people during 2024.
Some of the UK leavers in 2023 seem to have been cut, and it seems that Checkout may have cut staff in 2024 too. A Glassdoor review last month claimed that Checkout conducted three rounds of layoffs in a 16-month period, to which the fintech responded by saying the decisions were "made to align with business needs at the time."
Average pay rose among the employees that survived 2023. In 2022, staff earned an average of $86.7k in 'salaries and wages' across the two entities. In 2023, average pay rose to $110.8k per head. The implication is either that pay was increased or cheaper staff were cut, or both.
Despite higher average pay, Checkout employees don't seem happy. Another review on jobs forum Blind last year said the office "sucks, [with] drab gray colours everywhere, awful equipment [and] no sense of community." It's not alone: Starling Bank, another fintech bringing staff back to the office, has been accused of creating a "bland grey corporate hellscape."
Checkout told Finextra that it has plans for continued growth in 2025. In the past month, Checkout has made multiple hires from open banking fintech TrueLayer, which laid off 25% of its workforce last September. These included senior software engineer Ali Khalili and director of engineering Michail Giorgiaras. Giorgiaras worked for Checkout before, so it's obviously doing something right.
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