London fintech firm Azimo to establish office in Dublin

London-based fintech company Azimo stated its plans to establish an office in Dublin in order to cope up with the exit from Brexit, Business Insider reported.

“We were looking at a few options — Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Malta, and Dublin. It seems like it’s going to be Dublin,” Marta Krupinska, co-founder and general manager of Azimo, told Business Insider.

According to Krupinska, the fintech firm is working to begin setting up the new office soon. The new Dublin office is a necessity in order to avoid Azimo falling out of Europe in case trade terms with the EU are not agreed during Brexit talks.

Azimo has already established a Polish office where it employs 65 people. Krupinska said that the existing London office would retain, that employs 35 people.

“Our most precious resource is our team. We feel strongly we’re part of the London ecosystem. We would like to keep the team here. What that means is we just have to set up a third office which we otherwise wouldn’t have to do,” Krupinska stated.

The move to establish Dublin office demonstrates how fintech and finance could suffer a slowdown in the wake of Brexit. Also, the fintech company has launched a new feature that permits customers to send money internationally just using the phone number of the recipient. This new feature aims to simplify a process that can be complicated for migrants who are unfamiliar with local banking systems.

“Why should sending money to a person in Brussels or Warsaw or in New York or in Buenos Aires be any different than to a person sitting next to me?” she added. “By introducing phone numbers you can for the first time make this process equally simple.”