APRA revokes Xinja licence

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has revoked Xinja Bank Ltd’s authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) licence.

Last month, Xinja Bank completed its return of customer deposits and transferred the remaining tail of deposits to National Australia Bank (NAB) after making the shock announcement that it would hand back its banking licence and cease offering banking products.

“After a year marked by COVID-19 and an increasingly difficult capital-raising environment, and following a review of the market in Australia, Xinja has decided to withdraw the bank account and Stash (savings) account and cease being a bank. This was an incredibly hard decision,” Xinja had said at the time.

At the time of the announcement, Xinja had 37,884 customer with 54,357 individual deposits worth more than $252 million.

The bank made history by becoming the first Australian bank to undertake a return of deposits to customers, with many commentators stating that part of Xinja’s downfall was the delay in launching a mortgage product.

APRA has now announced that the bank’s licence has been revoked, officially concluding the neobank’s journey.

[Related: Xinja fate is a lesson for other fintechs: GlobalData]

Malavika Santhebennur is the features editor on the mortgages titles at Momentum Media.

Before joining the team in 2019, Malavika held roles with Money Management and Benchmark Media. She has been writing about financial services for the past six years.