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Around 245 jobs are to be lost in Dublin following the closure of the UK-based Internet banking service First-e.
The Dublin workers were providing technologies and support for the UK service. But the French bank that owned the service, Banque D'Escompte, is now closing down operations in the UK and Germany and focussing on its home territory.
In Dublin, 35 staff will remain at a sister company, Factor-e, which develops and licenses software for various on-line financial services. Both Factor-e and First-e group come under the aegis of the troubled Dublin-based holding company Enba.
Enba has seen a volatile 18-month period in which it was to have merged in a USD1.5 billion deal with the Internet operations of Spanish bank BBVA. That merger never went ahead and Enba was later forced to cut staff and seek survival funding.
Stand-alone on-line banks including rival Egg have suffered from a lack of enthusiasm among the public and attempted to compensate by offering attractive incentives, although these typically made the cost of customer acquisition too high. Egg lost some STG63.4 million in the first half of 2001 but is cutting costs and insists it will break even by year's end.
Enba CEO Dr. Gerhard Huber, widely hailed as a visionary at the height of the Internet banking boom last year, said on Wednesday that it was "a source of great regret" that the jobs would be lost. Huber said he would recommend the staff as among the most experienced in the IT and financial services sector. The redundant First-e workers have banded together to offer their services via a new recruitment Web site www.fir-tree.com
Former customers of the First-e banking service are being invited to switch to an alternative service run by the German bank DAB. DAB, which will reportedly pay an undisclosed amount per converted customer, does not offer straightforward on-line banking services but runs on-line share dealing, mutual funds and time deposit account services.
A DAB spokesperson told ElectricNews.Net that the company was seeking to convert no less than 8,000 and up to 16,000 First-e customers to its service. First-e had more than 200,000 registered customers but only 80,000 of these were active users.
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