Copper to Cease Banking Services and Focus on 'Earn' Product Amid Synapse Scandal

As a result of the Synapse scandal, the fintech startup Copper was forced to stop providing banking services. The stories of the entrepreneurial landscape in the Pacific Northwest are told through the in-depth coverage of startups that GeekWire provides.

As a result of a disruption with the troubled banking-as-a-service platform Synapse, a limited subset of consumers who have their money stored with the fintech firm Copper are unable to access their deposit accounts. Copper is just one of the many businesses that have been impacted by the ongoing crisis at Synapse, which initiated the bankruptcy process a month ago. The acquisition of the company, which serves as a 'middleware provider' between banks and fintech startups, was supposed to take place by TabaPay; however, TechCrunch reported earlier this month that the sale did not go through.

According to a report that was published by Forbes on Tuesday, customers of Yotta Technologies and Juno Finance are likewise unable to access their bank accounts. Copper began operations four years ago with a financial platform that was devised with families and adolescents in mind. Twenty-nine million dollars were raised by the company in the year 2022; at that time, it had more than eight hundred thousand subscribers and was a nominee for the GeekWire Awards' Startup of the Year category. During an interview with GeekWire on Tuesday, Copper CEO Eddie Behringer stated that the firm was getting ready to shift its focus away from banking services and instead concentrate on its more recent 'Earn' product, which enables customers to earn money through surveys and games.

At the beginning of this month, however, the idea was advanced. Behringer informed clients on May 12 that the company would be discontinuing the debit card and deposit account offers within the next twenty-four hours during a mail that was sent to customers. According to what Behringer wrote, 'we learned that the banking middleware provider we utilize is imminently sunsetting their service.' This information was obtained one week earlier. Because of this event, we were obliged to close our banking accounts far earlier than we had intended, despite the fact that we had planned ahead. After that, Copper informed a few of its customers via email that there was a delay in the delivery of their monies throughout the course of the previous weekend. On Tuesday, Behringer stated that the event had an effect on a relatively modest number of individuals.