SMBC pulled the plug on Jenius Bank, its three-year-old US digital bank

In January 2026, Jenius Bank — the US digital bank built by Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. — confirmed it was closing. A WARN notice filed in multiple states put 173 employees on a 60-day path to termination around 10 March, and an SMBC spokesperson announced the 'wind-down of Jenius Bank, the digital banking unit in SMBC MANUBANK', suspending new account openings and new loan originations. Jenius itself never made an official announcement; its X account was deleted and its LinkedIn wiped of posts, while an outside customer-service rep was still telling callers the bank was not closing.

Employees learned their fate in a roughly 10-minute virtual all-hands from chair and CEO Takeshi Okamoto, who blamed 'market performance' and said the bank was not yet profitable — and would not be as quickly as its parent wanted. Workers were locked out of Teams and Outlook within minutes of the meeting. 'The larger tone at Jenius was over promise, under deliver', one employee told Banking Dive. Another, hired under six months earlier, felt 'sold a lie': 'You can go from mass hiring to, yeah, never mind, we're not doing this anymore.'

SMBC had launched Jenius in 2023, tapping John Rosenfeld, founder and former president of Citizens Bank's digital bank, to lead it. The bet started well: Jenius surpassed $1 billion in deposits and $900 million in personal loans in its first year, with checking accounts on the roadmap — and Rosenfeld said in 2024 that SMBC gave it 'all the support we could have ever wanted.' Three years later, the profitability bar ended the experiment.

173 employees terminated around 10 March 2026 after a 60-day WARN notice; a national digital-bank push and a 'double the workforce' hiring plan abandoned.

The parent's timeline beat the strategy: a deposits-and-loans digital bank three years in was judged against SMBC's profitability expectations, not its growth curve.

Hiring accelerated into the wall — new recruits were being courted with a plan to 'double the workforce' months before the wind-down.

The exit was handled as an infrastructure shutdown, not a people decision: locked accounts within minutes, no official announcement, social channels scrubbed.

An insider's diagnosis — 'over promise, under deliver' — points to targets that were set for pitch decks rather than for the market.

Corporate parents fund digital banks like ventures but measure them like divisions: if year-three profitability is the bar, say so before hiring people off stable jobs.

The 60-day WARN period ran to around 10 March 2026, with a transition team staying on as new accounts and lending were suspended. Manchester Airports Group-style redeployment was not on offer; instead jobs fairs and LinkedIn 'open to work' posts carried the layoffs. SMBC confirmed the wind-down but Jenius's own channels stayed silent.