Finco Services, a New York City-based fintech company trading under the name Current, has hired Jodi Golinsky as its first-ever general counsel. 

Golinksy, who brings with her two decades of financial services experience, joins the burgeoning digital banking startup from Shopify, where she spent three years as director and associate general counsel for the Canadian e-commerce platform’s financial solutions group.

During her stint at Shopify, Golinsky led a team of 12 professionals who handled legal, compliance and strategy work for multiple product business lines and all of the company’s financial solutions and services, according to her Linkedin profile. 

Before that, she was general counsel and chief compliance officer at credit card startup FS Card in Washington DC and held legal roles at American Express, Mastercard and Wonga, a former UK payday loan firm. Prior to entering the financial services space, Golinksy began her legal career in private practice at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. 

Founded in 2015 by former Morgan Stanley currency trader Stuart Sopp, Current tripled its valuation earlier this year to $2.2bn in a Series D funding round in April when it raised $220m led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. 

The round followed Current’s $131m Series C last November, when the company had doubled its user base over six months to more than 2m users, according to a report by TechCrunch. The mobile bank, whose other recent financial backers include investment giant Tiger Global Management and Uber co-founder Garrett Camp’s investment firm Expa, has so far raised a total of $402m across five funding rounds. 

Current began as a debit card company targeted at teenagers, but expanded to offer personal checking accounts to compete with other ‘neobanks’ like Chime and GoBank. 

Neobanks, also known as challenger banks or branchless banks, experienced a surge in popularity during the pandemic due to their streamlined and accessible approach to mobile banking that separated them from traditional brick-and-mortar banks, which can often have high required minimum balances and overdraft fees. 

The digital banking market’s momentum can also be attributed to its popularity among younger users, with a number of neobanks specifically targeting tech-savvy Gen Z’ers who find the digital banking model more attractive than services offered by traditional banks. Current is just one of a number of challenger banks, including teen banking service Step, partnering with social media creators to increase its visibility among the younger demographic. 

“Getting ahead is more important than ever to this generation,” Sopp said in a media release following Current’s funding round back in April. "Building products that solve your members' financial needs now and have the potential to grow with them is as important as building a brand that is relatable.”

David George, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, added: “We believe there will be a shift in the next 10 years to mobile and consumer-focused banking services powered by innovation in technology, and with Current's exceptional growth over the past year, they've clearly demonstrated they're at the forefront of this trend.”