US-based fintech Change Financial will attempt to get off life support with a recapitalisation, following a torrid 12 months that has seen it lose 94 per cent of its share price value.

Change Financial (ASX:CCA), which owns digital bank app ChimpChange, has also engaged US investment bank BTIG to explore the sale of that division.

Change Financial’s website claims ChimpChange has US$150 million in annualised total transaction volume but has decided to sell it because “the company does not have the resources or potential resources” to fund both the mobile banking business and its core issuer processor business.

It caps off the tough time the company has had of late.

Its share price peaked at $1.38 in February this year but has since plummeted 94pc, resting at just 7.6c shortly before market open on Wednesday.

Today it told shareholders it had secured a cornerstone investment from long-time supporter Altor Capital in the form of a $4 million convertible note as well as an entitlement offer to existing shareholders to raise up to $1 million.

Change Financial shares have lost nearly all their value.

The recapitalisation, a restructuring of a company’s debt and equity mixture in order to stabilise its capital structure, will see Altor directors Harley Dalton and Ben Harrison join the CCA board, while Ash Shilkin will step down.

The funds will be used to “continue the build out of its enterprise banking solution”, following a strategic review that concluded the company should “focus on completing the enterprise solution and monetising its non-core businesses”.

“We look forward to completing this recapitalisation so that we can continue with the built out of our enterprise banking solution,” CCA executive chair Teresa Clarke said.

“When we made the announcement that we were restructuring the business an important piece of that was additional capital to take us through to the end of 2019,” Ms Clarke told Stockhead.

“We’ve worked extremely hard the company to get it in shape, we’ve made a lot of changes, reduced our cash burn, put the banking business up for sale.

“We have had a tough time but that is behind us now and we are well positioned to move forward.”

Mr Shilkin, a founder, was reinstated as Change Financial’s CEO in August when experienced tech veteran Eric Bachman quit after just 28 days in the job.

At the time, no reason was given for Mr Bachman’s abrupt departure, but by September 7 Change had told investors his “resignation after such a short time was not expected”.

“He indicated to the board that there was a gap between his initial understanding of the company, and his own assessment of the company’s progress towards achieving its goals,” it said in a statement.

By October 12, Mr Shilkin had gone down to part-time work in order to reduce cash expenditure.

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