Papaya Global
Israeli startup Papaya Global, a fintech unicorn that offers a cloud based platform for companies to handle their payrolls, has decided to divest itself of Israeli banks due to the judicial reform plan proposed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The move came after the Governor of the Bank of Israel himself warned Netanyahu that the plan could harm foreign investment in Israel since it would weaken Israel’s democratic system.
Eynat Guez, Co-Founder and CEO Papaya Global, Tweeted a statement on the matter Thursday morning.
“Following Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statements that he is determined to pass reforms that will harm democracy and the economy,” she said, “we made a business decision at Papaya Global to withdraw all of the company’s funds from Israel, in the emerging reform, there is no certainty that we can conduct international economic activity from Israel, this is a painful but necessary business step.”
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And in an earlier post, Guez said of the proposed judicial reforms, “This is about our democracy, this is about our tech nation. Israel is fighting for freedom.”
The decision came the day after Benjamin Netanyahu gave a press conference in Israel Wednesday evening to dispute critics who said that his judicial reform plan, if passed, would harm Israel’s economy by making the world less confident about Israel’s stability as a democracy.
Flanked by his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of the Economy Nir Barkat, Netanyahu said, “In recent days, I have heard concern about the effect of the judicial reform on our economic resilience. Here as well, I would like to set the record straight. The truth is the exact opposite. Not only will our moves to strengthen democracy in Israel not hurt the economy, they will strengthen it. They will restore Israel to the legal situation of most of the leading democracies in the world, where it had been for 50 years.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government’s proposed judicial reform plan would dramatically curtail the powers of Israel’s Supreme Court and attorney general. So, opponents say that this would leave the government free to do whatever it wants in the absence of any oversight.
Founded in 2016 by CEO Eynat Guez, CTO Ofer Herman and CPO Ruben Drong, Papaya Global says that it is reinventing global payroll, payments, and workforce management. The company declares that its automated platform helps companies hire, onboard, manage, and pay people in more than 140 countries. The cloud-based solution is “easy to use and scale, ensures full compliance and provides industry-leading BI and analytics.”
