I agree that it sounds unlikely. Although if you really invested in someone to develop a platform, you might not want to fire them. Compared to the price of any other software maintenance cost, this is very likely the most bang for the buck you could ever get. Firing someone after 48h seems stupid if they in any way want to use the product that was delivered. Maybe they don't.

While I don't know the specifics about financial software, the job market also is pretty good internationally, so finding something new, as a freelancer or not, shouldn't be too hard.