Monese hits half a million customers

The fintech firm has tripled monthly registrations in recent months.

Monese may not make as much noise as the likes of Monzo and Revolut, but the banking challenger has quietly racked up over 500,000 customers.

Launched less than three years ago, Monese is now signing up some 2,000 new users on a daily basis. It is currently onboarding three times as many customers each month as it was at the end of 2017.

For context, Revolut recently passed 1m customers in the UK and 2.25m globally, while Monzo has more than 750,000 customers and Tandem is at around 250,000.

The firm says that it prioritises customer service, product features and compliance. It also offers all the usual digital banking bells and whistles: fast onboarding (120 seconds, in the best-case scenario), real time spending notifications, money management features and a mobile-optimised banking experience.

Monese refers to its target customers as ‘unstoppables’ – those who travel internationally for work.

The firm offers local banking accounts in 20 countries (UK current accounts and European IBANs) and its app, website and customer service function in 10 languages. Unlike many of its competitors in the digital banking space, it charges a ‘transparent, low cost’ price for usage of its accounts – with various tiers of pricing available.

The firm’s customers are using their accounts to move over $2bn annually. Monese claims the majority of its customers are using the service as their primary bank account, citing the fact that 75 per cent of deposits are salaries. However, the firm declined to confirm exactly what proportion of its 500,000 registered users could be described as 'active users'. 

In a press release, Monese also emphasised the importance of security. 25 per cent of its team is dedicated to protecting customers’ money and detecting suspicious activity, while the banking challenger recently became a member of the UK’s largest cross-sector fraud sharing organisation CIFAS.

“It’s super exciting to hit a half a million sign ups, and it is still early days,” said Norris Koppel, CEO and founder of Monese.

“We are proud to serve our customers: they have an unstoppable ambition to live and work around the world, and we believe they deserve instant and secure access to their money regardless of their financial history or place of address. As we grow, we will continue to develop and launch new product features relevant for our modern-mobile-global users.”