Starling and Monzo growth surges outside metropolitan elite

Digital banking darlings Monzo and Starling are currently seeing more growth coming from outside their traditional geographic customer base of London residents.

A spokesman for Monzo, which hit 2 million customers last month, told AltFi that more than two-thirds of its last million customer sign-ups, which occurred within just eight months, came from outside of London.

“Nearly 70 per cent of new sign-ups are now coming from outside of London,” he said.

Anne Boden, CEO of Starling Bank, speaking at Innovate Finance’s Global Summit back in April also said that growth in customer numbers was super-charged by new sign-ups from outside the capital.

Boden said: “Starling is growing more quickly outside of London than in London”.

Starling's customer base jumped from 50,000 to over 400,000 last year. Numbers currently stand at 650,000 with Boden expecting 1 million customers in 2019.

Both banks are have been around for less than four years but have grown swiftly mostly thanks to early adopters and word of mouth through meet-ups and its ‘golden tickets’.

This has included tube and bus advertising in London more recently as well as a national TV ad for Monzo.