Monzo reaches 100k business customer milestone after 18 months, but growth slows

Business accounts were launched in March 2020.

Monzo has reached 100,000 business account customers, the challenger bank announced on Twitter yesterday.

Some 58 per cent of Monzo business users are sole traders, while 42 per cent are limited companies, according to the bank.

The milestone is a mixture of good and bad news, on the one hand, Monzo reached 100,000 customers in 18 months, faster than Starling Bank, which took nearly two years to hit the same number.

However, Monzo’s business account growth is clearly slowing. It took the bank just six months to reach its first 50,000 accounts, after launching the account in March 2020, but 12 months to add another 50,000.

This slow-down is to be expected. The challenger bank’s initial growth was likely driven by existing customers and early-adopters, while its recent growth is coming from SMEs that are new to Monzo or switching from other business account providers.

“It’s great to have supported 100,000 customers with Monzo Business, giving them so much of what they already love about Monzo as well as the tools to keep on top of business and manage their finances better,” said Monzo’s general manager of business banking Jordan Shwide.

“As we scale, we’re now offering this experience to business customers who haven’t used Monzo before and are looking forward to welcoming and championing even more small businesses.”

The milestone also means Monzo now has an approximate SME banking market share of 1.6 per cent.

Last month Monzo’s annual report revealed the bank had over 210,000 subscribers between its Business, Monzo Plus and Monzo Premium offerings, generating £5m of income.

Monzo’s business account is split between a free Lite tier, and a £5/month Pro tier with additional features like invoicing, multi-user access, accounting, tax pots and more.

Overall, Monzo’s 2021 results saw the bank’s losses increase to £129.7m, up from £113.8m in 2020, while the bank also disclosed that the FCA had started an investigation into its compliance with financial crime regulation.