Monese hatches a new plan with ‘Bill Protection’ insurance

Take the worry out of missing regular bill payments.

Digital banking service Monese is launching a new ‘Essential’ subscription plan today at £1.95/month, which comes with an insurance safety net for regular bill payments.

Called ‘Bill Protection’ and created in partnership with insurtech Qover, the policy covers the payment of regular bills and outgoings up to £600 (with higher limits for Monese’s Classic and Premium plans) if you have an accident, are sick or lose your job.

“We know from talking to our customers that they’re looking for a simple and seamless safety net for bills and outgoings and this is exactly what Qover has created for us,” said Norris Koppel, CEO and founder and CEO of Monese

The Essentials plan also features slight improvements on Monese’s free Starter plan, including a 2 per cent fee on international transfers (down from 2.5 per cent), 0.5 per cent fee on FX (down from 2 per cent) and a £200 monthly ATM withdrawal limit.

For its more expensive plans, along with Bill Protection, Monese is also adding purchase protection to its Classic (£5.95/month) and Premium (£14.95/month) plans which covers theft and damage to recent purchases, including smartphones.

All of Monese’s paid plans also now include daily payments for hospital stays, of between £15–£50/day for up to 30 days—again enabled by the Qover tie-up.

“As the pandemic has challenged many aspects of our lives, this new coverage will help create greater financial resilience and security for Monese customers,” said Qover CEO and co-founder Quentin Colmant.

Last week Monese announced the “first close” of its $90m Series C round led by Investec Bank, with Investec also adopting Monese’s banking-as-a-service platform for its own digital current account offering.

The move seems to be a pivot or expansion of Monese’s mission, with Koppel clear that Monese is now looking to enable others to launch digital banking offerings with the help of the fintech’s technology.

“In our experience core banking providers only cover a small part of the products and services that are required to meet the demands of modern digital banking and so our BaaS offering is completely end to end—it’s everything you would need to launch a current account from scratch,” he said.