Monese tops one million customers

The London-based start up said the milestone shows its banking app has ‘momentum’.

Monese has signed over one million customers, said the digital bank which competes for growth in an increasingly crowded market.

The London-based start up, which operates across 31 European countries, added it its growth tripled last year and currently signs over 3,000 people a day to its mobile-only service.

The business competes against a host of challenger banking apps such Revoult, which claims 4.5 million customers and Monzo which has amassed 1.8 million users.

Most of these services are loss-making and are competing to add users, which they later hope to turn into profitable customers. Meanwhile, fintech firms continue to attract billions from investors who believe this wave of firms can emulate Big Tech giants such as Facebook and Google.

Monese said the customer milestone demonstrates significant “momentum” following its $60m Series B fundraise in September 2018, led by firms by US payment service PayPal and European investor Augmentum Fintech.

It added that 70 per cent of its customers pay their salaries into Monese accounts, using it as their primary bank account. Critics of mobile banks say most of their customers only hold small amounts in their accounts, using them only to take occasionally advantage of specific services such as commission free travel money.

Monese, which operates in 12 languages, was founded in 2013 by Estonian entrepreneur Norris Koppel (pictured).

He said: “We launched Monese with two beliefs. First, banking should be truly global. The second, technology should give everyone access to modern, convenient and affordable banking services. Today, we feel closer to both of these goals.”