Revenue
$452.00M
2023
Valuation
$4.50B
2023
Growth Rate (y/y)
131%
2023
Funding
$1.70B
2024
Revenue
Monzo generated $452M in fiscal year 2023, up 131% from $196M in 2022. Total card spend grew 38% from $30.9M to $42.7M, while their total number of customers grew 28% from 5.8M to 7.4M.
Revenue rebounded strongly in FY2022 after staying relatively flat in 2021 as COVID-related lockdowns reduced debit card use, and it cut down on lending due to £20M of credit loss in FY2020, reducing interest income.
Half of its revenue comes from interchange fees when its customers use debit cards for transactions and almost one-fourth from interest earned on loans and overdrafts.
Business model
Monzo was launched in 2015 to offer a mobile-based consumer-friendly banking experience, compared to traditional banks' branch-based and expensive banking experience. Instead of making money from lending or charging hefty fees, Monzo’s business is anchored on taking a cut out of the financial transactions it processes while giving away core banking products for free.
Its bright-colored debit cards and features like no overdraft fees, quick account opening, instant payment notifications, and Venmo-like P2P money sending, attract younger customers in the age group of 18-34, who form 3/4th of its customer base. Access to customers' financial data enables Monzo to offer new products, which it can push to all 5.8M customers as an app update with no incremental CAC. This has the dual advantage of expanding transaction volume and reducing operating costs.
In the long run, Monzo aspires to be the money app on your smartphone that you use for all types of financial transactions. Monzo introduced paid consumer and business banking plans in FY 2021 to monetize the existing users, as its user and transaction growth slowed down.
Product
Monzo’s products can be classified into consumer banking, business banking, and personal lending. The features a customer gets depend on their subscription plan.
- Consumer banking: Customers get a checking account and debit card plus features like P2P payments, no overdraft fees, instant notifications, etc. Monzo offers two paid plans at £5 or £15 per month that provide premium cards and features like interest on checking accounts, insurance, virtual cards, and the ability to integrate other cards to Monzo’s app to track expenses.
- Business banking: Business customers get free UK bank transfers and digital receipts, besides basic Monzo features. By paying £5 per month, business customers get the ability to integrate their accounting software to Monzo, virtual cards, multi-user accounts, and invoice management.
- Personal lending: Monzo offers personal loans at 8.9% APR and overdrafts up to £2000. It recently started offering a BNPL product, Monzo Flex, as part of its lending portfolio.
Competition
Monzo is the largest neobank in the UK, with 5.8M customers, compared to 3M of Revolut and ~2M of Starling and Monese each. However, Monzo only has a UK banking license and cannot operate in the EU. With 97% of the UK adults already having a bank account, it means that for Monzo to grow, it has to acquire customers from traditional and neobanks.
Traditional big six banks, including HSBC, Lloyds, and Barclays, have 85% market share. They have taken steps like dropping or curbing overdraft fees and improving the mobile app experience to stem the loss of customers. Neobanks increased their market share to 8% in 2021, primarily consisting of digitally native younger consumers. While Revolut and N26 focus on geographical expansion, Starling focuses on B2B banking and selling BaaS to fintechs, Monzo positions itself as the everyday bank for everyone with an uncomplicated core banking experience.
One of Monzo's key challenges is that customers use it as their secondary account, which reflects in Monzo’s average customer deposit of £765, compared to £10,60 for Lloyds and £25,000 for Natwest.
TAM expansion
Layering more consumer banking products
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