Monese

Monese provides instantaneous on-demand UK current accounts and European IBAN accounts in 20 countries regardless of the customer’s citizenship. This revolutionises banking for expats, digital nomads and new residents as ‘residency restrictions’ imposed by traditional high street banks are one of the single greatest barriers to accessing the banking system when they arrive in a new country. What is interesting, is that Monese’s breakthrough technology can validate the identity of customers in real-time enabling customers to open an account in a matter of minutes, using a mobile app. Monese’s fully-featured UK banking account comes with cheap global payments and a contactless debit card. Monese was born after founder’s first-hand experience of the hassle involved with opening a bank account in a new country.

In 2015, Founder and CEO Norris Koppel came up with an idea to create an account that people can open instantly and access easily on their mobile phones. In the process of conceptualising this, he created the first mobile app that was an alternative to the existing banks. The company launched their mobile money accounts in the UK. In 2016, the company secured US$10 million after a successful Series A funding. It also launched EUR accounts during the same year. In 2018, it secured US$60 million after Series B funding round, launched Monese Business accounts, and reached half a million sign-ups. The company launched joint accounts in 2019, and reached 1 million sign ups in 2019. RON accounts were launched the subsequent year (2020), and Monese for web services. The company also reached the 2 million signups milestone during this year. As of today, millions of people have signed up across 31 countries. Out of this, about 70% of the incoming customers are from salary payments.

The company strives to build a safe, secured, and thriving financial and banking economy. It is their mission “to help people thrive anywhere”. This includes borderless workers, families, students, expats, retirees and other EU citizens living in the UK.

The company has been unrelenting in its vision for “a new and better type of financial service”- one that gives people the freedom to thrive anywhere.