Tom Blomfield: Monzo

Tom Blomfield, 31
Company: Monzo
Web: www.monzo.com

Creating the best current account in the world is a lofty ambition, but one that “world-first” smartphone bank Monzo and its founder Tom Blomfield have set out towards with admirable gusto.     

The Startups 100-featured company has created a bank exclusively for smartphones and has now managed to secure a full unrestricted banking license. London-based Monzo provides a contactless pre-paid Mastercard, real-time spending notifications to your smartphone and free instant transfers to other Monzo users, claiming to charge no additional fees even if you go abroad.

400,000 users have already used their Monzo cards to spend more than £500m to date; and the company hasn’t even launched its current account yet.

After securing £19.5m in a Series C funding round back in February 2017, Monzo moved one step closer to making this dream become a reality with the release of a the Monzo Current Account Preview to over 1,500 people. This allowed its community of users to help the company test out card acceptance around the country, update the design and functionality of its debit cards and find oddities in payment networks.

Monzo intends to rollout current accounts to between 10,000 and 20,000 existing customers over the next few months, aiming to offer them to all once they’re satisfied its working as expected. If all things go to plan, the company hopes to offer a current account to all existing customers by the end of the year. And in the spirit of transparency, you can even visit its website to track how many accounts have been rolled out so far.

A consumer-focused disruptive banking start-up that grows and develops by listening to its own community of customers, Monzo has our backing!