The boss of Monzo has aimed the challenger bank’s guns at UK legacy banking giants saying it aims to capture “hundreds of millions" of customers over time.
While Monzo has often been bracketed with other UK challenger banks like Starling and Revolut, Monzo CEO TS Anil aimed his fire at the likes of UK banking giants HSBC, Lloyds and Barclays, in a podcast interview.
Speaking to fintech consultancy 11FS, Anil said:
“I think the incumbent industry should consider themselves challenged.”
He said Monzo, which has around nine million retail customers and 400,000 business customers, had ambitions to capture hundreds of millions of retail and business customers.
By comparison, HSBC has around 38 million customers globally, Barclays around 48 million, and Lloyds around 30 million.
In the interview, Anil made a point of trying to distance Monzo from its challenger rivals, saying that its recent fundraising indicated it was "separating from the pack".
Monzo recently raised $430m, boosting its value to $5bn, from new and existing investors in a fundraising led by Alphabet’s investment fund CapitalG.
The London-headquartered fintech is currently having another crack at the US market after its previous effort was kiboshed after failing to land a US license.
But Anil said Monzo still had big plans for the UK, saying “we think we are just scratching the surface in the UK”.
He said Monzo had plans to launch new products and grow its customer base further in the UK.
He also said Monzo was building its strategy for other European markets, which are understood to include Germany and France.
He also reiterated that Monzo would “make a great public company one day”.
Elsewhere in the interview, he said Monzo’s recently launched investment product had been a hit with first-time female investors and the idea to launch its gambling block feature had come from a Monzo customer service agent.
On joining Monzo in 2020, Anil said he had an “unscratched itch" to transform banking and was “turned on" by Monzo.
On Monzo in 10 years, Anil said:
"I think anywhere around the world there will just be a handful of companies that at real scale engage customers and their money and we’re planning to be one of those companies."
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