Atom valuation also lowered

But seem to be doing well in offering a wider range of products than Monzo

Don’t understand why Monzo in my opinion did not prioritize revenues from the start. That’s basic economics in order to thrive - it seems to me they think plus and premium is enough while they are waiting on card transactions to pick up again

https://www.cityam.com/atom-bank-valuation-set-to-halve-after-latest-fundraising-round/

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Monzo was never envisaged to be a savings and loans company though. Yes, OK, that might have changed, but the management only changed relatively recently and these things take time.

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I agree with what you are saying just very frustrating that the previous management had such a wrong business plan at the start in my opinion eg starting a bank and trying not to be a bank at the same time

what do you think Monzo should do more of to raise its revenues ?

They have loans , Overdrafts, Business accounts , Premium accounts tiers ,energy switch referrals , fixed interest account referral fees , they get the same interchange fees as other banks without the infrastructure costs, what else do you suggest, insist everybody has a paid for account , make people spend more ?

I think you will see good progress in the next financial statements despite covid, its not like a light switch being turned on , one day loss, next day change management …profit … :slight_smile:

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But you didn’t think it was wrong at the time since you invested

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Record revenue during a pandemic is a good sign, no?

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Monzo didn’t “start a bank” though.

Originally the founders wanted to create an app which became the ‘Facebook of money’ and they decided getting a British banking licence was the best vector of attack.

Monzo had no desire to ‘be a bank’.

Yes, that may now be in the process of changing, building a profitable, but different business. But you can’t cry that they just didn’t go into savings and mortgages like every other digital bank at the time. It was probably the very fact that Atom is an extremely boring company, now worth a lot less, for offering ‘bank stuff’. I mean, Atom is just First Direct/Metro but with a better different app.

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I see this getting said a lot on here, when there’s criticism of the range of Monzo’s financial products and I just don’t understand where it comes from. I’ve followed Monzo’s journey from day zero. When their first website went live as nothing more than a splash page for mondo they specifically referred to themselves as a bank. Since day 0. So I would say it’s very clear that they set out to start a bank, and that’s what they’ve built.

Edit: in fact, we’ve actually discussed this before in another thread, where I provided you with way back machine link to their early mondo website!

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There were many early day open office events which discussed the vision. The banking license was part of the business model but not all

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Those events were not accessible to everyone though, and that vision certainly isn’t what they advertised to folks with their website or crowd funding campaigns. They promised people a better bank, not a “Facebook for money”

That may be the narrative they spun at those at events, but most of us won’t be aware of that, myself included.

Thanks for letting me know where that idea of Monzo originates from though. It’s certainly an interesting difference to what was promoted to the wider public.

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OK Appreciate that they have made decent progress recently BUT in 2016 they seemed like something new and exciting but in my opinion they then concentrated too much on vanity - “look how many customers we have”

this went against basic economics when they knew how much each customer costed them.

If they had realized early on that
a. They are a bank not a hub (otherwise why apply for a banking license)
B. They need to make money / profit to survive

Monzo would now be in a much better place

other banks had prioritized business banking from the start - which meant they had a longer track record when applying for Banking Grants from RBS and then again with the government Covid loans scheme

Starling, Atom and even Tide had already prioritized business banking and are now seeing benefits

Frustrated rant over

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Fair point I will amend that to why they did not prioritize revenue earlier on

Ian I think the overdrafts and loans business is quite conservative at Monzo so it’s not going to generate massive revenue - same with plus and premium.

Business accounts and card transactions are the main revenue I think (correct me if wrong)

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There was probably more than a little investor-friendly spiel here, I’d guess, but the fact is banking licence = bank. Simple as that.

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I think every little bit of extra revenue adds up to a big bit of revenue , conservative with loans , hmmmm we will see how many go into default and then can talk about them being conservative , prudent or gung ho I suppose when we have the benefit of hindsight :slight_smile:

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I guess they are thinking of this particular story:
https://www.fintechfutures.com/2019/10/payexpo-2019-im-not-so-sure-we-should-have-become-a-bank-says-monzo-coo/

Always read to me like the personal opinion of one person, no longer with the business, than any overarching strategy. He became COO in late 2017 (and left within two years), so not clear he would have been much of part of the initial decision anyway given it completed by 2017

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I feel like a lot of fintech execs spin spiel along those lines when doing interviews or attending expos. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve heard or read Mark Mullen describing Atom Bank’s vision to become the Uber of banking, It’s how you sell your business to the potential investors that will read or attend those things. I think it’s a fair take on the vision, but it’s not mutually exclusive from being a better bank either. I’d say they go hand in hand.

I think it’s as @CraigW said above. The language here is intended for investment firms, not us. To us, the Monzo idea has always been a bank, but better and designed for the App Store era, not the high street.

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Pretty sure Monzo would have gone out of business this past year if it weren’t for the fact they were a bank and had started some lending.

They’ve already admitted they were slow to get overdrafts and borrowing sorted. Now they have, plus 3rd party services (however small) plus business accounts and paid products, now they’ve survived the worst of Covid, they are very well placed to spring out of this mess when travel picks up properly again in the next few months.

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They had some decent reserves and managed more investment, so maybe not out of business totally, but I certainly agree that the diversification away from just interchange really helped

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Yes, I think that is right.

I do agree with the rest of @Ralph76’s post completely though.

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