According to Business Insider 14 months ago, Monzo’s US banking license application could be approved 18-24 months after the article was written, ie. between October 2021 and April 2022.
So, that’s pretty soon and there is not much fanfare on the US side of operations from what I can see. I wonder if the pandemic has delayed all of this, or is Monzo USA just in super stealth mode?
Anyone working on Monzo USA able to comment? 
Interesting that obtaining a US license would put them ahead of Chime Bank who are currently a pretty layer on top of an ugly legacy bank partner.
I’ll just leave this here…
There wasn’t much fanfare on the UK side until the licence had been confirmed. 
So I don’t think this is really that unexpected.
Fanfare about the narrow topic of granting of the banking licence maybe, but lots of press and user signups. Mondo was definitely not in stealth and was open to anyone to sign up. Definitely a different to the US approach which is still in private beta and is fairly quiet (which is what I took @rarther to mean).
Yes, quiet as in the whole thing appears to be in a deep freeze or no longer exists! If it weren’t for the growing list of bigshot US investors I would have written the US play off a long time ago.
Before mondo got the UK license they already crowdfunded £1m in 96seconds, had 100k waiting list to even get a card and had big names like Techcrunch and The Guardian fanboying Mondo in the press. Tom was on the road saying how the incumbents will soon die and Mondo will (possibly) have a billion users… there was extremely high levels of hype and positive energy!
This time round the odd “any suggestions?” type post every few months from a revolving door of monzo US representatives, but generally just tumbleweed.
Maybe they’re ust taking the TS Anil approach this time - the one where they don’t flush millions of dollars down the toilet.
We’ll, they’re not crowdfunding in the US, so can’t compare on that. The banking market is completely different in the USA compared to over in the UK, so it’s probably a lot more restrictive as an experience vs in the UK on a prepaid option.
But then, maybe, they are waiting for the licence before really pushing.
I’m not sure how big the waiting list in the USA is, but I can’t imagine it’s that small (maybe 100k?).
They’re hugely different markets after all.
Seems they are quietly working in the background:
She was behind the scenes at Monzo for a year before being appointed as CEO, having joined as a director nominee and licence advisor. Nelson is now tasked with getting Monzo its US bank licence, hiring the US C-suite and designing the actual product that it will take into the US market.
And regarding the timeframe for a US banking licence:
The launch itself is still a while off. Monzo has effectively said it will stay in beta and build up its waiting list until it can get a full licence (which could take until 2023). As a result, it’s essentially spent most of the last two years quizzing local customers what they want.