I am in my final year of studies at university and as part of my dissertation i am undertaking a report about Monzo and wondered whether any of you have guidance, information or suggestions about the following;
i) what the current strategic position of Monzo is; including challenges faced, stakeholder expectations, the organisations strategic capabilities in the fast paced market
ii) corporate strategic choices which are available to Monzo in the foreseeable future and the impact of these on Monzo as a bank.
Any help would be greatly appreciated for there is little information online with Monzo being relatively new!
I have only just really started analysing the current industry but my initial thoughts are;
1- Merge or acquisition with another neobank, such as Revolut, to increase market share (2+2>4)
2- IPO
3- Internationalise- i know Monzo are looking at entering the US so this could be a strong strategic choice
4- Takeover by a larger bank, such as HSBC
I can’t see why Revolut , or the “larger” partner would want to merge with another smaller competitor unless it was at the disadvantage of the ‘smaller’ ‘victim’
IPO … the market would need to be willing to buy the vision
US will be a tough expensive market to crack
Monzo have rebutted any interest from larger banks
That is true, how about an acquisition by Revolut?
Thank you for your responses, do you think there is potential however for Monzo to be established in the US? It would be very good growth potential or are the US banks too dominating?
My understanding is the Monzo want to grow and challenge legacy banks. Growth is key, and is the prerequisite for profitability given the funding they’ve had (that needs to be shown to be being delivered on or it dries up).
Not sure on Starling but ‘account count’ wise Monzo are the biggest fintech bank in the UK, so the only thing in front of them are the legacy bank offerings. I’ve no idea if they are looking at acquisition (they should be IMO) to bolster their offering, but again that needs capital which means… growth.
If Monzo starts to fail, if growth is achieved to the required levels to drive the profitability goals that have been set (internally, I don’t know what they are but they will exist) then they need to look for a ‘way out’ as there is investment money involved. Typically that means they’ll start shopping around.
IPO might be an option I guess, but on the whole I’ve not heard murmurings in that direction from Monzo but I’m not expert.
Basically, ignore the fact Monzo is bank. Monzo is a tech company, with VC funding, that’s the pattern they will follow. Grow to profitability, and then grow some more (but that’s a long term +5 year position).
So, for funsies, in 5yrs, Monzo is profitable, is regularly listed along with ‘legacy’ banks, and has overtaken some of them. They have cash so go and buy the company that makes YNAB, and one of the ‘comparison’ services to give the users an ‘everything under one place’ marketplace approach (and grow their customer base even more).
Acquiring maybe not, but traditional banks such as NatWest implementing technology within apps which is becoming more and more similar to Monzo, teaming up with another neobank by merging would maybe be an idea to come up with more ideas for future strategies to combat these traditional banks?
can i just note that this report is just for uni purposes only I am trying to explore all possible strategies available to Monzo as well as undertaking a competitor analysis
Really appreciating all the feedback and responses so far, is really eye opening
I don’t see the benefit in Monzo teaming up with a legacy bank, that’s like giving all your hard work away for free. Unless there is a powerful (monetary) incentive, for example the Natwest customers all become Monzo customers, and Monzo provide the ‘app’ but branded as Natwest… I can see something like that MAYBE but only if Monzo are pushed to do something that radical and disrupt their own business model.
Oh sorry i meant Monzo teaming up with another neobank, not a legacy bank!
So Monzo and Revolut or Starling teaming up?
these firms are disruptive the financial industry and I think soon the legacy banks will really kick into action. Monzo need to grow but its deciding how they are going to do this what with legacy banks changing their business models to suit the needs of changing external environments and tech innovations.
Surely it is only a matter of time before Monzo run out of ideas and their competitive advantage is well and truly copied or improved upon by competitors
Again, ‘teaming up’ isn’t gonna happen. Monzo, Starling, and even Revolut want to be THE challenger, which means beating/subsuming the others. That means acquisition if aggressive, or just picking up customers as the others fold.
And the legacy banks are already kicking into action, I give it another 6 months before feature parity levels the field (give or take some specifics).
You seem to be focused on exit here (merger, acquisition, IPO. Could your think about business models maybe, the range of places that Monzo could go as a business and markets it could play in (both geographically but also in terms of (sub)sector?
Emphasis mine. It might be interesting to think about whether this is the right question to ask. Are you making an assumption here which anchors your thinking in a particular way and influences your dissertation? How might you do this differently if the sentence ended after “Monzo”? Or it said “… Monzo as a technology company” instead?
It would be interesting to see some data on the impact of that. Anecdotally, I’ve always assumed that the neobanks have a large proportion of overlapping customers, and complementary tech stacks. So you’d be writing off investment in one platform in the hope of increasing your customer base, which might already be duplicated.
So, domestically, I think that’s a non starter.
I can though, envisage a future of international consolidation. Maybe the neon card brigade (Monzo, Bnxt, Xinja…)?
Thank you Peter, a very interesting perspective for sure. Maybe there is the option of complete diversification of Monzo’s activities, the options are endless.
As for the international consolidation, this could be a strong way forward to not only internationalise but this would also mean the support from a firm who know their foreign market- meaning less research costs for Monzo. Definitely something to consider.
Just a few questions I have been trying to find answers to but as yet to no avail…
What are the stakeholder expectations of Monzo? - that being customer, investors etc.
What really is Monzo’s USP- is it the no transaction fees abroad, savings pots, personalised banking?
Lastly, what would you say the key strategic challenges facing Monzo are?
