Headlines reported that Monzo is working on setting up an Irish office.
This would serve as a gateway to further European expansion, apart from the US that’s being worked on (on and off) for longer.
Did anyone read more on the European plans?
What do you think might make a good strategy?
Germany has N26, France doesn’t seem to generate a lot of press with native neobanks.
Denmark has Lunar (there were some rumours about a collaboration / merger with Monzo, but these turned out to be false).
Some countries like Belgium have access to N26 or Revolut, but it’s relatively rare to see it as main bank. (most offer no local IBAN’s, or didn’t integrate country-specific features which incumbent banks have)
To me, it always made more sense to expand from the UK to IE before US/DE/ES etc: same language (okay, Gaelic is used but the vast majority use English day to day), similar time zone (so support staff can be shared), similar bank systems (yes, domestic integration may vary a bit - but IBAN/BIC/Euro bank connections will be the same: US will be totally different: dependency on checks etc), similar postal addresses (but some variation of Eircodes/postcodes), similar regulatory restrictions.
Enough variation to help identify major pain points, but enough commonality that you aren’t nearly starting from scratch.
After Ireland, a larger country with one dominant language probably makes most sense.
For example: France (thanks for mentioning BoursoBank there, not sure how popular they are) or Germany (having N26).
N26 lost quite some trust with press coverage of freezing cards too quickly.
It happened to lots of neobanks, but seems to be more intense for them.
Netherlands is known to be open to innovation, but is a smaller country and already has Bunq.
Belgium could use Monzo, but has three official languages to cater for (Dutch and French being the most common).
Monzo has been public in its EU expansion ambitions for about a year now. Ireland is the HQ but might not be the target market.
Where do we think they’ll aim for? And when do you think we’ll hear any news?
I’m hoping we might get an update before the annual report comes out (in June usually?)…
I also suspect Monzo will target individual countries with localised offerings rather than do a blanket EU approach. They might do Ireland for table stakes, but I think initial targets might be a bit bigger…
Any thoughts? Or even any insight from anyone in the know?
I think Monzo would be mad not to do Ireland. Revolut are making a killing there because the incumbent banks are stuck in prehistoric times with their offerings and digital services, I am sure there’s a big piece of that pie for Monzo to grab.
I’m pretty sure that Monzo is basing itself in Ireland for EU expansion, and using an Irish banking licence (if / when it comes) to passport across the EU.
I suppose I was mulling over what Monzo’s main target will be. I assume they’ll launch in Ireland, using UK support* and as much UK localisation** as possible. But I think that’s just table stakes at the moment - I think they’ll probably target a larger EU country that doesn’t have a strong, local challenger bank. So not Germany (N26), not France, maybe Spain or Poland? Although I have half a memory of Poland having some odd on shore data requirements…
Looking back through the archives, I think this still stands up pretty well, although I think I totally underplayed the cultural difference in banking between English speaking nations… Language aside, banking in France is pretty similar to banking in the UK, whereas banking in the US…
I think the problem is that the US isn’t one market, but 50 separate ones. That’s why even the local Allstate insurance company is actually All But a Few States for many types of insurance and even the largest banks generally only offer their services in a few states. The US is, even today, 50 separate countries, each with their own parliament, so regulations vary.
