Just read the Annual Report 2017ā¦ extremely good job at making it a simple read and well presentedā¦ my possibly irrelevant comments
Share option scheme seems very fair, full vesting over 4 yearsā¦ much better than my previous startup employee
Premises costs are high, but then again if you donāt have somewhere good to work you donāt attract the right people and keep them high spirited
The highest paid directors salary dropped YOY ā¦ interesting totally confused here as total directors is just slightly less than highest paid directorā¦ clearly missing something
Good report - love the transparency of releasing the full financials without any requirement to do so.
If I was to highlight my main queries, Iād be interested in knowing if there is a share option policy for staff and whether that can be released. The costs have grown significantly (as expected) this year and with the plan to staff up meaningfully in 2017/18 Iād be keen to hear someone is keeping a close eye on this and the costs are well controlled. Needless to say there are quite a few examples of startups getting out of their depth with share options very quickly.
There is also a note about a Ā£22.5k loan to an employee. Not a significant number but seems like an oddity. Whatās the story there?
Fantastic report Very well worded, well rounded and above all else - HONEST!!
Super stoked to see the direction Monzo is heading, so happy to be a part of it all.
I assume there will be a report published each subsequent year?
The update from Tom particularly about what is coming in the next year was good.
At first I thought that the date of appointment of the Auditors was wrong as this is Feb 2017 but this is not your first year of trading.
I then realised that youāve changed Auditors.
Can you give us some background as to why this was please?
In terms of the Board, the names donāt provide much information but are duplicated on pages 4 and 6. A summary of each member with the skills they bring, attendance record and remuneration on a named basis would be good practice to report please.
Finally I agree that Monzo shouldnāt bear overseas ATM charges particularly of a few high users so some limitations would be welcome. E. g. . A certain number of free withdrawals a year or month after which charges apply.
Does direct membership of Mastercard help here?
Good to hear that youāre now a direct member of Faster Payments.
If this is a digital report and youāre not having the expense of printing it then donāt be afraid to use more images!
I was looking through the annual report and was wondering what it means when it says:
'Bankers
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc
280 Bishopsgate
London
EC2M 4RBā
The bankers would be the bank that provides the bank account for Monzo Bank Limitedās company accounts
I should have mentioned this sooner really but it was great to see @jzw95ās awesome quote from the community included in this blog post & also, to see it being shared by influencers like Chanade on Twitter
https://twitter.com/chanademj/status/882488847053058049
The tweet includes a screenshot of the quote -
Hereās Business Insiderās analysis of this news -
Quote: āThe company says in its report that it loses Ā£50 per year per pre-paid customer and has just hit 240,000 active customers. If it had had 240,000 customers all year, that would have been Ā£12 million in losses.ā
That should read " āThe company says in its report that it loses Ā£50 per year per active pre-paid customerā¦ā
As I understand it (from elsewhere in this forum), āactiveā means customers who use Monzo at least once a week, which is about 60% of users (please correct me if Iām wrong).
Yes thatās correct those figures are from the investment deck from their last crowdfunding round.
on a full year basis - Ā£12 million in losses - an ambition to have potentially Ā£40million in losses by end of year lol wow wonder how many years Facebook ran on losses ?
Well done on the annual report . Neatly presented and easy to read.
As @ninepine mentioned ā Tomās contribution gave a clear sense of where Monzoās headed. Iām excited. Canāt wait for the current account.
Interesting to read how the minority are the reason for the majority of ATM usage abroad. Like most things that are free or unlimited, thereās always a few who find a way to use it for their advantage and see nothing wrong with what they are doing. Are these users using the card in the UK most of the time or just found a free way to convert sterling to foreign currency?
Since Monzoās prepay card scheme is pretty much sold on the fact that you get great FX rates and zero fees from Monzo, you can hardly blame users for taking advantage of it. Monzo controls fair use by having limits.
Very interesting read! Being an accountant myself I must say the transparency is refreshing (along with the use of simple English as far as possible - as some areas are governed by law/standards).
Out of interest I have a question of directors pay. Your highest paid director earns a Ā£60k salary and your total directors salaries amount to Ā£65k (excluding share options) does that mean your other directors collectively only have a salary of Ā£5k with the majority of their remuneration in the form of share options? Or are they provided with salaries in other forms such as employee loans?
I had a similar query, but then was wondering if thereās a single director with pay and a second who is a board member simply contracted atĀ£5k/annum to provide some brand awareness / connections etc
Simonās just tweeted a link to this analysis of Monzoās losses, which does a great job of putting them in perspective, considering what Monzoās trying to achieve -
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/monzo-lost-67-million-why-should-terrify-traditional-banks-wootton
Doesnāt make sense to me. Thatās me, of course.
You are correct in that share options were used as remuneration for some of the directors. Some of the directors also joined later on the year so they had a minimal amount of cash compensation in 2016/17.