An exciting update: we’re planning to launch a business account!
We’re still in the very early stages, but here’s why we’re doing it and where we’ve got to so far 
We’re trying to understand more about what you want from a business account. If you are a sole trader, freelancer, contractor, or small business owner, our operations analyst @jrdn wants to hear from you!
Share your thoughts and feedback with him in this thread:
Great to hear that Monzo are working on a business account!
As a business owner who has only had bad experiences, this can’t come soon enough.
Hard to figure out why this will take 1-2 years to implement though… maybe there are a lot of behind-the-scenes challenges but having sat down with my co-founder we can only think of a single feature that Monzo’s personal accounts are missing that we would need which is integration into accountancy software (initially Xero and FreeAgent).
Surely Monzo could launch a minimum viable product much sooner rather than waiting until they’ve built every feature under the Sun that every obscure business might need.
Great news!
Pleased to hear Monzo have plans for this.
It’s also good to know that they won’t be developed at the expense of improving personal accounts.
We want to build amazing accounts for small and medium businesses, but not at the expense of improving our personal current accounts.
Will be interesting to follow the process along through Making Monzo :mondo:
Yes! Amazing. I’d love deep integration with accounting services (such as Xero) and the ability to link transactions with invoices/quotes in a click. Not asking for much now am I 
Oh, and the ability to link transactions (such as travel etc) to a particular job directly from within Monzo.
Other than that, the usual beautiful services you provide in the current accounts, ported over to the business accounts 
A post was merged into an existing topic: Help us understand what features you’d like to see in a Monzo business account!
That would be a market-beating rate! I’d be very surprised (but happy) if a bank with no branches could manage that.
This is fantastic news, I’d definitely be interested in a Monzo business bank.
As a freelancer, essentially all I need is a named account which I can receive funds into with a separate debit card so I can pay and track expenditure. All of the extra bells and whistles usually included aren’t really necessary for me.
In terms of pricing, I’d personally prefer a cost-per-transfer (like Tide) rather than a set monthly fee. It would definitely be useful to allow other’s access to the account (i.e. an accountant) but not necessary if I can pull down bank statements easily.
This is a really exciting development but I have a question; do you consider non-profits as businesses?
I am a member of a number of clubs which require bank accounts to manage funds including membership fees, etc. Currently these can be a real pain to use but fundamentally the requirements of the clubs are quite simple:
Spending or transfering money takes more than one person to approve
all transactions can be categorised, assigned to users or activities for accounting purposes
Money needs to be segragated for planned/comitted spending
Easy change of responsibilities - treasurer positions change anually in most clubs
Farily sure existing Monzo capabilities will enable most of these features but worth thinking about the non-profit as well as for-profit users.
Starling offer the following rates…
For business account cash deposits up to £1,000, there’s a £3 charge and for anything over £1,000, there’s a 0.3% charge on the deposit value.
A web client will be imperative for a business account imo
Yeah, a web interface would certainly be useful.
While I’m not currently in the market for a Business account it is something i will need in a few years so I’m incredibly happy that Monzo are doing this.
May i suggest these two card as the business design as i don’t think hot coral (even though i love it) will suit many businesses.
This one, please! 
So, nobody seems to have said it yet, but this is essentially a complete U-turn in Monzo’s strategy. Would someone from Monzo mind commenting on how (and perhaps the reasons why) this came to pass? I am more than a little perplexed. As recently as last year Tom said on his twitter that Monzo were not interested in business banking at all, and the lineage of him saying that goes all the way back to pretty much the beginning. I am pretty sure that in one of the Q&A videos he promoted Tide, too.
So, yeah, what gives? Why the U-turn in strategy here? In @tom’s own words:
the requirements are so dramatically different
What is the upside? Because splitting your focus is definitely a large downside. Are we just copying Starling?
As someone who is soon to run a CIO and is finding the banking options somewhat lacking, I hope Monzo make it easy to register as a legal entity that isn’t registered at Companies House, and also allows LTD charities. Also I hope companies with directors aged 16 and 17 can join in the Monzo love 
This is definitely my initial thoughts. While I have no interest in the business account, I’m wary that this was initially completely refuted as a path. This has changed – which is fine – but so long as it’s not at the detriment to the wider platform.
As the blog post hints at, there is a grant incentive if we launch a business current account 
There has been a lot of internal debate and various studies done because, as you rightly say, the opinion has very much been that launching a business product would be a distraction.
I think if you read up this thread a few people have commented to say that the personal current account product is largely workable for a small business and I think that has allayed fears that this project wouldn’t detract significantly from anything else. Obviously, this isn’t designed to even be close to some of the very excellent corporate and large scale banking services! 
I think that we both know that’s not the whole story here. In fact, as the blog post itself states, you’ll be doing it whether or not there is a grant incentive. You see the thing is, this really is a massive, massive strategic shift for Monzo. 100% of the rhetoric up until now - from broadcast talks & Q&As, through blog posts, investment prospectuses, roadmaps, media articles, and staff communication here on the forum - has been that Mozo is making a consumer-oriented product (“for a billion people”).
So what I am driving at is what was the underlying motivation factor(s) that made such a dramatic U-turn palatable? Why do business banking? Is this a market share issue? If other neobanks (is that we we are calling them nowadays?) have a business branch then they can eclipse Monzo? Does business banking open up certain financial channels that are synergistic (bingo!) with consumer banking? Is this just the inexorable capitalist march towards cartel? (there are very few UK banks at the moment). Or is it a rivalry with Starling thing (we all know the history there). Or something else?
Whatever it is it’s definitely not because there’s a grant 
.
To answer your question with a quote… I suspect that part of this reason is the realisation that many of the features already developed for personal accounts are workable solutions for Small/Medium businsess account problems.
Yes, a different brand, terminology, app, presentation may be required but in software terms the core functions are relevant and already deveoped.
In summary: relatively light changes, new skin, whole new market sector available. Win, Win, Win.
Is this a market share issue?
I don’t think so. It’s more that there is a market for SME business accounts is quite large - particularly that for the smallest size of company - and the product is relatively close to what we already offer so it makes sense to tap into that market; especially if we are incentivised to do so!
If other neobanks (is that we we are calling them nowadays?) have a business branch then they can eclipse Monzo?
As in a physical branch or a business banking product?
If the latter, I don’t think we’d be eclipsed if we didn’t offer this but our aim is to make money work for everyone and some people who have a Monzo account also run their own company. It would be nice if they could have the same Monzo experience when they go to work, as when they are at home!
Does business banking open up certain financial channels that are synergistic (bingo!) with consumer banking?
I had to Google that word 
I’d say the synergy is between our current personal offering and that of a SME business account
Is this just the inexorable capitalist march towards cartel? (there are very few UK banks at the moment).
Isn’t it the opposite? The whole point of the RBS fund is to promote the growth of other banks to ensure the market remains competitive.
Or is it a rivalry with Starling thing (we all know the history there).
Nope! Starling have an awesome product - we’re not intending to copy them! As @simonb has said before (I agree with him), Starling seem to be moving more toward the banking as a service model and offering solutions that integrate well with larger companies. I’m sure we’ll see some really cool stuff built, especially with their API!
I think this sums it up quite well We don’t yet know what this will look like or how it will work, but I can’t imagine it will be too dissimilar to “standard” Monzo