We’re planning to launch a business current account

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.

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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.

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A web client will be imperative for a business account imo

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Yeah, a web interface would certainly be useful.

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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.

Card 1 Card 2

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This one, please! :point_up_2:

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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?

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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 :heart:

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.

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As the blog post hints at, there is a grant incentive if we launch a business current account :slight_smile:

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! :+1:

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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 :wink:.

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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.

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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 :see_no_evil:
I’d say the synergy is between our current personal offering and that of a SME business account :slight_smile:

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 :slight_smile: 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 :+1:

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I’m really happy about this. my business account is with Starling but unfortunately they don’t have any competitor with banking licence, no fees and fast connection to payment networks.
tide and revolut have business accounts, but payments take hours and they even share the same sort-code! (prepaid solutions) but they have freeagent integration, starling doesn’t.

Yes, the latter. I am not sure what kind of a bank has a single branch for all business banking… :rofl:

I see you have lived a charmed life.

I rather meant on the backend, like increasing your working capital pool gives you more scope for making loans (i.e. within the bounds of your capital requirements), or perhaps just having a larger presence makes you less volatile in the interbank clearing system (the larger the bank, the less money has to be sent each night after reconciliation). Or some reason along those lines.

Future world: two remaining incumbents, Monzo, Starling, are the only banks. Back to where we started. I wouldn’t be surprised, you know. Witness: basically every other industry in terms of consolidation.

Perhaps you’ll even get your FreeAgent / Xero integration to market before them :rofl: :rofl:.

Yeah, we’ll see. But business banking is pretty different, and people always underestimate complexity at a distance when it comes to software :wink:.

Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to it and will use it myself. It’s just the U-turn that confuses me, and the distraction that worries me…

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I was not enthused by my experience with Tide.

Sure :pray: I hope we’ll be able to clarify things down the line. In the meantime, perhaps it’s important to remember that scale does have the advantage of letting us do more cool stuff simultaneously :smiley:

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I’m really hopeful that business Monzo will support the personal current account. How? I think like this:

  • let’s be honest, Monzo needs more revenue. The current cost base and revenue streams look promising but until something like the marketplace (or business banking) takes off, we are unlikely to see significant profits. A dangerous place for a start-up with ambition.
  • I think that business accounts might really help deliver features for personal customers. Monzo’s architecture makes it easy to share and reuse features so if we get things like a proper web interface or integration with personal accounting packages then I’m all for it!
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Yup it’s terrible, actually worse than Lloyd’s business banking.