When is Monzo available in the US?

Hi, are you guys any closer to having a set date for when a US resident can open a Monzo account? Thank you very much

I havenā€™t heard anything new at all,
Although reading all the prospectus for the latest fundraising round might have something written in,

I wouldnā€™t imagine that it would be any time in the immediate future, but Monzo did state that the US was their first expansion target because there is no language problem to surmount. I also imagine that Brexit uncertainty has something to do with it, heh.

Do people in London have a hard time understanding an Irish accent? :thinking::laughing:

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I guess some do. Probably not the Irish people in London, though :shamrock:

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Depends which part of Ireland. I canā€™t understand the Cork accent a lot of the time

When I went to university, I lived with a girl from Bristol. She never understood me half the time we talked due to my northern accent :joy: .

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Weā€™ve been working hard for a while on figuring out how a US product would work and when this might be possible! :raised_hands:

No timeframes though, but itā€™s something we really want to do.

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With Revolut and N26 announcing their near term plans to enter the US market, monzo should really prioritise the US market to not fall behind competition. First mover advanatage can be very powerfulā€¦

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I think the U.K. N26 launch has shown what happens if you move before everything is ready to go. A bad first impression would be worse

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From experience, the GB/US language barrier is quite significant.
In fact, thinking that there isnā€™t one is often where the rot starts.

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Agreeā€¦ it canā€™t be totally half baked but I think it would be viable if they can offer a basic monzo account thatā€™s working well (e.g lite version than the current app and with solid customer support). IMO the longer the wait, the harder it will be to penetrate the US market particularly as new players emerge from both US and Europe. The US banking system is in need of disruption and surely there are a multitude of Fintechs that that are seriously keen to get involved.

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Youā€™re right re: ā€˜barriersā€™! I work for a company that provides 24x7 multi-channel customer support in over 43 languages including English of course! US customers share the same passion for our products/services that our UK customers endorse however customer experience varies within a multi-channel environment.

In my opinion, Monzo has an advantage because their customer support is chat based and it seems like cultural/language barriers are much more obvious over the phone support channel (accents, empathy, cultural awareness etc.).

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I think that ship may have sailed already :slight_smile:

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When I first moved down south I was shocked, pretty much everyone had trouble understanding any accent from outside the bottom right hand corner of the UK. Basically over the top of London and down the M3 and along the south coast.

A lot of my friends had to have subtitles on when watching Irish or Scottish stuff and I often had to translate northern.

Also - a lot of people had literally no idea of the geography of the UK outside that bottom corner. They literally didnā€™t know or care that anything existed outside that bit. I told someone I was born in Cumbria and they thought Cumbria was abroad.

No excuse really, this was the late 90s and early 2000s. I hope itā€™s not still that bad. (Obviously not everyone was like this - but a seriously disturbingly high number of people.)

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The individual US states are doing everything in their power to prevent federal banking licenses going out to challengers and random overseas startups. Thatā€™s why Revolut is raising hundreds of millions of dollars to bid for state licenses in every US state.

Monzo meanwhile seem to be hoping for a federal license to be granted to them, against all odds. Fingers crossed that the Americans will be reasonable and allow the prospect of technological advancement to win over banking lobby groups and politicians. Feels like Monzo are operating on a wing and a prayer and Revolut are grabbing the bull by the horns with regards to US expansion.

Iā€™d be delighted if Monzo proved me wrong though.

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Itā€™s interesting that the US is the first target given the cost of entry, the complexity of getting licensed in all the States and their obscure way of doing things (cheques are still used, weird or what?). South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada would be potentially easier targets.

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Cumbria here too :slight_smile: Seems to be a fair few.

Iā€™ve never come across anyone not understanding my accent. London is full of different accents from all over the world. Rarely do I hear a very southern accent.

Iā€™d hope they extend to the rest of Great Britain before Americaā€¦still not available in The Channel Islands, etc!

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Thatā€™s a much smaller market so the fixed costs of setting up in different jurisdictions for such a small customer base may work against the idea. It would be nice, though.