Find out more about our story, journey and how Monese came to be

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About us

Our story starts when our Founder and CEO Norris Koppel moved to the UK. The first thing on his to-do list was to open a bank account, so that he could receive his salary, rent a place to stay, set up his utility bills and manage his day-to-day spendings. The task was anything but simple. To open a bank account he needed proof of his address, local credit history, utility bills and countless other documents – but he couldn’t get any of these without having a bank account

After being stuck in this frustrating loop, he vowed to fix it so that no one would ever have to go through the same painful experience again. He came up with the idea for Monese: an account that’s not just for those with perfect credit scores or the right set of utility bills. An account you can open instantly and use on your mobile, so you don’t lose access to your money every time you cross a border on a map. We launched in September 2015 as the UK’s first mobile app alternative to the banks.

2015

Monese goes live! This year, we officially launched our mobile money accounts in the UK, and it was only the beginning of our journey...

2016

A year later, we won ‘Best Challenger Bank’ at the European Fintech Awards, winning against 19 others in the category.

2017

After a very successful Series A funding round at the start of the year, we secured 10 million USD and launched EUR accounts.

2018

We were named one of the 10 Disruptors to Watch by The Sunday Times and secured $60 million after our Series B funding round.

We also hit two major milestones: we launched Monese business accounts and reached half a million sign-ups!

2019

2019 was another big year for us. We launched joint accounts, were named in the top 20 of LinkedIn’s hottest startups to work for in the UK and reached 1 million sign-ups!

2020

We launched RON accounts, Monese for web and celebrated another milestone number: 2 million sign-ups!

Fast forward to the present day and we’ve signed up millions of people from across 31 countries. With 70% of incoming customer money coming from salary payments, we’re one of the most popular and trusted financial services across Europe. We're incredibly proud that our product improves the lives of so many customers that traditional banks fail to help. And this is only the beginning!