{"id":26169,"date":"2018-11-17T14:31:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T14:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=26169"},"modified":"2018-11-17T14:31:06","modified_gmt":"2018-11-17T14:31:06","slug":"is-this-uk-unicorn-the-bank-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/is-this-uk-unicorn-the-bank-of-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Is this UK unicorn the bank of the future?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>You see the flash of a fluorescent coral card as someone goes to pay for their coffee. Followed by an instant buzz of a phone as they reach into their pocket to a new notification.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is Monzo. The \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/monzo.com\/about\/\">bank that lives on your smartphone and is built for the way we live<\/a>.\u201d Founded in 2015, by Tom Bloomfield, Monzo quickly won a cult following and in April 2017, it became a fully-fledged bank. It is recruiting around 20,000 customers a week, as reported by This Is Money. The fast-growing startup has raised \u00a385m from US venture capital investors, and this year hit a landmark valuation of over \u00a31bn \u2013 making it part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbinsights.com\/research-unicorn-companies\">UK Fintech unicorn club<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/amandigiruu\/status\/1018207148948541445<\/p>\n<p>Monzo branded itself as exclusively available with the use of \u2018queues\u2019 and \u2018golden tickets\u2019 to create a demand and exclusivity that has driven adoption and user numbers. The heavy emphasis on viral features advertised it as a new breed of banks that launches accounts that can only be managed via an application on your mobile phone. Monzo&#8217;s app sends instant notifications of any spending which are shown a summary under headings such as \u201ctransport, groceries and eating out.\u201d You can also set monthly targets to aid budgeting. Transfer money by paying friends over Bluetooth \u2014 which allows you to connect with phones nearby \u2014 without needing to know their account details.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Things that are fast:<br \/>5. Usain Bolt<br \/>4. Leopard<br \/>3. Tesla<br \/>2. Falling star<br \/>1. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/monzo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@monzo<\/a> support enabling international payments.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/wow?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#wow<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/winning?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#winning<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Yordan Vasilev (@yvasilev) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/yvasilev\/status\/1020382362918694912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 20, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>What attracted the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/monzo.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/24\/one-million-monzo-customers\/\">more than one million customers<\/a>\u201d &#8211; as claimed on their website &#8211; was the ability to spend fee-free overseas and free cash withdrawals up to \u00a3200 every 30 days. Opposition was seen from customers who wanted to make money from their bank, and not just have it sit on a piece of plastic. The company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/money\/7645496\/monzo-customers-can-now-earn-interest-on-their-savings-but-theres-a-catch\/\">reacted earlier this week<\/a>\u00a0by adding the ability to earn interest on your savings. With a starting deposit of \u00a31000 you can earn 1% a year on your savings.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/Howard_Norton\/status\/1059879809986248704<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/jose_casal\/status\/1014836250497470467<\/p>\n<p>Do we trust a bank that is exclusively online, or do we prefer a \u2018bricks and mortar\u2019 building to hold our money?<\/p>\n<p>Words: Fiona Patterson | Subbing: Duha Ali<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You see the flash of a fluorescent coral card as someone goes to pay for their coffee. Followed by an instant buzz of a phone as they reach into their pocket to a new notification&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":26189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,93,122,134],"tags":[4270,4648,5868,6113],"class_list":["post-26169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","category-tech-news","category-uknews","tag-monzo","tag-online-banking","tag-startup","tag-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}