Central Bank approves EU banking licence for fintech Monzo

The Central Bank and the ECB have approved a full European banking licence for British bank Monzo, which will let the London-based company offer its current and savings accounts in the EU.

The Central Bank and the ECB have approved a full European banking licence for British bank Monzo, which will let the London-based company offer its current and savings accounts in the EU.

The fintech has received the Irish banking licence which will now allow the UK digital lender to expand into markets across the European Union.

The fintech first announced in June 2024 it was in the early stages of setting up an office in Ireland, and currently has around 35 staff there. Dublin becomes Monzo’s EU headquarters, and is led by former Stripe, Twitter, and Google executive Michael Carney.

Monzo said it is the first digital bank to secure a full banking licence from Ireland’s Central Bank. It will compete with Revolut, which already has more than 3m Irish customers. Starling abandoned its Irish licence push in 2022.

Meanwhile the announcement comes as Monzo shareholders are pushing to remove chair Gary Hoffman and convince outgoing chief executive TS Anil to stay in post, according to the Financial Times.

Venture capital firms Accel and Iconiq are among the investors looking to reverse Mr Anil’s exit amid disagreements about where the company should list, the FT said, citing people familiar with the matter it didn’t identify. Monzo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The digital bank has been embroiled in boardroom disagreements around its growth and listing plans, which eventually saw the ousting of Mr Anil in October, according to people familiar with the matter. Some felt the firm had not kept pace with its rivals around international growth, valuation, or its technology offering.

Mr Anil announced in October he was moving into an advisory role to make way for Diana Layfield, former general manager of search international and growth at Google, who is set to take over in February. In a memo, Mr Anil said he and the board had begun the search for a UK CEO to report to him, and met Ms Layfield during this process.

Mr Anil’s note to staff said Ms Layfield was so impressive he decided to make way for her. “While it wasn’t in my plan, I knew it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss for Monzo,” he said.

Founded a decade ago, Monzo has 14m customers. The British lender posted a pretax profit of £60.4m (€68.7m) for the year through March compared to £15.4m (€17.5m) profit in the 13 months prior. Its current valuation is £4.5bn (€5.1bn) and it is said to be weighing a fresh share sale, Bloomberg has previously reported.

Bloomberg