Has Monzo Failed in the US?

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Has Monzo Failed in the US?

If you live in the United States, ask yourself: Are you a customer of Monzo, or do you know anyone who is?

Almost exactly a year ago, the UK-based challenger bank announced that it was coming out of beta and offering its financial products to any qualified American customer. “If you’re eligible, you could have your account up and running in 10 minutes,” Monzo promised. One handy feature that Monzo US touted was “salary sorter,” which automatically assigns a certain amount of each paycheck to categories like spending, bills, and savings.

The site made an instant splash in the UK; in 2016, Monzo (then called Mondo) legendarily raised one million pounds in 96 seconds via the crowdfunding site Crowdcube, crashing the site’s servers. Yet by FIN’s estimation, Monzo, arguably the leading neobank in the UK claiming more than six million users, is effectively invisible in the US market dominated by players like Chime, PayPal, Square, and even Dave.

At one point before coming out of beta in the US, Monzo claimed to have “thousands” of American customers on its waiting list, which is not a huge number. But a year later, it’s not clear that Monzo has even that number of active users.