Monzo Recruits New US CEO

Monzo has announced that it has hired a new CEO to head up their US operations as the UK challenger bank continues to make careful in-roads in the American banking market.

Carol Nelson is the new appointment, heading up the small US team. She was previously the CEO of Cascade Bank for ten years and has also held the position of senior vice president for the Bank of America.

Nelson has already been acting as a strategic advisor to Monzo US for over a year and is expected to start in the new role as early as next week.

The former US CEO was TS Anil. Anil has been temporarily acting as CEO of both the UK and US divisions, following the resignation of Tom Blomfield from the UK role. Anil will now act solely as the CEO of Monzo UK. Blomfield recently announced he is leaving Monzo entirely, six years after founding the bank, citing mental health struggles.

Monzo’s US Ambitions

Monzo first confirmed plans to move into the US banking market in June 2020. There has only been a soft launch so far, with a very limited pool of customers, although around 20,000 people are on the waiting list according to sources at TechCrunch.com.

It’s also believed that the new US headquarters for Monzo will be opened in San Francisco after the pandemic. The previous Monzo offices in Las Vegas were closed in April 2020, although this was a satellite office for UK customers rather than for the US market.

New Funding Secured

At the same time as the announcement of the new US CEO, Monzo is also close to securing another £50 million investment from existing investors Novator and Kaiser and from new investor Octahedron Capital. As reported by Sky and later Business Insider, it is believed to be on the same terms as the Series G funding secured recently.

This brings the total investment in the bank to more than £170 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Someone close to the firm said that the new investment comes in response to “strong revenue growth and performance despite the pandemic”.

In July 2020 the bank posted annual post-tax losses of £113.8 million, over double the losses the bank felt in the prior year. This is the same month that Monzo launched its premium account, Monzo Plus, where customers can enjoy a number of perks for a monthly cost of £5.

Monzo Premium, the higher tier, was launched later in October with additional perks and a monthly cost of £15. Over 100,000 customers have signed up to one of the two paid account options.

Monzo now has almost 5 million customers, a huge rise from the 1.3 million customers in 2019. Weekly revenues are believed to be around 30% higher than the pre-pandemic period.